I decided to put my knowledge of cooking with yogurt to good use while making breakfast for the week. As I have mentioned before, I really like to make a healthy batch of chai-spice banana muffins or a loaf of cranberry-apple-pecan bread on Sunday to help make my mornings easier. I challenge myself by attempting to bake my entire breakfast into a bread- everything I would ordinarily include in my fast-breaking meal must be in there. This bread, I might say, is quite successful. It has pretty much all I could ever want: Sweet bananas, tender oatmeal, probiotic-filled yogurt, minimal sugar, ground flaxseed, a little almond butter, and whole-grain flour. The only thing I might add is another serving of fruit on the side. And, ahem, please excuse the blurry photo. I was so excited to serve myself another slice that I didn't try very hard. You understand, I'm sure. I used only spelt flour to make this bread, as opposed to half or three-quarters of the flour amount. Therefore, the bread is really dense, but not lacking in moisture because the yogurt does a fantastic job of replacing fat. It's not too heavy, either. Although related to wheat, spelt flour is easier to digest and doesn't give me the super-full-feeling stomach that wheat products sometimes do. If spelt flour isn't your thing, I've added a suggestion at the bottom of the recipe for reproducing it with different flours. I'm curious about trying almond meal flour next time! Banana Oatmeal Yogurt Bread Ingredients: 1/2 cup old fashioned oats 2 cups whole-grain spelt flour 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. baking powder pinch of salt 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/2 tsp. nutmeg 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed 2 1/2 small ripe bananas, mashed 1 tsp. vanilla extract 2 Tbsp smooth almond butter 2 Tbsp olive oil 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed 1/2 cup organic, nonfat yogurt unsweetened coconut for garnish (optional) Instructions: -Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf pan or line with parchment paper. -Combine oats with 1 cup hot water in a small bowl. Stir and set aside. -In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, spices and flax. -In a medium bowl, stir together almond butter and olive oil until the oil is incorporated. Add mashed bananas, brown sugar, and yogurt. Stir thoroughly. -Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and add wet ingredients. Stir just until flour is completely moistened- spelt flour gets tough if mixed too much. -Pour mixture into prepared pan. Lick the spoon because you don’t have to worry about eggs. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a tester comes out relatively clean. Let cool, invert onto a rack, and thoroughly enjoy! *Note- It’s difficult to substitute other flours in for spelt because they will require more liquid ingredients. If you so choose, I suggest using 1 1/2 cups wheat flour, adding 1/4 cup of oil, and perhaps some milk in 1/4-cup increments until you get the texture right. After all, it’s all about experimentation anyway!