Fresh Peach Oatmeal Bars

When it’s peach season, you gotta make these.  I promise you’ll knock everyone’s socks off!  I’ve shared them with various groups of family and friends and they all beg for the recipe.  I’ve told them I’ll put it on the blog and so I’m doing just that.  FINALLY!  I’ve been enjoying my summer with various projects and traveling; I apologize for making you wait, but I know you ALL will love them.

Summer is all about fresh vegetables and fruits.  No other time of the year is so plentiful.  And we all love fresh peaches.  They’re soft, juicy, sweet, loaded with vitamin C and pair beautifully with this crumbly oat mixture that forms the crust and the topping which cuts down on bowls (yep, I see you!).  It’s a mixture of five things I bet you have in your pantry right now:  whole wheat pastry flour, rolled oats, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Butter is cut in with a pastry blender, forks or your food processor to form a crumble.   A little more than half of this is pressed into an 8 x 8-inch pan to form the crust and then baked.  For the rest of the crumble, you’ll want to take it to the next level by adding chopped pecans.  Definitely!

For the filling the peaches are simply combined with an egg, sugar, flour and some salt.  This is poured over the baked crust and the remaining crumble is sprinkled over top.  The whole thing bakes for about 30 minutes until golden brown and of course as you can imagine your entire house will smell wondrous.

After cooking and cooling, it’s best to chill for about an hour or more to set the filling.  They cut up into perfect little bites for everyone to taste and enjoy.  Try them with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a summer treat everyone will love.

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