Whole Food Sugar Free Barley Ginger Breakfast Bread

I've been making various versions of breakfast breads for years now and lately, this has been one of my roomies favorites, so I make a batch every couple of days.  My breakfast breads are not very sweet, so feel free to add more sweetener or some sugar. I use Kal Stevia Powder in all of my sugar free baking.

I like to make these a whole meal with the addition of lentils and zucchini.  You could use another bean and yellow squash in place of zucchini.

Sugar Free Gingerbread

• 1 lb dry barley ground into flour (around 3 ½ cups)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon each nutmeg, cloves and cardamom
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 scant teaspoon Kal Stevia Powder
• 2 cups cooked lentils
• 5 small, 3 medium or 2 large zucchinis
• 1 ½ cups water
• ½ cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 3 tablespoons fresh ginger
• 2 teaspoons vinegar

1. Pre-heat oven to 375
2. Grind the flour, place in large bowl with the dry ingredients
3. In a large blender, add the rest of the ingredients and blend until totally smooth
4. Make a well and pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
5. Mix very well
6. Grease a 9 by 13 pan and bake for 1 hour, rotating pan halfway through

It is VERY important to let these cool completely before eating so the stevia flavor has a chance to settle down and mingle with the spices and moisture from the veggies/beans. The taste changes completely! 

I've been thinking of playing around with spinach .. it has a nice viscosity when it's cooked that reminds me a bit of oil.. so we'll see.  I get SUCH cheap spinach at Haymarket so it would be nice to see how it works. 

You could definite replace the vinegar with juice of half a lemon and add some lemon zest to this recipe, plus the addition of walnuts or other nuts would be delightful.