Beer Bread!

So today I took photos of all my meals, and then lost them - I guess thats what happens when you use a REAL camera instead of an iPhone! Well, here is what I ate anyway:


Breakfast - Slice of WW Toast with almond butter and a tiny smear of peanut butter
Lunch - Salad with 1 1/2 turkey sausages, feta, artichoke hearts, bruchetta, and balsamic. And I made an identical one for lunch tomorrow :)
Dinner - A Morningstar black bean veggie burger on an english muffin with lettuce, tomato, ranch, avocado, and hot sauce. Side salad with tomato, avocado, cilantro, salsa, and balsamic. Delicious!


SO, on Sunday night, I BAKED BEER BREAD! If you know me at all, you know I am NOT a baker. At all. I am actually suprised I have been cooking real dinners, and not microwaving cans of Italian wedding soup in plastic tupperwares every night. Anyway, Walter's sister has made beer bread a few times, and it is much thicker and heartier then normal bread. I have been craving it to go with all of the salads i've been eating lately. Trader Joes used to sell a mix for it, but they discontinued it. So I decided to take matters into my own hands! I googled a bunch of recipes, and here is what I came up with. SO simple, and so delicious!


Ingredients:
3 cups self rising flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 beer (any beer you would like!)


Optional:
1 tbsp margarine or butter
various herbs to enhance the bread


First, I added 3 cups of self rising flour to a mixing bowl:

Then I added 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 tsp of rosemary, 1 tsp thyme, and 1 tsp of dried minced garlic (There are so many combos you can add to your bread, and many suggestions online)

Then, I added the beer! Walter and I thought Yuengling would be a good, safe choice. Not too light, not a crazy flavor, a nice traditional lager if you will. :)

Walter stirred it up because he thought knew I would get flour EVERYWHERE! And he would have been absolutely right if he let me stir it! And then he poured it into a loaf(?) pan that was greased up with Pam.

Here it is in the pan before going into the oven...

I set the oven to 375, and baked it for 45 minutes. I mustve checked on it 10 times! The yeast in the beer makes it rise in the oven, and i thought it was going to rise right into the top rack! But it didn't :). With 20 minutes left to bake, i melted a tsp of margarine, and brushed it over the bread. To me, it turned out to be an essential step, because it make the bread crispy on the outside, and so soft on the inside. Here is the bread when we took it out of the oven...

And here is a slice! 

It was seriously SO GOOD - I can't believe I baked! I want to make this every week now. A co-worker tried it the next day, and she said it tasted like macaroni grill bread! Oh beer bread, I love you!