Banana Oat Loaf

I woke up really early this morning to go for a run. I think I ran slightly faster today - I could feel myself move more, and I tired quickly but pressed on. In my head I heard the "Run Forrest Run!" Refrain from 'Forrest Gump' which helped me run faster. That and the knowledge that I haven't exercised for ages.

Back at home I submitted my NHB application - 3 down, 5 more to go. Soon I'll submit the one for the SPH which is honestly the one I am most interested in because I get to actually write. I also watched this promo interview one where a SPH journalist talked about an article he wrote about security guards, and how a security guard personally phoned him up and thanked him for covering their profession. Diving into the secret lives of people in society (diving into ANY lives actually) would be so amazing!!! And I'm pretty sure it would give me great book ideas if I ever decide to write my own stories.

Before lunch, I baked a quick Cheeky Banana Oat Loaf (vegan, oil free, minimal refined sugar, and can be gluten free but if you have gluten free oats - although I don't understand why everyone is so afraid of gluten???). This is my second loaf this week and it's 'cheeky' because I honestly don't follow the ingredients on the recipe properly - I took out oil, added in soy milk and some vinegar and some crushed walnuts, and all these mischievous additions and subtractions never hurt it.

So here's the rough rough ROUGH recipe

Cheeky Banana Bread (adapted from ambitiouskitchen)

Ingredients

INGREDIENTS

- About 3 cups oatmeal, blended into two cups plus of oat flour
-1 1/2 -2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
-1/2 - 1 teaspoon baking soda (For both BPowder and BSoda, I put in the required amount, and then shake some more in from the bottles)
- A pinch of salt
- very very scant 1/6 cup brown sugar (I usually measure out 1/6 cup, shake some of that in, and return the rest to the sugar box)
- A generous shake or five of cinnamon
- 3 -5 very ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- A bit less than 1/2 cup soy milk (you can probably definitely use almond milk too) with one table spoon vinegar beaten into it till there's a carpet of bubbles on its surface

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease loaf tin.

Put dry ingredients into a bowl and mix.

In a separate large bowl, beat mashed bananas and vanilla extract, and oil for 1-2 minutes until the consistency is smooth and creamy.

Slowly add in oat flour mixture and mix until just combined.

The mixture should be pretty dry (because of the excess oat flour probably) so you can add in some soy milk here and there, until you feel its right

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and decorate top.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. Cool 10-15 minutes, then remove from pan and place on wire rack to finish cooling. Cut into thick slices.

My mum likes it plain since she doesn't like sweet things. I eat it with peanut butter and maple syrup on top and it's heaven...

Note to self: Need to buy more maple syrup.