Baked Peach Oatmeal/Amour

I really struggled coming up with a dish for this Academy Award nominee. As a matter of fact, if I hadn't already promised reviews on all of the movies that are up for best picture, I probably wouldn't have included this one in the blog. I'm going to stand by that promise and deliver. Just keep in mind that this movie is definitely not meant to leave you with warm fuzzy feelings. Thanks, Academy for making me sad again. Here are my rankings of the best picture nominations so far:
1. Beasts of the Southern Wild
2. Amour
3. Silver Linings Playbook
4. Django Unchained

I chose the dish for this week based on a scene in the movie. You are just going to have to see it to get it. Also, people have been going nuts about this baked oatmeal, so I decided to finally give it a shot. The original recipe is found here (this is one of my favorite blogs - I've been following Beth for years!).

Recipe: Peach Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

Ingredients:

2 peaches

1/2 cup blueberries (I used the frozen kind because they were on sale)

1.5 cups milk (I used almond milk)

1 cup yogurt (I used plain greek)

1 egg 

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups oats

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

Core and cut the peaches into slices. Spread them around the bottom of a sprayed baking dish (I used a 9x13 but a smaller one probably would have worked better) with the blueberries.

In a bowl, mix the milk, yogurt, and egg. Stir in the sugar, oats, baking powder and soda, salt, and cinnamon until evenly combined. You are probably supposed to do that in a separate bowl, but my laziness got the best of me.

Pour the mixture over the blueberries and peaches. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for about another 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top. You can serve it plain or mixed with yogurt, milk, etc. I had mine plain for breakfast every day for a week and it did not disappoint.

Chop the peaches and spread them with the blueberries on the bottom of a sprayed baking dish.

Mix together the wet ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients. You can mix them separately, or you can be lazy like me and do it all in one step.

Spread the mixture over the fruit. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 20 or until it looks like...

...this. Golden brown and stinkin' up your house with delicious smells. Eat it for breakfast or whatever.

Review: Amour

I'm just going to get straight to the plot summary. Amour follows Anne and Georges, an elderly couple living in Paris. Anne has an attack one morning and ends up paralyzed on the right side of her body. Georges struggles with caring for Anne as her condition deteriorates, and their love is tested.

Like I mentioned above, not a feel-good movie. I didn't cry like I did at the end of Beasts of the Southern Wild, but I also did not walk out of the theater feeling great about life. Once I got a feel for where the movie is going to go, I realized that there is really no way that there is going to be a lot of joy at the end of it all. Without giving away too much, that's even an understatement - the ending was much darker than I expected. Don't get me wrong though - the film was extremely well acted and overall I would say it's great, but I'm not sure I would go back for seconds. Given all of this, I recommend seeing it, but just keep everything I've said as a heads up.