Recipe Review: Maple Millet Cereal

I have to be honest, I miss eating cereal. I miss spooning a mouthful of crunchy, sweet satisfaction into my mouth on a regular basis. Drinking the milk from the bottom of the bowl was a wonderful way to start the day.  My favorite cereal as a kid was Froot Loops and Apple Jacks. Growing up, my mom didn't by sugary cereals so I had to wait until I could go to my grandmother's house and she would always have the mini cereal boxes for us.

As I got older, I realized there wasn't any fruit in Froot Loops (and they misspelled fruit on the box) and there aren't any apples in Apple Jacks so I started eating more healthy cereals...or at least I thought they were healthy. My adult favorite was Kashi GoLean Crunch. Mmmm. I could easily eat two bowls of that stuff. As I learned more about the hidden dangers of packaged foods, I realized the reason why I could eat so much of it. There are 13g of sugar in a 1 cup serving of Kashi GoLean Crunch. Considering there are 17g of sugar in a serving of ice cream, it was almost like eating dessert for breakfast every day. 

Once I got hip to the cereal game, I stopped eating it all together. When I ran across a recipe for Maple Millet Cereal in the March 2014 issue of Women's Health Magazine, I immediately cut it out and put it on my fridge and set the intention to make my own healthy cereal. 

This is my recipe review for Maple Millet Cereal.

THE RECIPE: MAPLE MILLET CEREAL

In a large bowl, combine 3 cups cooked, well-drained millet, 1 tablespoon chia seeds, 3 tablespoons maple syrup, 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Spread mixture 1/4-inch thick onto a rimmed baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until crisp, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool, then beak into bite-size pieces. Divide cereal among 4 bowls and top each with 1/4 c mixed fresh berries, 1 tsp chopped crystallized ginger, and 1/2 cup low-fat or almond milk.

Makes 4 servings. Per serving (cereal only) 200 cals, 1.5 g fat (0 g sat), 42 g carbs, 150 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 5 g protein.

MY REVIEW

I made this cereal last night. Since there are only 5 ingredients, it didn't take long too assemble. I'm not familiar with cooking millet so I had to Google how to cook millet. It's similar to cooking any other grain BUT it's recommended you toast it first in the pan before adding liquid to it to cook. 

I did not rinse the millet like I would have done with quinoa, I just dumped a cup of dry grains into my favorite Simply Calphalon nonstick everyday pan.

This pan is 12 inches so it was big enough to evenly toast the grain and it's deep enough that I was able to add 2 cups of water without having to transfer everything to bigger pot. 

Once the millet absorbed all the liquid, I dumped it in my big OXO stainless steel mixing bowl. I added the remaining ingredients, mixed well with my favorite big spatula and tasted. Yummy! I could have eaten it right out of the bowl like that! 

It turns out that I probably should have stopped there. 

I continued to follow the instructions and spread the mixture out on a baking sheet. I popped it in the oven, turned on my timer and waited. 

After 45 minutes, I checked my cereal and it looked crisp. In fact, the cereal towards the edge of the pan was starting to burn. I let it cool, but as it was cooling, I snuck a taste. It was warm and chewy and not at all crunchy. I decided to take the not-so-crunchy, slightly under cooked part, put it on a new baking sheet and back in the oven. 

After cooking another 10 minutes, I took it out, and tasted. Definitely more crunchy, but still rather chewy. After it cooled, I proceeded to put the cereal in an air tight container, but that proved to be a bit of a struggle. You see, the maple syrup caused pieces of the cereal to stick to the pan so as I chipped away with a mini spatula, little pellets of millet were flying all over the place. I may of ended up with more millet on the floor than in the container! 

After cleaning up random millet pieces from the counter and the floor, I sealed the air tight container and decided to wait until the next morning to eat a bowl of maple millet cereal. 

Fast forward to this morning. I opened the container and popped a bit of the dry cereal into my mouth. It still seemed chewy to me and lacked flavor; I didn't taste any of the maple syrup. I put some in a small bowl with a little unsweetened vanilla almond milk. My first spoonful was not exciting. It did not evoke any happy feelings of eating cereal. I continued to eat it to see if it was going to get any better. Nope, not really. It was pretty chewy all the way through. I thought if I had dentures, these little bits of grains in my teeth would be a big problem! I didn't eat any more cereal this morning. I ended up making my usual green smoothie with protein powder to complete my first meal of the day. 

MY SUMMARY

I wasn't impressed with my version of this cereal. If I make it again, I think I will eat it warm and skip baking it in the oven. I believe the cooked quinoa should be as dry as possible which means that I should have made it ahead of time and let it sit in the fridge for a day or two. When chia seeds are mixed with liquid, they become gelatinous and that could have contributed to the overly chewy texture of the finished product. 

If you decide to try making this yourself, I would love to hear how yours turned out!

#beHealthy