Warm Bread, Warm Heart: Banana Oat Bread with Julius

This week I had the opportunity to do some baking with my friend Julius, a twelve year old from Oceanview township.

To say that Julius is full of spunk in an understatement, the kid IS Mr. Cool.  He can dance like Michael Jackson and charm a cobra with his mischievous smile alone- enough said.   When I first started coming to Ithemba, Julius would only show up on days where he thought I was going to play a movie on my laptop; movies are a real treat for the kids.  I caught onto his scheme and subtly called him out, “Julius, I’ve noticed that you only come on Thursdays, is there a reason for that?” Replies Julius, “Yes, Zach, it’s because you usually show movies on Thursdays and I love movies.” Mr. Cool is too cool for fronts and I love it.

Fortunately for the rest of us at Ithemba, Julius has slowly but surely become an everyday attendee of the afterschool program.  His sense of humor and personality add tons of depth to our group and keeps us highly entertained.  For example, one weekend I announced I was taking all the boys camping and that the campsite location was a “top secret.”  However, Julius managed to convince the entire class that we were going to be camping in the small grassy area at the back of Ithemba, despite my protest.  The minute I had convinced everyone that we were indeed going “off location,” he simply gave me a, yeah-right look, and had everyone convinced again.

Needless to say it was a real privilege to hang out/bake with Julius, who brought tremendous swagger** to the kitchen.

**Swagger for those of you over the age of 40, is simply a word that encompasses a certain attitude and style

Without Further Adieu…

Banana Oat Bread

Ingredients:

Oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, eggs, non-fat plain yoghurt, bananas (very ripe preferable), brown sugar, cinnamon

Oat Base:

Mix

2 cups oats that have finely blended in a blender

1 tea spoon (tsp.) baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt, 2 eggs

½ cup non-fat plain yoghurt and 1/3 cup brown sugar that have been mixed together

½ cup of water

Banana Deliciousness:

Cook in a frying pan medium heat

3 Small diced bananas

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp. cinnamon

little bit of water

* cook together until the bananas are very mushy and brown sugar is syrupy ~8-10 mins.

Fold ‘Banana Deliciousness’ into the ‘Oat Base’ and pour into a bread pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.

Bake:

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Bake for ~ 40 mins.  Stick a knife into a crack of the bread to make sure it’s cooked all the way through.

Let bread cool and then enjoy the fruit of a labor! (pun intended).  Watching Julius eat Banana bread for the first time was awesome, especially since he made it!

- Zach

**Special thanks to Lindsay, LUO Co-founder and health food chef extraordinaire, for the Banana Bread recipe.  For other delicious, healthy recipes- check out her food blog- thesimpledelights.com