Pan-seared Peaches & Steel-cut Oats

Second only to eggs, oatmeal is my favorite breakfast food. More specifically, steel-cut oats. A little crunchy, a little creamy and entirely reminiscent of my childhood. My mom used to make me oatmeal or cream of wheat for breakfast during the colder months of the school year and it was awesome. Unfortunately, due to my body’s love/hate relationship with gluten, cream of wheat is out of the picture. But, I still reach for oatmeal whenever the temperature drops below 50 degrees. Here’s one of my favorites.

Start with 1/4 cup of steel-cut oats. This recipe is for a single serving, because my husband doesn’t share my love of oatmeal.

Put your oats into 3/4 cup of boiling water (plus a pinch of salt) and let it simmer covered for 15-20 minutes. While that’s happening, you can start to work on your peaches.

Slice half a peach into 1/4″ – 1/2″ sections and toss with 1/2 tbsp of maple syrup and 1/2 tbsp of brown sugar.

Then, add a tbsp of butter to a pan. When the pan is nice and hot, add your peaches.

Leave them alone for two or three minutes. You want to sear them and give them a nice caramelized flavor and they won’t get that way if you keep flipping them every 20 seconds to check on them. I know this from personal experience. When they are ready to flip, I use a 1″ plastic spatula and handle them carefully, as they can become a little fragile.

Let the peaches cook on the other side for another two minutes. Once your oatmeal is ready, pour it into a bowl, top it with the peaches. At this point, it’s delicious as-is, but if you want something sweeter, you can add more maple syrup or sugar. I like to add slivered almonds and milk.