Trader Joe's Hack: Multigrain Hot Cereal

A simple recipe for you Trader Joe's fans out there.  I've been doing this "hack" for almost a year and had to replenish my supply today, hence a blog post about nothing at all related to this blog.

Last fall, we tried Trader Joe's Organic Multigrain Hot Cereal.  We enjoyed it.

But...we didn't enjoy the price.
So we went to our food co-op and came up with nearly exactly the same product for a much lower price.

Off the ingredients label on the Trader Joe's package: "100% whole grain rye, barley, oats & wheat."

I have always heard that ingredients are listed in the order that a product is comprised of.  I don't know if that's a law or not.  And I didn't have time to research, so I just bought my ingredients in a 100:90:80:70 ratio.  *note: at this point in time, I don't bother with ratios anymore and just fill bags with grains and dump it all together.  But at the time I actually did this experiment, I was pretty anal retentive about "the science."

I kept with the organic status, figuring it should be an even "apples to apples" comparison.

At our food co-op, organic rye flakes are $0.99 a pound.  

Organic barley flakes are $2.09 a pound.

Organic Rolled Oats are $1.49 a pound.

Organic Rolled Wheat is $1.59 a pound.

So, if you add up $0.99 for the rye, $1.90 for the barley, $1.20 for the oats, and $1.11 for the rolled wheat, it comes to $5.20, for 54.4 ounces of hot cereal blend. 

Now the lowest price I've ever seen Trader Joe's organic multigrain hot cereal at (online and local) is $2.29 plus shipping for an 18-ounce container.  I think it's usually around $4 in our local Trader Joes.  If you went with this rock-bottom price *without shipping*, you'd be getting a really good deal at 13 cents an an ounce.  But if you went with a homemade version, you'd be at 9.5 cents per ounce.  Oh....and that Amazon link?  19 cents an ounce.

It's economical for us, since I have never ever seen it locally at $2.29. It also helps me to bake with more whole grains, because I trade in our mass-produced breakfast cereal blend for any cookies or cakes that require oatmeal.  The boys don't notice.

The only warning I'd have is this: if your body is not used to eating whole grains frequently, ease into them, especially if you have young ones still in diapers.  That is all I'm going to say about November of 2013.

But dear Trader Joe's, I'm still a fan of your cheap flowers and your pear cider.  So don't worry about losing a customer here.

Beautiful Things

My lunch most days: I love the simplicity of a gold potato, fresh parsley, butter, and sel gris.  And water.

Sometimes a tea party with your child helps change your perspective.

Sweet Potato Fry Recipe

Per request, here's our sweet potato fry recipe!

Preheat oven to 450.

We took 3 large-ish sweet potatoes and skinned them and then sliced them into very thin fry-like strips.

We lightly misted a baking sheet with olive oil, placed the sweet potatoes on and then lightly misted the tops of the sweet potatoes with olive oil.  (If you haven't got an oil mister, they're well worth the investment and save you from continually buying aerosol cans. Here's one for $9.99 at Target.)

For the seasoning mix, I just kind of threw together coarse salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and papkria... I would give you amounts, but ours was a tad on the salty side for general consumption, and I'm not really a measuring kind of cook to begin with.  :)

Sprinkle the seasoning on the top of your fries and bake for 20 minutes.  They won't be crispy like french fries, but they will be absolutely delicious. 

Meal #1: Bagel Sandwiches and Sweet Potato Fries

Our first flexitarian meal was a huge success.  

Michael found this recipe, and we adapted it in very minor ways. (Involving mincing pickles so Million wouldn't complain and shredding his lettuce along with using a different kind of bagel, cheese, and cream cheese.)  The basic concept was the same, and we gave it an A+.  I took pictures of one of the "adult" sandwiches, so you could actually tell what the ingredients were.  

I made us some seasoned sweet potato fries which were also a hit.  

If it says anything, our 2-year-old bird-like-eater ate three-quarters of a bagel sandwich and about 1/4 cup of sweet potato fries.  And it was healthy!

I'm almost hesitant to make any food today because last night's meal was so good.

Superstitious much?  

I've been looking at vegetarian boards on pinterest, but it seems that even vegetarian boards are 70% junk food/dessert and only 30% actual dinner recipes.  Pinterest will be responsible for a rise in obesity, I'm certain.  But it will creep on us every so silently in beautifully colored and wonderfully flavored superbowl party hors d'oeuvres..  

After dinner, I was privileged to see my husband working on a project once again.

This time he's building me little mini-crates.  

A Food Blogger I am Not: Thoughts On Whey

Since the boys are heading to a wedding today while I head off to a ladies' tea party, I have a little bit of time to type.
Fancy that.

One recent endeavor of ours was cheese-making.
We attempted mozzarella cheese.
We didn't fail, but we didn't succeed perfectly.

One thing I didn't know about cheese-making is how many byproducts you get.

We made mozzarella (or a slightly soupier version because we overcooked it...)
The byproduct was whey.

From that whey, we made ricotta cheese (which turned out perfectly). The picture is dark because it's an aluminum bowl, so you'll just have to trust me.

There was also 8 cups of  whey from the ricotta leftover.

So yesterday had me googling the health benefits of whey and alternate uses for whey, which apparently are many.

Some people drink it in shakes or mixed with fruit juice and carbonated water.
I wasn't going there.

But... it did say you could replace any water in baking recipes, and you can enjoy all of the health benefits added into your normal cooking.

So I tried it.

I made smitten kitchen's pretzels with whey.  Yes.  These are the pretzels I eat all too often, maybe once a month.

I would love to say that they tasted fantastically different and that I'll never make them without whey again.  But that would be a lie.

They tasted absolutely the same.  The dough was enjoyably more pliable, and they baked a little bit darker (or was that just absentmindedness on my part?) but other than that there was absolutely no taste difference.

After that success, which I declared a health-food because of the whey in it, I decided to try an ACTUAL homemade loaf of bread made with whey instead of water or milk.

I know.

I haven't made an ACTUAL loaf of bread not involving my bread machine or the bread machine's dough cycle for over a year and a half.

Here is my food blogger attempt at a photo of the bread.

I have this theory that most food bloggers scream at their children to leave the room or just focus in really closely on their food products.

Because you wouldn't want to know that in real life the dog is sitting in the bay window salivating.

Or that the little boy is dancing around the kitchen apparently unsupervised because he has a flower pot on his head as a hat.

Mysterious food blogger perfection just doesn't happen around here unless I focus in really really closely on the food that I'm photographing.
Just saying is all.

I do still have a canister of the whey in my fridge for use next week sometime.  I have appropriately warned Michael that it is NOT lemonade and that he should take caution when drinking products on the right-hand side of the fridge.