Ya know I love to bake sweets. Problem is, when yur single, there’s nodoby to help you eat em once they come out of the oven. So there ya sit with this huge mess of yum-yum, just a tempting ya every time you walk near the kitchen. Before ya know it, you’ve eaten the whole dang thing in way too little time and then oh, the regret!

So if you’re living alone and love home-baked goodies, you gotta learn to make portions for one. Here’s a great little recipe for a healthy take on an old favorite from pioneer days – peach cobbler. Cept in this here version, we’re gonna put the crust on top, and it idn’t the trans-fattenin kind of crust, it’s the cholesterol-lowering kind of crust.

One thing yur probably gonna need to invest in before cooking this goodie is a au gratin dish, which is just a fancy way of saying a little ceramic boat that only holds enough food for one person and can be stuck in the oven without crackin. You can get these at Wal-Mart and the like. I bought me a set of four when I was just outta college and now prit near 20 years later, I still have em and use em. I’m gonna give ya several other recipes that call for a single serving baking dish, so you better get one. Not because I said so, but because it just makes sense if you’re cooking for one to have a baking dish that serves one! When you come up on recipes that make for four, use all of your little au gratin dishes and wrap three of em up in foil or plastic or a Wal-Mart bag or something, and stick em in the fridge for a quick meal later in the week. Now that’s smart cookin.

Okay, here with go with healthy peach cobbler for one. This is gonna take only about 5 minutes to put together, but it takes 35 minutes to bake, so don’t wait until yur starvin to start this one:

– Two fresh peaches and one teaspoon lemon juice, or one can of peaches in light syrup or their own juice

– One teaspoon of whole wheat flour, or the white junk if that’s all ya got – or you can use cornstarch

– One package Maple and Brown Sugar Instant Oatmeal, the kind you can make in the microwave in a jiffy

– 1 teaspoon brown sugar

– Coupla shakes a cinnamon 

 

Yep, that’s all. 

Preheat yur over to 350 degrees and coat yur au gratin dish with some cooking spray or oil or butter or whatever edible slimy stuff you got in yur kitchen. If you got fresh peaches, peal em and remove the pit and slice em up to look like you bought canned peaches. Now toss your lemon juice over those fresh peaches and stir em up a bit so that don’t go turning all rusty-looking on ya. Good as they are, yur not gonna wanna eat ole rusty-looking peaches! If yur using canned peaches, just drain the liquid off of em. 

Now, sprinkle yur flour and shake yur cinnamon over yur peaches and agitate em just a bit so all those peaches have got some goo on em. Dump all that in yur single-serving baking dish and stick it in the oven for about 20 minutes. 

When yur timer goes off – you are using a timer, right? Well, you better be! You think you can remember when you put that in oven once yur boyfriend calls and gets you all hot under the collar because he tells you he has to go work out instead of coming over to help you unstop yur commode? Girl, use a timer and that’s all I have to say. Where were we? When yur timer goes off, prepare the individual serving of instant Maple and Brown Sugar oatmeal in the microwave according to the package directions EXCEPT, cut the water down just a bit so you gotta a thicker mush than you usually like to eat.

Pull your peaches out of the oven and dump that oatmeal right on top of the peaches. Use it all if you want, use half of it, whatever you want – whatever looks good to ya. Then sprinkle that teaspoon of brown sugar over the top of the oatmeal and put the whole thing back in the over for another 10-15 minutes until everything is hot and bubbly  – and you better set yur timer – I done told about that!

Ding! Take it out of the oven and let it sit for a while, least until it dudn’t scorch yur mouth to eat it. Surely got that dang much sense! 

There ya go – healthy peach cobbler stuff. Now it’s time to get crazy with this recipe. Throw some cranberries or raisins in with the peaches before you bake, add more spices, like pumpkin pie spice or nutmeg. Use different fruit all together – what about pears or apricots? Once you got the basics down, you can spin this diddy a hundred ways. Just don’t go adding cookies and crap like that that will undo the healthiness of this yum-yum. 

Enjoy!