Feerlessfood's Blog

Whenever I go back to DC to visit my family I make myself some super nutritious homemade bread.  Why there and not at my own house?  A) There’s a better chance someone will help clean up the mess, B) they have more ingredients, especially ripe fruits that need using up, and C) they have a better and easier bread maker (and it bakes in a circle, not a rectangle like mine.)   

This bread was an amalgamation of everything I could find, plus yeast.  Yes, I remembered the yeast.  Last time I made bread, it took 3 times–the first two times I forgot to add the yeast.  No excuses, just simply forgot.   

We didn’t have any bananas in the house this experiment, so here where the ingredients:   

• +/- 2.5 cups whole wheat flour
• +/- 1.5 cups Old fashioned oats
• 1 whole can of pumpkin
• Yeast
• honey
• cinnamon
• 1-2 cups water

My bread always has too much liquid so maybe I could have had way less water.   

I think that was everything.  How did it tastes?  Pretty freaking bland.  I mean, it’s really healthy so I’ll eat it anyways, and with some toppings it tastes fine.  But, what ingredients I should have added would have been brown sugar, a couple tablespoons or real butter, maybe an egg? maybe a some vanilla yogurt? and a pinch of salt.  Salt?  I know, I thought the same thing.  But as all you real cooks and foodies as aware, the salt bring out the rest of the flavors in the ingredient list.  Here’s how it looked:   

Whole wheat pumpkin oat bread

A nice, crumbly, hearty texture that lets the eater know that they are really getting something out of their bread.  While the flavor was lacking, the aesthetic appearance and textured bite nearly make up for this missing component.  How is problem solved?  By topping it with delicious peanut butter and marshmallow fluff!   

With Mighty Maple peanut butter and marshmallow fluff

This was a great pre-workout snack.  In it I had my carbs, some protein, and some healthy fats.  I had a scoop of protein powder with this since there wasn’t enough in the peanut butter alone.  These additions to the bread made it delicious and well worth the clean up effort!   

As always, if there is anything you would like to see me make or any fitness/nutrition questions you have for me, let me know!  I’m kind of bummed I had to turn down a personal training job today.  My nutritionist (who is one of the nutrition consultants for Men’s Fitness Magazine!)  owns his own fitness studio, Jim White Fitness Studios, in the Virginia Beach area, and offered me a job there as personal trainer last night .  unfortunately, he needed me 20 hours a week which I can’t do since I already have a job and am beginning my periodized training for a half Ironman in May.  But if anyone is looking for a fitness studio, check out his site,  http://www.jimwhitefit.com/.  It’s a great studio with really top of the line trainers.  Hey, you guys could request me and maybe I can get a weekend job!   

Take care and God bless