A's First Bread!! Beer Bread with a Hint of Lime!

I found a recipe for homemade bread in under an hour in the USA Weekend circular that come with my Sunday paper and I just HAD to try it. I never made bread before, and this looked easy enough, plus I had all of the ingredients in the house.

The beer we had was Bud Light Lime, which I thought would bring a nice tang to the bread. So I set out to make the following recipe - but I halved it, just in case.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 TBS sugar
1 TB baking powder
1 1/2 tsps salt
12 ounces of beer
1 egg, beaten


Directions:

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

Add beer and stir with a fork until just combined.


Turn dough onto a floured surface; knead quickly to form a ball.

Place bread on a baking sheet and confidently slit an X on top with a serrated or very sharp knife.


Brush loaf with egg wash.

Bake until golden brown, about 45 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

The full recipe yields 12.

My husband and I both really enjoyed the bread, and I am so happy it came out looking pretty and tasting good!

It really was easy, and I will definitely be looking for more quick bread recipes!

Cornbread Bake - my Thanksgiving dish!

So as I previously mentioned, my husband and I are celebrating Thanksgiving at his family this year, and we all need to bring a little something since his Aunt, who is hosting, is hurt and can't cook as much.

We're doing a dessert (my pie cupcakes!) but I (stupidly) offered to do something else. I say that because working full days during my crazy time at work is actually more tiring than I thought (this is my first November at this job) and when I come home, the last thing I want to do is bake or cook. And it's not like I can do any of this on Thursday morning since we have to schlep 3 hours away from the house. Luckily this recipe only took about 20 minutes to put together and then it was in the oven for a half hour. Not too bad - I did it in between watching Glee. Hopefully it came out ok!

So I found this recipe amongst the Sunday coupons of all things. Cornbread Bake. Sounded interesting - I like cornbread. Here is the recipe...

Ingredients:

2 pouches cornbread mix (6.5 oz each)
1 container of sour cream (16 oz - we used light)
2 eggs
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
frozen sweet corn, thawed and drained (8 oz)
1/4 cup sliced scallions

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, stir cornbread mix, sour cream and eggs until smooth.

Add 1/2 cup cheese, corn and scallions.

Pour into greased 11 x 7 casserole dish.


Bake about 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese before serving.



I had to tweak this a bit - since I was baking this 2 days prior, I actually baked it for 15 minutes and then sprinkled the remaining cheese on to bake for the next 15 minutes. It looks great though!

This recipe actually also included a jar of chopped pimentos but we just weren't into that. I could had substituted another vegetable or something but I left it at corn and scallions. I also used a mixture of white and yellow corn.

I hope my husband's family is excited to eat this - and will like it!!