Baked Oatmeal with Peaches

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This time of the year, with the holiday season rapidly approaching, it seems as though time speeds up. There's just never enough time in the day to get to everything done that needs to get done. I have a specialty baking business, and as you can imagine, this is the busiest time of the year for me.

Eating right is probably one of the first things I let slip. Well that and vacuuming! Anyway quite often my meal consists of a leftover sugar cookie and a cup of coffee. Too bad sugar cookies don't contain any fruits and veggies. I'm making an effort not to slip back into that rut this year and have been looking for ways to add fruits and veggies into some of my favorite meals.

Baked oatmeal is one of my favorite breakfast foods to make during the cooler months of the year. Served warm, it's like eating a fresh-from-the-oven oatmeal cookie. It's so comforting and delicious. Trying to stick to my goal of eating better, I decided to add a little more nutritional value to this meal by adding some fruit.

I changed up my usual recipe for baked oatmeal by adding Del Monte peach slices in extra light syrup. The peaches, which have 1/3 less calories than peaches in heavy syrup, added a wonderful sweetness to the baked oatmeal. I replaced some of the milk in the recipe with the syrup from the peaches which allowed me to cut down the amount of the sugar called for in the original recipe.

I like the fact that Del Monte uses high quality produce and doesn't add any artificial color or flavors to the majority of their canned fruits and vegetables. Also, the majority of Del Monte's fruits and veggies are grown in the U.S. and most are packed the same day that they are picked. This helps to lock in the nutrients and delicious flavor of Del Monte's canned fruits, vegetables and tomatoes. With a wide variety of canned fruits and vegetables, Del Monte makes it easy to Add Some Garden™ into your favorite meals!

Visit Del Monte's Add Some Garden campaign on Facebook for more ideas and recipes for using Del Monte's canned fruits and vegetables or visit their website for even more information.

Baked Oatmeal with Peaches
Ingredients
4 cups Old Fashioned Oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups milk (Use the liquid from the canned fruit and reduce the amount of milk by that much.)
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1 can Del Monte sliced peaches in extra light syrup, roughly chopped, reserving the syrup
2/3 cup brown sugar

Method
Combine oats, baking powder, cinnamon and salt; stir in milk, syrup, eggs, chopped peaches and brown sugar. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve hot.


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Peachy Keen Ice Cream

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I got some peaches this week from "the peach guy". If you lived in my town you'd know exactly who I'm talking about. He's the guy with a roadside stand and all he sells is peaches. Every year from about mid-June till the end of August, he sets up his tent on the side of a busy road, sells only peaches, and is know as "the peach guy". Well I heard from various people that the peach guy had great peaches this year. So of course I had to go check it out. The peaches are really great this year, everything you want in a peach, sweet, peachy, and totally delicious. If you lived where I live or anywhere at all in the South, then you'd also know that it's been about 1000 degrees for several weeks now. Ok, that's a slight exaggeration, it's just felt like it 1000 degrees. It's been too hot for cooking much of anything. Uncooked, cold or frozen are the only appetizing foods to me this time of the year. What better to do with fabulous fresh peaches, then to make some ice cream.
I usually turn to David Lebovitz and The Perfect Scoop,  when I'm looking for a great ice cream recipe. He's my "ice cream guy." I especially like his fruit based ice cream recipes because they let the fruit be the star. I wanted an ice cream that would let these peaches shine. His peach ice cream sounded like a winner and didn't involve much actual cooking so no need to stand over a hot stove. That was definitely an added bonus!

Peach Ice Cream
(Printable recipe)

Source: David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop, adapted

4 large ripe peaches
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup 0% fat Greek yogurt
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
A few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Beautiful ripe peaches!

Cut into chunks

Peel the peaches, slice them in half, and remove the pits.  Cut the peaches into chunks and cook them with the water in a medium, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring once or twice, until soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Adding the sugar

Remove from the heat, stir in the sugar, then cool to room temperature.
Puree the cooked peaches and any liquid in a blender or food processor with the yogurt, heavy cream, vanilla, and lemon juice until almost smooth but slightly chunky.

Turing it into ice cream!

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. If you want firmer ice cream, remove from ice cream maker and freeze for several hours or overnight.
The original recipe called for sour cream, but I had Greek yogurt on hand and substituted that for the sour cream. I think it gave the ice cream a nice tangy flavor. I also topped mine with some chopped pistachio nuts. I love the salty crunch they add to the ice cream.

I don't know how the term "peachy keen" came to be, but it means something is really wonderful and I think it describes this ice cream perfectly!

Peach Galette

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This is my first time to join the In the Bag challenge. How fun, especially when the ingredient in the bag is any type of fruit. The possibilities are endless....

I made this simple peach galette for my sister and brother-in-law while they were here for a visit. Well actually, I made it for my sister and me, because my brother-in-law doesn't like cooked fruit. What?? How can that be??? He's still a wonderful guy despite his cooked fruit aversion:)

Anyway, I had this large bag of ripe peaches just dying to be made into something delicious. I had seen this recipe for peach galette from Amiee on her blog underthehighchair and decided to make it for dessert. It was very simple and only took a few minutes to put together...or should have if I hadn't been talking and had read the directions that clearly stated to melt brown sugar with butter...Oops, used regular sugar and made a burnt caramel mess that had to be soaked from the bottom of the pan! Anyway after discarding first attempt, I made a very lovely galette. So when I saw the in the bag round up for this month was any fruit, I knew I had it in the bag..ooh sorry that was really bad:)

Rustic Peach Galette

½ lb Puff Pastry

7 ripe peaches

¼ cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 egg, beaten
Roll out puff pastry in to about a 14 inch round. Refrigerate until chilled.
Half peaches and slice in to ½ inch wide wedges. In a heavy sauce pan on medium heat, melt butter and add sugar. Let sugar dissolve and bubble for a minute or so, then add peaches and stir to coat with butter mixture. Cook gently for a few minutes until the peaches soften slightly and release some juice.
Combine cornstarch, cinnamon and lemon juice together and add to peach mixture. Stir gently as the cornstarch thickens and coats the peaches. Simmer for a few minutes, then remove from heat and allow to cool.
Preheat oven to 375F

Remove puff from fridge and arrange peach filling in the middle, leaving a good 2 inches around the edge. Fold up sides of puff party into the peaches, overlapping slightly until peaches are enclosed within a circle of puff. Brush pastry with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake until pastry is golden, about 25 minutes.

*my peaches were really large so I used 5 and still had a little leftover.