Beer (Bread) Season

I have no interest in hunting and live near a big city so I have no clue when deer season starts.  However, now that the holidays are over and winter is in full swing it is definitely beer (bread) season.  Nothing adds depth and texture to your favorite soups, stews and chilis like a homemade loaf of beer bread.   Plus, it tastes awesome, is great toasted the next morning for breakfast and is super easy to prepare.  Everyone will be overly impressed with your efforts and you can be all, "oh yes, I slaved away all afternoon baking, but nothing is too much for close friends, yadda, yadda" when in actuality you threw three ingredients into a loaf pan.  No kidding, this is the best 3, 2, 1, recipe out there.  Commence amazement and note taking:

Beer Bread

3 cups self-rising flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 beer

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Open a beer to drink while harnessing your internal domestic god or goddess.  Grab a decent sized bowl (or if you are seriously lazy you probably could mix this up directly in the loaf pan.)  Add the 3 cups of self-rising flour.  Add the 2 tablespoons of sugar.  Open a second beer and pour it right in.  Stir.  Add the batter to a loaf pan.  Bake for 1 hour.  Boom!  Say good bye to those Tastefully Simple or some such other rip off mixes.  This beer bread is the real steal. 

Add flour and sugar

Add your favorite brew

Stir until well mixed

Before

After

Ready for its closeup and your belly!

I like using Yuengling or Natty Boh for our beer bread because it is fairly cheap and we usually have some in the fridge.  But, I highly recommend experimenting with your favorite and see how the taste and color of the bread changes with the beer.  Even if you are not a beer drinker I am confident you will love this recipe.  Enjoy!

I Am A Coffee Vixen, Hear Me Whimper

One of my favorite things about staying at my mother-in-laws house is her magic coffee pot.  Every morning, without fail, it brews a full pot of fresh, soul-calming coffee for me and my husband to enjoy.  I merely have to shuffle across the cold kitchen floor in my warm wool socks and pour.  The biggest decision I must make: which Fiestaware mug color matches my mood best (she owns them all).  My hair may be askew, the girls may be running wild, but I will have had my coffee before 8am.  I don't even have to rinse out the machine.

I come from a tea drinking family.  My dad drank coffee at work, but it was never around at home.  I first acquired a taste for it myself on a missions trip to Jamaica in high school.  After a week working with kids on dusty streets and under corrugated tin roofs, the inside of my suitcase landed at home reeking of ganja (because that is was rural Jamaica smells like), but my addiction was for Blue Mountain coffee.   It was then, at 16, that I began a relationship with caffeine. 

Through college and our first years of marriage, I could easily get through a work day on tea, coffee or Coke just the same.  Now, two kids and four years deep in staying home, I require coffee to keep digging.  It is a minor vice I am prepared to live with for the rest of my life.  In fact, it is a vice I am resolved to perfect over this new year.  With the exception of those precious few magic coffee pot mornings, I rarely drink a full cup of coffee. 

6:30 a.m. - Open eyes half way, picture a steaming cup of coffee with milk, roll over in bed.  Sweet.
6:45 a.m. - Interact with my eldest daughter in a morning stupor, head downstairs to make coffee.
7:00 a.m. - In small act of attempted healthfulness, decide to drink a glass of water first.
7:03 a.m. - Pour daughter a cup of orange juice.  Drink a glass of that first, instead.  Sugar.
7:30 a.m. - Make coffee while daughters are strapped into booster seats eating breakfast.
7:57 a.m. - Remember to actually push "ON" button to brew the coffee when cleaning up breakfast.
8:05 a.m. - Pour first cup of coffee.
8:14 a.m. - Return to unsipped coffee on counter, lift to lips, put down to referee the children.  Sigh.
8:38 a.m. - Take one long satisfying sip from coffee mug while walking into living room to play puzzles.  Place mug on mantel to avoid spillage.
9:15 a.m. - Return downstairs after dressing girls.  Reheat coffee in microwave.  Sin.
9:30 a.m. - Leave the house, sans caffeine, to enjoy some such play date.  Pray my girlfriend will brew a fresh pot so we can forget to drink it together.
1:00 p.m. - Remove cold coffee from microwave to make Ramen noodles for lunch.  Open a Coke.  Settle.

It should not be this hard.  I need to change.  I think this year I am committed.  I did get this mug for Christmas after all: