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mailQuick Bread, and beyond...
I was happy to find that bread could be made quickly and with few ingredients. The following is my vegan "quick bread" recipe (a work in progress).
- 2.5 cups whole wheat flour (about 1 lb)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 8 ounces warm water (approximately)
- 1 teaspoon salt (optional)
- 2 tablespoons sugar (optional)
- 3 tablespoons raw carob powder (optional)
I use organic ingredients, and aluminum-free baking powder (note: do not use baking soda alone for this recipe).
- Add the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, & carob to a mixing bowl, stir it together with a spoon (or use clean hands).
- Add the water, and squish the mixture together manually. Work it until you have an elastic ball of dough (add a small amount of water if necessary to mix it further, or add a little more flour if it is too gooey).
- Take the dough out of the bowl and shape it on a flat surface (rubbing flour over the dough to keep it from sticking). If you are using a cookie cutter, then roll the dough flat with a rolling pin (to the desired thickness). Otherwise, several bread sticks may be rolled by hand. Place the pieces on a cookie sheet as you go. Preheat the oven to 250 F (the flour alone should keep it from sticking here too).
- Place the cookie sheet in the center of the oven, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes (possibly longer if making bread sticks). Do not overcook, or it will turn into a brick!
Later I decided to craft my own staple food, by mixing ground raw vegetables, sproutable legumes, and nuts in with the dough (which is less elastic than before, yet when coated with flour it rolls out), forming what I call "Breadgetables" (bread + ve·getables). An amusing name I must say. They are a combination of wholesome energy and essential nutrients, which I can make the most of by consolidating. The preparation is similar to that of quick bread (while baking time for a thicker form increases to a couple of hours, rotating or flipping every half-hour).
My plan is to eat this compound food, primarily (including plenty of water, some mint tea, a vegan multivitamin, and a piece of fruit each day) for as long as it sustains me (which I expect will be longer than a typical American diet). I think this will be convenient and even pleasant, considering the whole process of consuming something so simple. Of course, rations of "bread and water" are traditionally considered punishment, so I can understand if anyone thinks I am being optimistic (well, I am). Although, the last time I encountered (unrelated) flu-like symptoms, and temporarily lost my ability to taste anything, it occurred to me that if foods had no flavor, then people would eat whatever they believed to be most healthy! That is definitely food for thought; still, I would like my variation on the notorious nutraloaf to taste pleasant (actually, I found out about that stuff after making this concoction). On the bright side, it is the opposite of soylent green (which, although horrific, is hardly different than people's current practice of slaughtering and consuming sentient beings, because such beings include us, as the story goes). Personally, I could run around killing (or buying dead meat) at will, but I choose not to, because I know life is fundamentally better this way, for everyone (and we can easily break with tradition in an age of industrial crops).
Until next time, I will vicariously bring my veggie bread to life, and reflect on the nature of things...
I am continuing to experiment with the recipe, when inclined to its baking (not yet a routine activity)... I hope to be at one with the breadgetable by springtime.
I have traded the sugar & carob powder for tomato sauce & garlic powder, which gives the bread a savory flavor (and increases its health benefits). I also tried using lentils alone for the legume source, which adds a light peppery taste. This is relatively good stuff with about ten ingredients... add a little mustard on the side, and it's like eating cold cuts of leftover meatloaf (yet without the meat)! Okay, I should be at one with the breadgetable by summertime.
As the summer season approaches, something has clicked: I am at one with the breadgetable. Unbelievable... The missing ingredient was actually timing! Well, I had to go against common knowledge, once again, when I stopped eating during the day. So I eat only at the hour of sleep, and drink water at all other waking hours. Not only does this give me more energy, but I sleep better at night and breath easier while awake. I do my endurance exercise in the evening, just before the meal, which is preceded by moderately physical tasks during the day. It feels like I am well nourished and hydrated throughout (which was not a consistent feeling for me on a frequent meal schedule).
This is like a circadian rhythm. I think it makes perfect sense, because the sleep cycle is naturally a recovery phase, and the digestive cycle is disruptive to daily activities, so it belongs in the recovery phase. In reality, the only nutrient I need during the day is water, and drinking more of that causes my body-fat (which is stored at night) to be burned for energy throughout the day. I also feel rejuvenated most of the time (not just in the morning), so I can tell this is working better for me, while awake, than ingesting food in any quantity (given that I am not doing physically exhausting tasks for hours, which is relative, but I mean like running a marathon).
Now I just need to figure out how much of this staple food to eat each night in order to sustain my body weight, where I want it. Hopefully, the resulting portion will not be too much for me to handle in one sitting (very unlikely). I actually gained a lot of weight experimenting with food energy (and going on tangents with that for a couple of years). I should have it balanced out again by the end of autumn; regardless, it seems like a trivial thing to accomplish with such a consistent way of life. I am not sure what to call it, but the "hour of sleep diet" does not seem to be taken. Why would it be? No one asked me, and others would faint just thinking about it.
