Growing up, I would visit my grandparents every summer at their ranch in Mexico. I have such fond memories of our family time on their ranch. All my cousins (I have many!) would come together...it was a blast!
With so many people, my grandma Adela was always in the kitchen! She was nonstop preparing amazing meals for all of us. One of my favorites was Avena!
What's Avena?! It's a creamy, mouth watering Mexican oatmeal! Check it out here!
My grandma (abuela) did something a little different with her avena, though. She added Pinole to supercharge the oatmeal. The base of pinole is heirloom, non-gmo ground corn. She was inspired to include Pinole in her recipes because it's high in protein and fiber. The Tarahumara superathletes of Northern Mexico eat Pinole regularly as fuel for their long distance runs.
Her recipe was the inspiration for The Pinole Project's Pinole Chia Oatmeal! Our recipe uses healthy Olotillo corn.
My abuela wasn't the only one with a great avena recipe. Mely Martinezof the brilliant food blog "Mexico In My Kitchen" has as a delicious recipe here. Mely recently published a cookbook on Mexico's traditional home-style recipes!
Moral of the story: life's better with avena.
