Peach Milk

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 eats, or tries to, on $6/day.

Apparently when not eating ice cream with perfect toppings in the summer I like cold frothy ice cream-like drinks. Also, I've set a modest, yet difficult-for-us goal of making sure my kids get at least 1 fruit or vegetable at each meal. There's no set quantity even. If it's a few raisins or a couple slices of apple that counts. Right now I'm trying to focus on just developing the habit of eating fruits or vegetables with each meal. It sounds like so little, and indeed it is. But if you had a look at March or May in Jean's Food Journal, you may have noticed how really awful we are in the kid fruit/veggie area--especially my oldest 2 children. Bad habits are hard to break, so I'm chipping away at them bit by bit. Frothy cold drinks with fruit inside are helpful.

I was first introduced to "milks" with fruit when I was in Taiwan teaching English for a few months. The street vendors would sell them and they were so so so (did I say 'so') good. My favorite was papaya milk. At least I think it was papaya. It's, uh, been a few years and I remember that it was a fruit I was not used to eating, but also a fruit I recognized. I also had watermelon milk and a few other types of milks that were really great as well. Drinking a 'milk' with fruit sounds weird to Americans, doesn't it? So let me say this. It wasn't made with skim milk (if you know what I mean) and it wasn't without a generous bit of sugar thrown it. In short, it was a lot more like what we'd call a milkshake. There, that makes it better now, doesn't it. Milkshakes with unusual fruit, but milkshakes nevertheless.

I'm not afraid to use whole milk with mine, though they work great with 2% milk too. And while I'm going to say that they generally need a little sugar (um, you know, to be authentic and all), I have tried to keep it reasonable (which I don't think the street vendors worried too much about). Also, I bet if your fruit is very sweet you could go without.

When I came back to the states, I started making a milk with peaches. I froze them which gave my drink a really milkshake-y texture. Good fresh ones are best, but this works great with canned ones that you've frozen overnight as well. I used to have a glass of peach milk and a slice of breadmaker-made bread every morning. It still sounds divine.

Peach Milk
Makes 3 C
Cost: $.85
(milk: .20, peaches: .65)

Note: As stated above I use whole or 2% milk. If you want to live dangerously and try it with skim, you can. My guess is that you'll compensate for the lost fat by adding more sugar, but feel free to prove me wrong.

1 1/2 C milk
1 1/2 C frozen peaches (or other fruit)
1/2-1 Tbsp sugar

Blend it all together. Add a couple tablespoons more milk if it's too stiff. Add a couple table spoons cream if you're feeling wicked.

PRINTABLE RECIPE