The Raisin Bran Cereal Story.....

You won't catch me wasting any food in this house. No matter what, I always try to make something out of leftovers or things in the pantry or fridge that I haven't used in a while.

Take cereal for instance. My family was never big on eating cereal. Guess my kids may have been spoiled but they would much rather have some kind of eggs or pancakes. My husband and I never ate much cereal, even growing up ourselves. So it's rare to find any kind of cereal in my pantry except when I know that out of town guests are coming.

When my nephew called to say he would be visiting for a few days during spring break I asked him what he wanted me to cook so I could make some of his favorite things. When it came to breakfast eggs were his favorite, but he said he usually just has a bowl of cereal everyday before class and Raisin Bran happened to be his favorite. Who knew Raisin Bran would be a 19 year old's favorite cereal, I only thought people over 50 ate Raisin Bran. Anyway, I bought a box to have on hand. That's another thing, the cereal boxes seem to be bigger than I remember, not to mention the price, but then again it's been a while since I bought cereal.

So he's come and gone. In between I had several more house guests. Even though I usually cooked a big breakfast for everyone during their visits, I always put the Raisin Bran box and cereal bowls on the table, just in case someone wanted cereal. Yeah well no one grabbed the cereal so here I am eating Raisin Bran and I don't even like cereal that much.

Now that I am getting a little bored with the Raisin Bran ritual (and my husband isn't helping any) I started to look for recipes to use up some of the cereal. Bran Muffins came up the big winner, I like Bran Muffins plus I'm getting more out of town guests coming in next month, I can freeze them and pull them out for breakfast in the morning. Of course I won't mention the story behind the "making of the muffins".

Using a Bran Muffin recipe I found in my Gourmet Mickey Cookbook. Yes, Mickey as in Mickey Mouse, a Disney Cookbook I had received as a gift. I actually had never tried the recipe before and because I didn't have all the exact ingredients that the recipe called for, I just used it as a guide and used what I had available. I used Raisin Bran cereal instead of bran flakes, olive oil in place of vegetable oil, dark brown sugar because that is what I had in the pantry and then added 1/2 cup of applesauce. I also ended up increasing the flour from 1 to 1 1/2 cups because the batter seemed too runny probably because I had added applesauce to the recipe.

Below is the recipe of exactly what I did and the muffins turned out so good and moist. They tasted just as good after freezing too. If you like Bran Muffins or if you just need to use up cereal like me, then give this recipe a try. Enjoy!

Raisin Bran Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Raisin Bran Cereal
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 raisins
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Measure out 2 cups of Raisin Bran Cereal and put in food processor to grind up cereal
3. In a large mixing bowl combine all the ingredients together and mix with electric mixer at medium speed until batter is blended together well
4. Pour batter into paper-lined muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

Source: Gourmet Mickey Cookbook, Cooking with Mickey, Volume II, Page 60

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