I recently went to see the nutritionist, Adina Tapu, who comes to the Health Center every once in a while. After introducing me to her adorable, gigantic dog (it’s a Poodle-Golden Retriever mix, what?), we talked about my eating habits. Among other things, one of the things she told me was to start eating breakfast, something I hadn’t done in while.

I told her how I’d heard all these things about breakfast, such as: “It’s the most important meal of the day!” and that it was also supposed to be the biggest meal of the day (the theory being that you should eat progressively smaller meals throughout the day as your energy needs go down…). All of which she basically told me to ignore.

Instead, her advice was to eat something that would be enough food to give me some energy, get my metabolism going, and tide me over until lunch. Ideally, she said breakfast should include two to three food groups, such as grains, fruit and dairy.

Unfortunately, I’m usually in a rush in the morning. Since I don’t make time for concocting some elaborate breakfast, a slice or two of some quick bread would be perfect.

There exists a whole world of quick breads: so called because they don’t use yeast and therefore don’t need to rise: and this recipe is for one of the many types. Quick breads are very versatile, consisting of a base composed of flour, sugar, oil, eggs and baking soda. From there, you can add mashed bananas, or applesauce, plus any combination of fruit, nuts, or chocolate.

This particular bread features pumpkin puree and chocolate chips (semi-sweet, bittersweet, white chocolate, mini chips). I usually make it without nuts, though you can also add walnuts or pecans. If you need a little help waking up, add some powdered ginger, cardamom or other spices you think would work. However, make sure you don’t get a can of pumpkin pie filling, which already has spices and other ingredients that don’t work the same way as plain pumpkin puree.

I hope that Adina would approve of this as my breakfast of choice. The pumpkin has Vitamin C (something she told me to eat more of), and added nuts would give some protein. It would also be a great snack, especially if you warmed it up in a toaster oven.