After years of feeding my body things it wasn’t designed to eat, I finally became a member of breadaholics-anonymous. I transitioned from white to wholemeal before jumping to wholegrain, spelt, rye etc but in the end it wasn’t worth the physical pain for me so I gave it up completely, and you know what? I feel fan-fucking-tastic. If there’s one diet change I recommend, it would be to ditch the heavy wheat and flour and give this porridge bread a go. It taste just like Irish soda bread, but dare I say nicer? You can throw in your own flavours, it takes no time to make and you feel bloody wonderful afterwards!

Well, unfortunately for me, my body couldn’t hack oats if they were chewed up for me, spat out and then slapped me across the face in a bag that said ‘digest me, you fucking weirdo’ written across it – so I have to control myself by slicing these bad boys into ten pieces and saving for later which is also a handy way to count calories as they are dense, but delicious & dreamy – I promise!Usually I lump ridiculous amount of nut butters, bananas, honey & seeds into my bread mix so I decided to cut down the calories for once by trying it savoury while maintaining a bangin’ flavour. It did not disappoint.

I served these at first with a hearty veggie packed protein soup, you can find the recipe here. Then, with some red pepper hummus, smoked salmon, rocket leaves and feta. You can do whatever the feck you like with these beauties.

Sundried Tomato & Basil Porridge Oat Bread

One thing you’ll get to know about me is that I love a sweet & savoury combo – so I added a bit of honey to balance the acidity from the tomatoes and give the bread another element. You can skip this if you like! Recipe below 🙂

OHHHH! TIP! Slice up your bread & toast in a toastie-bag until crispy and then LATHER IT in melty butter. It will still be soft in the middle and using a toaster with these is far easier than under the grill as they can be fidgety little yokes to turn over!

Ingredients

• 500ml greek yogurt
• 1 egg
• 20ml unsweetened almond milk
• 2 empty yogurt tubs of porridge oats
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 90g sundried tomatoes, rinsed and chopped
• 100g pumpkin seeds, toasted
• dried oregano and basil, to taste
• sea salt & black pepper, to taste
• 3g honey – optional
• 1 tbs coconut oil

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 180’C.
• In a mixing bowl, add the greek yogurt, egg and almond milk. Stir until smooth.
• Fill the empty yogurt tub up with porridge oats twice and pour into the mixture.
• Add your baking soda

(That is ALL you need for a traditional, plain Jane recipe ↑ but we ain’t gonna stop there.

• At this stage your ‘dough’ should be thick and sticky.
• Rinse sundried tomatoes under the tap to remove excess oil and chop into small pieces. Add these to the mixture and knead with your hands to spread them evenly.
• Toast most of the pumpkin seeds on the pan on a medium/high heat for 2-3 minutes before adding to the mixture with the dried oregano, basil and salt and pepper.
• If your mixture is a bit acidic or you’d just like some sweetness, add the honey.
• Line a bread tin with coconut oil and pour the mixture in, pressing down to ensure it’s evenly spread. Carve a shallow line along the top of the bread.
• Add additional pumpkin seeds on top.
• Bake in the oven for 30-50 minutes depending on if your oven, like mine, is from the stone age. Check on it every 15-20 minutes; insert a knife until it comes up dry.
• Leave on a cooling rack for 20-30 minutes as it’s impossible to cut when hot.

Serve with some hummus, cream cheese or BUTTER and enjoy!

Macros*

*per slice – 10 slices

• Calories 316
• Carbs 33.8g
• Protein 19g
• Fat 10.4g

Tip: To reduce the calories/fat, ditch the pumpkin seeds! You’d be a weirdo though.