Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Ghetto Cheerios

Wow, who knew so many of you were interested in how to make third-world Cheerios? I should add a disclaimer that they don't taste all that much like the real deal. They're made with oatmeal, good for the pincer grasp, and disintegrate well in little mouths. That's about where the similarities end.

And I have to add that I must really like you guys - because Mr. Squishy isn't quite old enough for these yet, and I normally don't go to so much work for my children who have teeth.

So let's get started, Mom!

First you grind 1 cup of oats superfine - my grinder is sitting in my mother-in-law's basement right now, so we use the blender.

Shaking the blender around to get all the oats is half the fun.


Mix it with:

another cup of oats
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla (optional)
3 Tbsp. oil of your choice (I use soy)
1/2 mashed banana or 1/4 cup applesauce for consistency (we don't have applesauce here, either - just thought I'd throw that in as decoration for my pity party)

It should look like moist pie crust.

Now SLOWLY add milk (I use formula - you can use breast milk if you want, but don't use regular milk unless the baby is over one year old.) Add it a few tablespoons at a time until the dough comes together.

Now you're ready to roll! A lot. This is like 1/3 of the batch:



My rolling helpers soon got bored and pursued other interests. I don't blame them.


You can also make 'sticks' using the same dough.


Bake balls at 350 degrees for 5-8 minutes, sticks for 20-30.
Wow! They look like little meatballs. Mmmmmm.


My favorite cracker recipe has wheat in it, so I haven't tried it on Mr. Squishy yet. But it is as follows:
3 cups oatmeal
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup wheat germ
3 Tbsp. sugar
3/4 cup oil or melted butter
1 cup water
Mix, roll thin, cut into squares or rectangles, and back at 350 for 15-20 minutes.
And a few curious minds were inquiring about freezing baby food. Quite simple - just puree the food (or leave chunks in it for older babies) and put in an ice cube tray.


Then just put in a freezer bag and you're set! Simply take out a few cubes at a time, defrost, and it's DINNER TIME!


But in case you wanted to know, I am SO buying a huge economy bag of Cheerios when we move back.

34 comments:

Randi said...

I have to say, I am just so impressed with your resourcefulness!
Just wow!~

LisAway said...

Hey no fair! I was going to say how resourceful you are!

They have cheerios here, but only honey nut and mulitgrain, both of which are pretty sweet (sticky). I love your substitute!

Katrina said...

Very cool! Thanks for sharing. I'm gonna give those a try once Asher gets a little older and can eat them.

Annette Lyon said...

Very cool. But somehow, I'm glad that my kids are older than that now, so I don't have to feel guilty over not being "crunchy" in this area. :D

Becky said...

I'm a pro at baby food cubes, and I made graham crackers with good results, but homemade Cheerios is impressive. You go, girl!

Kristina P. said...

WOW! You are amazing!

Deb said...

I am totally going to try the homemade cheerios. I imagine whipping them out after someone has made the comment, "Oh, you have to work? Too bad..."

J. Baxter said...

I always thought I should try the whole frozen baby food thing, since it sounded so cheap, easy, and practical... But somehow I never got around to it. I did, however, use my baby mill quite a bit - that counts for something, right?

Merissa said...

Thanks for the recipes. I am pretty crunchy myself in a lot of areas, and I'm excited to try the crackers and maybe Cheerios when my next baby (I'm expecting #4 in May) is old enough. Do you make granola bars? I found a great recipe here. Hopefully you can get all the ingredients there in Brazil.

BTW, I really love reading your blog! I'm Your Man's cousin, remember me? My dad told me about your blog and I can't stop reading it! :-) You're an inspiration, truly.

Debbie said...

Yeah. I love to make all I can but I think I'll forgo rolling out 10 million little Cheerios!

charrette said...

I'm so impressed you're making that stuff from scratch! Wow! Just look at the mad skills you're picking up in Brazil!

Rachel H said...

ok, that works! For the cheerios I was seriously envisioning like a teensie tiny cookie cutter in the shape of a cheerio!! haah! How do you ever get a hole in it?? =)

tejl said...

I just made the cheerios this weekend - thanks for posting this :) :) :)

Anonymous said...

Do you have (or can you get) the kind of pasta machine that extrudes macaroni, or maybe a "Play-Doh Fun Factory"? If so, instead of rolling these or making sticks, you could make the actual O shapes.

Rio Tambunan said...

hey, I was just looking for a cheerio recipe when I found your blog. I love it! I am American living in Indonesia, married to a handsome native, raising our first little "halfie". I love finding blogs that I can relate too! Hooray for being misplaced Americans!

Rob said...

You say to "grind 1 cup of oats superfine." In Honduras, where I live, oats are already available ground since that is used to make a hot or cold oatmeal drink. Once you have ground the 1 cup of oats that you use, how much ground oatmeal remains? Certainly it loses at least some volume. Thanks!

Ashley said...

Hi! My son has multiple food allergies including corn and gluten so it's difficult to find special treats for him. It's difficult still to find good recipes to make for him as well. Yesterday we tried your recipe and tweaked it a bit to suit his taste-buds and our sticks and tiny balls/lumps turned out wonderfully! He ate so many of the tiny balls straight away that we didn't have much to pack away. I'm not huge on oatmeal cookies and the like, though I love hot oatmeal, and I absolutely love the sticks that we made! Thanks for the springboard.
Ashley

Anonymous said...

Love that idea and so get making your own versions of things. I'm an expat living in The Netherlands. I also make things I miss from home.

Anonymous said...

I sure hope you're not feeding your husband these breast milk cheerios...lol

QueenMommy said...

At what age could I give these to the babe? I've been trying to find a recipe for those dissolving snack type things and can't find one. Are these similar?

S. Seagraves said...

You could actually make the balls, flatten them a little bit, and use a chopstick or other small dowel to put holes in each one, if you wanted to. They would probably even cook up a minute or two faster that way, haha!

Unknown said...

awesome! thanks! we can't get anything but honey nut cheerios here, and this wonderful surprise baby means we didn't stock up on a couple of bags of plain Cheerios on our last trip to the States. Just what I was looking for! Thank YOU!

Unknown said...

Thanks as o much for posting this recipie! I was searching all over for something like this that I could make. My 9 month old son absolutely loved these! I can set then in front of him in a restaurant or in his stroller our high chair and it keeps him totally occupied and happy! It did take forever so I'm thinking next time I might try rolling out big skinny snakes of dough and cutting it into pieces. Also, I'm going to try adding c cinnamon next time, cause my kiddo loves anything with cinnamon

Unknown said...

We have a bunch of rice cereal do you think I could sub the oat for that? Any idea how much? Thank you in excited to try these for my seven month old hopefully they are dissolvable for him

Essie said...

I'm making these right now with infant cereal and squash purée. I'm also using a plastic bag with the corner cut off, to pipe them onto the pan. They smell awesome already!!!

Dan-o said...

When you say mix it with "another cup of oats"..do you grind that cup as well or keep them whole. Thanks

Anonymous said...

What about putting the batter in a Ziploc bag and cutting off the corner to squeeze it out instead of rolling them?

Emily C said...

Thank you for this! We also live overseas and I was so glad to find a recipe that didn't require any processed foods!

Anonymous said...

Hey, this is my first attempt in banking cheerios.. Just wanted to check what kind of oats should i use. Instant or rolled.
Thanks a ton. Hope it turns out good.

Unknown said...

I was wondering that too! I'm gonna use baby oatmeal by Gerber cause it is already so fine and then I'm gonna mix it with quick cooking. I have yet to see OP reply to questions so its gonna be trial and error for us lol

Unknown said...

Did you use baby oatmeal? How much did you end up using?

Kimberly said...

I was looking for a low sugar alternative to store bought Cheerios and was super excited when I found your recipe.

These turned out awesome! I used regular rolled oats and tweaked it just a bit...
-I used one whole over-ripe banana instead of adding milk in order to give it more sweetness.
-I ground both cups of oats
-I added a little cinnamon and nutmeg

To make rolling easier, I rolled dough into logs and pinched off small amounts to roll into balls. Then I flattened them to make small discs because I was worried about choking. They do disintegrate quickly once in my one year old's mouth though!

Thanks so much!

Kimberly said...

Also, I used melted coconut oil.

Anonymous said...

Are they supposed to be soft?