Sick Kitchen Kapers

I can’t believe I’m sick again..I had a cold two weeks back and again started to develop a sore throat yesterday afternoon. I thought there was a sick quota for everyone, that could not be exceeded!

After waking a bunch of times last night, I finally gave up and decided to do something that I knew would cheer me up early on Saturday morning..I baked.

Now, Saturday mornings are always hard because I like to make a special breakfast because it’s the weekend and because breakfast is my favorite meal, (not that the other meals are very far behind, but comparatively! ), but I always seem to run out of groceries by Saturday. I usually have eggs, some left over bread and some left over fruits (which I usually whip into a smoothie).

Today, I knew there was no bread at home. As you can see, there is a reason I always go grocery shopping on Saturdays. But there were eggs, scallions and a couple of oranges. So, what do I do but decide to make my own bread.

Now, I knew I had no patience to wait for yeast based bread to rise, I am sick after all! So, I looked in my encyclopedia of cooking, Joy of cooking, and found a recipe that I actually had the ingredients for, even if it is Saturday morning. I thought the Orange bread might be like Banana bread and may actually be sweet, not a good combo with my planned scrambled eggs, but I took a chance that worked very well.

The Orange bread is actually a little bit like banana bread and quite a bit not like banana bread. It has a tinge of the orange flavour, but is definitely not sweet and works very well with savory sides.

In typical fashion, I adapted the recipe to suit my healthy sensibilities, including incorporating whole grains and substituting some ingredients.

Here’s my version.

ORANGE BREAD

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp orange zest
• 2/3 cup sugar/ Splenda
• 1 1/4 cups fat free skim milk
• 1/4 cup orange juice (juice from 2 medium navel oranges)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the dry ingredients together including the zest, sugar and the nuts.
3. Beat the wet ingredients in another bowl.
4. Fold in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
5. Stir as little as possible just ensuring that the dry ingredients are incorporated into the wet to form a batter.
6. Pour into a greased loaf pan.
7. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
8. Cool and unmold.
9. I served slices of the Orange bread with butter and scrambled eggs with scallions.
10. Finally, I prayed that the comfort food would make my sore throat hurt a little less!