Pistachio Peach Pie Oatmeal

Peach Bounty in the Coder Yard

Our two peach trees are dripping with fruit. We're the kind of careless carefree fruit tree owners that do nothing with the trees and the trees selflessly provide us with this incredible bounty every year. We are truly blessed. We harvested a big basket on Thursday evening and there's still a few more baskets remaining to be harvested that will go to friends, family, coworkers :)

In past years, I've made peach pie, peach cobbler ... pretty much every fattening dessert you can imagine. Last year's harvest was not great due to the weather and we mostly ate our peaches fresh. Today I decided to look into making an Oatmeal recipe since I am into that these days. Here's what I came up with after exploring a few recipes on the internet including this one by The Oatmeal Artist. Since I already had an idea in my head and I pretty much stuck with what I thought would work for this recipe, I'm taking the credit for my concoction this morning :) 

Prep Time: 5-7 min

Ingredients (Serves 1):

1. 1/2 cup Old-Fashioned (Rolled) Oats
2. 1 cup Almond Milk
3. 2 Medium Peaches, diced (almost a cup)
4. 1 tbsp Chia Seeds
5. 10-15 Dry Roasted (no salt) Pistachios, crushed/halved
6. 1 tbsp Brown Sugar (optional)
7. A pinch of Nutmeg (ground)
8. A pinch of Cinnamon (ground)
9. A pinch of Coarse (Sea or Kosher) Salt

Directions:

Mix oats, almond milk, peaches and chia seeds in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Once the oats are done, remove from microwave, mix well, add nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and brown sugar (if you like it sweet). I didn't use any sugar because the peaches were sweet enough for me.  Mix well, transfer to a serving bowl, sprinkle another dash of ground nutmeg on top and garnish with a few slices of peach and roasted pistachios. Enjoy!!

Nutrition Facts (Per Serving, without Brown Sugar): Calories 354 (Fat Calories 125)
Total Fat 13.9 g; Carbohydrates 51.6 g; Fiber 13.5 g; Sugars 14.9 g; Protein 12.1 g

Farmer's Market Smoothie

Our Amish neighbors from just down the road (The Yoders) opened a farmer's market about a mile from our house a couple of weeks ago. I've been wanting to stop by ever since it opened but they close at 5pm on weekdays :( and when we stopped by last Saturday afternoon, he had already packed up shop as they close at 4pm on Saturdays. Being Amish, Norman doesn't open shop on Sunday. I was determined to stop there this weekend. For those of you who live in countries and cities where farmer's markets are common and food doesn't come from a supermarket, you can't even begin to imagine how excited I was to have this one open less than a mile from the house. Li'l Nikhil and I showed up at Norman's barn shack in the BP Parking lot bright and early this morning. It is early days in the growing season yet so he didn't have a huge variety but what he did have ... looked lovely!! Among other things like fresh tomatoes, zucchini and spring onions, I picked up a large basket of fresh strawberries ... 

... and some ready to eat ripe and fragrant peaches ... 

On my way home, which is barely a mile, I could smell the lovely flavor of the peaches in the car (yes, I was salivating at the thought of eating them!) ... and I started dreaming of what recipe I could use both the peaches and the strawberries for, because I couldn't just eat one ;-) ... now every fruit based (breakfast or dessert) I know of drowns fruit in sugar and in my opinion that ruins it completely. You lose the multitude of flavors that are in the fruit itself and I didn't want to ruin these lovely babies :) I also didn't want to eat them just as is cause that's just boring ;-) So I decided to make .. a Farmer's Market Smoothie!!

Prep Time: less than 5 min.

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup strawberries, rinsed and halved.
2. 1 medium ripe peach, washed and sliced, with skin
3. 1/4 cup frozen blueberries
4. 2-4 large leaves of Spearmint and a sprig for garnishing.
5. 1/4 cup almond milk, or regular milk if you prefer.

Directions:

I used a stick blender and make my smoothie in the large 3-cup measuring cup that came with the blender, but its just as easy to make this in a regular jar blender. Add everything to the blender puree until smooth. This recipe made a single (2-cup) serving. 

My Assessment: A+++ for breakfast!! I really enjoyed it.  

Some Additional Comments: 

• Next time, I'm going to include some green veggies in my smoothie as well. Kale and Spinach come to mind first as I've heard so much about green smoothies lately. So I'm going to be trying a few new variations soon. 
• Since I used frozen blueberries and refrigerated milk, I didn't add any ice to my smoothie, but ice can be used just as easily. I also didn't want to dilute the flavors with water/ice. 
• I used spearmint leaves because that is what I had growing in my herb garden. If you have regular mint that should work just as well. 
• I also didn't add any sugar or syrup to this smoothie for the same reasons as listed above (ruins the flavors) and because I am not a huge fan of super-sweet drinks in general. Feel free to use some sugar or honey, if you prefer. 
• And finally, I made this smoothie today with peaches and strawberries and blueberries because that is what I had on hand. Feel free to blend away whatever fruits you have on hand to make this Farmer's Market Smoothie for a refreshing antioxidant boost :)