Someone I know recently blogged some of her husband's cereal quirks. I don't recall her mentioning any specific cereals, but I happen to know that this guy actually likes Fruity Pebbles. That's just wrong. But the whole thing got me thinking, and it turns out I have some rules to share.
1. You can never have too much cereal. Right now, (I just went and counted) we have 12 boxes of cereal balanced on top of our pantry cabinet, and I feel like we're running a bit low. I was at the store tonight, but I didn't buy any more because I can . . .
2. Never pay more than $3 for a box of cereal. Unless it's Cracklin' Oat Bran, which I can spend up to $3.50 for (reminds me of my grandpa, ok?). Usually I buy cereal in the $2 - 2.50 range. For Kashi cereals, which I like, I can justify $3 for a box. I have seen one regular-sized box of cereal for sale for $7.00 before. No.
3. It's ok to mix. My mother is a cereal mixer. I guess I got it from her, but I have my own set of rules for cereal mixing, which I can't seem to put into words. For instance, I would never mix any cereal with the big shredded wheat biscuits (ok, I would probably never eat them at all), but she would. And I can't say exactly why that is. But she and I obviously have different cereal mixing rules. And that's ok.
4. It's also ok to not mix. It's acceptable to just fill a bowl with wheaties, add milk and perhaps a few spoonfuls of sugar, and eat.
5. I know this will really upset some of you, but peanut butter does not belong in cereal in any form. Neither does chocolate. Ever tried Chocolate Life or Chocolate Chex? It's not okay. In my world, raisins are ok. Sometimes other fruits. Sometimes. My dad used to slice up bananas and eat them on his cereal. That can work. Fresh berried or peaches? Gimme. My husband has been known to add his own raisins or other dried fruit to his cereal. That's acceptable to me.
6. I will not buy Weight Watchers or Curves cereal. Maybe it tastes good. Maybe it's cardboard. Dunno. Just won't buy it on principle.
7. Cereal can be breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, or dessert.
8. Cheerios and Toasty Os are not the same thing. I have tried and tried to pretend that they are to save money, but I just can't. Sure, there may be folks who would actually tell me they prefer Toasty Os (or whatever the grocery store brand wants to label them) to real Cheerios. That I can accept. But don't tell me they're the same. They just aren't.
I wish I could stop buying cereal. It would save me money and probably do some other good things for me. But I can't. We often make our own granola, which is so yummy. So maybe I could just eat that and not buy cereal? No. It turns out I have to have cheerios or grape nuts to mix with the granola.
Also, my son will often request "fruit lips" cereal. Anyone know where I can find some of that?
It's ok that you disagree with my cereal rules. Maybe you should tell me some of yours.
6 comments:
Here's a thing. Last week I started something new. And I have done it ever since. It's really trivial but it seems kinda late in life to start something new. So...not newsworthy, but news.
For as long as I can remember, I have accidentally added too much milk to my cereal. I consciously try to get the perfect amount so that I don't waste what I throw out when the cereal is gone. That's right, I throw out the excess milk. Actually, "threw out" is correct. As of last week, I drink it down. I'm not comfortable doing it. But I am doing it.
p.s. Surprised to see no rules about Goat milk and cereal.
p.p.s. Check out Jennifro:
http://jennifro1970.blogspot.com/
You don't know why I eat the big shredded wheat biscuits or you don't why you won't?
I used to make granola for our family, often used it up in cookies. Now that's a lot of work for a cookie.
Oh yes, drink the excess milk, except if you eat those colored cereals.
My mom used to buy giant bags of unsweetened puffed wheat, which we would eat with loads of sugar poured on, and we liked it. We liked it fine!
I laughed because my favorite cereal (I buy it to eat the morning of my birthday each year) is Peanut butter cups cereal which consists of Kix like cereal rolled in chocolate and peanut butter. Also raisins are a thing to be thrown away. If my apple in the fridge shrivels up I don't feel the need to chop it up and put it on cereal, just a personal thing :o).
I saw an Alton Brown cooking show all about popcorn, where he claimed that you can use day-old popcorn (self-popped of course, the old fashioned way, in a big heavy pot with actual oil) as cold cereal-- just add some milk and sugar and voila.
So I tried it, and it's....okay. Nicely crunchy at first, nicely soggy after a bit... Sorta gets in your teeth. And sorta feels like you're eating down day old popcorn in milk. Yummo!
Love the Cereal rules. Our ceral cabinet is small so we can only have about 4 boxes open at at time, which is okay because it it doesn't have, Cinnamon, Toast, and Crunch all in the title my kids are not likely to eat it. My daughter Jennica is a huge mixer. Has to mix every day. I usually limit her to just two choices to save time (becuase, you know, pouring that third cereal really eats up my mornings.)
What I love... and it's good for you, is adding a couple large scoops of yogurt to my cereal. (With frozen blue berries of course) Yummy, and it's more filling.
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