It all started early in the morning, frustrated at the state of my refrigerator, I began organizing to make sense of all the unfinished meals and produce coming to their final days. It wasn’t until I made my way to the back of the top shelf that I found a forgotten bowl of soaking almonds leftover from a recipe that I over-calculated by half a cup.

Unsure of just what to do with the almonds, I kept at the task at hand: checking dates, opening containers, peeking into drawers until I came across the white peaches my son had to have from the Farmer’s Market that were beginning to show their age. The subtle wrinkling of peach skin was the perfect visual reminder of the last Summer days ahead. It was right then with 3 peaches in my hand that my belly began to rumble and the soaking almonds found their calling. 

I diced the ripest peach of the bunch, added it to a small pot with splash of water and a little cinnamon and ginger and let them stew. While they slowly cooked down, I gave the almonds a good rinse and tossed them into the blender along with a cup of water and a few other special ingredients to make a sweet and creamy almond milk. 

Although making your own nut milk is easy, it’s not something I take the time to do. Ideally I would make everything from scratch but with the other food I do take the time to cook and the job I have to work and the family and house I have to tend to, I gravitate toward certain conveniences and shelf stable plant milk is usually one of them. On this day though, there was already a slow living pace to the morning and with things falling into place as they did, a tall glass of homemade sweet milk was worth every additional dish to clean.

Once the peaches were cooked all the way down, I added in an eyeballed ½ a cup of rolled oats plus enough almond milk to let the oats cook. The flavors blended so perfectly and the smell filled my house in such a way that almost made me excited for colder days. I poured the oats into my bowl, topped with more sliced peaches, a handful of chopped walnuts, plus another heavy splash of milk, and enjoyed one of my most favorite breakfasts, and reminders to slow down every once in awhile, that I’ve had in a long time.