We love oatmeal in the mornings, and fortunately we have the oats available to make it often. Hot oatmeal cereal, hot millet cereal, hot oatmeal and millet, and the occasional box of Rice Cric (some foreign brand of Rice Krispies) from a nearby town comprise our breakfast menu.

The other day we purchased 2 boxes of what we thought was cold cereal (judging by the appearance of the box, the presence of the word "crisp" in the title, and the appearance of the stuff on the spoon in the picture). Upon excitedly opening them at dinner time, we discovered they were, but again, packets of flaky and powdery stuff meant to be made into hot cereal. Here are the deceptive little boxes:

Feeling deceived, tricked, and a little stupid that I'd fallen for the picture on the front cover and not thoroughly inspected the box, I thought, "There must be a way to make our own cereal with stuff we can find around town." So after my last afternoon class, I hopped on my little blue bike and rode my way to the local supermarket.

At the supermarket, I taste-tested a few grains from the large scooping bins. Unsure of exactly what I was buying or what I'd do with it, I picked up some little circles made of corn, some non-instant oats, two mystery bags which I later discovered were crushed/pressed oats, one dark, one light (they look like oats that someone ran over with a truck so they're kind of fractured and more flat), and some "malnut meats" (code for walnuts). Then I pedaled back home, cuddled with my language notebook, and waited for inspiration to hit.

I'm not sure how inspired this was, but it did turn out surprisingly well. I decided to make kind of a mixed-grains cold cereal with some sweet clusters to make our taste buds dance.

Ingredients:
1 cup corn pieces/discs/flakes
4 1/2 cups oats
1/4 cup powdered sugar
3 T. water
1/3 c. honey
3 T. crushed walnut pieces
2 T. wheat germ

Well, the corn pieces were stale and really hard to bite into, so first, I toasted them and measured out one cup to be thrown into the cereal.

Then I measured one cup of each of the kinds of oats (Three cups of regular oats would do just fine.) I dissolved 1/4 cup powdered sugar in 3 T. of water and slowly added it to the oats, stirring constantly to make sure the sweet liquid coated them evenly rather than soaking into any one part. Then I toasted them at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until dry and a bit crispy. I had to stir them frequently to make sure they didn't burn.

I mixed the honey, walnuts, wheat germ, and 1 1/2 cups of oats together and baked that for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Once cooked, it made a super-tasty bunch of oat clusters to be mixed with the other cereal parts.

Cereal, cereal, cereal. It's on the top 5 list of things I miss from my former life.

Granola isn't exactly the same as a nice, big bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats or Honey Nut Cheerios, but it is a step closer to my favorite breakfast food.

This is orange sesame granola.

Ingredients:
5 1/2 cups of oats
1/2 c. sesame seeds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. lemon juice
1/2 c. orange juice

I combined the last 5 ingredients in a saucepan and heated them over medium heat for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly until the sugar was dissolved and everything had blended together.

Then I poured the mixture over the oats and sesame seeds and stirred together, finally pouring all of it onto a cookie sheet. I baked this for 20-30 minutes (I can't remember exactly) at around 400 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring it every 5-10 minutes to prevent burning. After I pulled it out of the oven, I returned to stir it every 3-4 minutes as it cooled so it wouldn't harden into one large sheet on the cookie sheet.