A Month-of-Few Ingredients: Guinness Stout Bread

Don’t you just wish! No, this is my Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake with Salted Caramel Glaze. Not even close to today’s recipe, but I wanted to show you one of the offerings I made for the bake table at our church’s flea market this weekend. In fact, if you’re around 59^th Avenue and Cholla this weekend, stop in to the West Valley Unitarian Universalist Church Flea Fair. Get the cake or one of my macaroons, a nutty muffin, or a loaf of my famous beer bread, the topic of today’s post.

I don’t know about you, but I had me at “Guinness.” I cook a lot with Guinness Extra Stout. I put it in chili, beef stew, and gingerbread. And, of course, this beer bread.

This is bread without yeast, but it tastes like a yeast bread because of the beer. However, it is dense, and not yeast-bread like. I based my version of this quick bread on this beer bread recipe.

This is one of my all-time favorite breads. It is hearty and goes well with soups or just to eat with butter. It doesn’t make great sandwiches because of its crumbly texture, but serve a slice alongside that shrimp salad for lunch and feel as if you’re getting a hearty meal.

Guinness Stout Bread

3 cups self-rising flour (see NOTE)

1/4 cup sugar

12 ounces beer (I use Guinness Extra Stout)

1/4 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a bread loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Using a spoon fill the measuring cup with self-rising flour. This is important. Don’t just fill the cup by dipping into the flour. You want the flour layered, not packed.

Mix the flour and sugar. Add the beer.

Add the beer (very foamy at this point) and stir around just until all the dry ingredients are mixed with beer. This will be a thick batter.

Pour into prepared bread loaf pan and even out the top and fill in the corners.

Pour melted butter evenly over the dough.

Bake one hour. Remove from pan and let cool on a rack for at least 15 minutes.

NOTE: If you want to make your own self-rising flour for this recipe, add 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1 teaspoon of salt to 3 cups of flour. Sift several times to fully incorporate the ingredients.

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up! He loves beer so anything I make with beer gets an automatic five tongues! It disappears quickly. See, I know how to keep him happy!

If you liked this recipe, I’d really appreciate you spreading the word on your social media outlets. Here are some pre-made Twitter and Facebook posts you can use or modify.

Twitter: Beer bread, yummy. #recipe for Guinness Stout Bread by @good2tweat at http://bit.ly/2mqUVAs

Facebook: If you want an easy bread your guests will eat up fast, check out Sharon Arthur Moore’s blog, “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” for Guinness Stout Bread. http://bit.ly/2mqUVAs

A reminder:

House rules for what counts as an ingredient:

Salt and pepper are not ingredients.

Oil is not an ingredient when it’s for the cooking pan, not the recipe.

Water is not an ingredient.

A Month-of-Chicken: Mae West Stuffed Breasts

Some of you more, mmmm, well-endowed ladies may not want to cook and/or eat today’s recipe. After all, when it comes to chicken, I believe you should eat for the part you need. Who needs wings???

So, if you don’t need more breast meat on yourself, I’m fine with you not trying this one out. But if you don’t try it, you’re gonna miss a taste treat.

For this recipe, you start with what I call Mae West Breasts. You know, those enormous over-sized pieces in your meat section that makes you wonder how any chicken with THOSE breasts could have stayed upright. Yeah, those pieces. Buy some.

Oh, and make my Beer Bread recipe from this site (last February) and put a couple of pieces out to dry. But if you don’t have the fantabulous Beer Bread, use other stale bread or mash up some leftover croutons.

Mae West Stuffed Chicken Breasts (serves 4-8, depending on appetite)

4 Mae West breasts, boneless, skinless

¼ c celery, finely diced

¼ c onion, finely diced

¼ c mushrooms, finely diced

¼ c tart apple, finely diced

1 t tarragon

¼ c butter

1 slab of Beer Bread, stale and crumbled (or ½ c crushed croutons)

4 chunks blue cheese

Preheat oven to 350º. Pam a baking dish large enough to hold the chicken without touching.

Cut a pocket in the middle of the chicken breasts. Sauté celery and onion in butter until onion is translucent. Add mushrooms, apples, and tarragon. Cook one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Mix in crumbled bread and coat crumbs with the veggie/fruit mixture. Divide into four equal parts and stuff into chicken pocket.

Tuck in a chunk of blue cheese way back. Stick a toothpick or two through the open end to hold together. (Note--if you have leftover stuffing mixtures bake in a small foil pouch and use with chicken later.)

Bake uncovered for 1½ hours or until juices run clear when pierced.

Serve with rice or noodles. Drizzle drippings from the pan over the carb-du-jour.

DH’s rating: 4 Tongues Up for taste; 1 Tongue Up for portion size. DH is really into portion control and couldn’t believe I bought enough chicken for this recipe to feed a small village. But he really liked it!  The blue cheese surprised and delighted his tongue.

A Month of Soups: Souper Bowl Beer Stew

Soups and stews. Related but different. It’s a matter of the proportion of solids to liquids. Today’s soup is more of a stew than a soup, but you can make it soupier with more beef broth.

Got some hungry folks showing up tomorrow for your Super Bowl Party? As an aside, and not to offend anyone, but DH calls it “The Super Bore”. But then, he’s a Cardinal’s fan, so what does he know about winning? But, back to you . . .

Everyone serves wings and dips and blah blah blah. Why not make your party stand out from all the others? Make this stew today and re-heat it when everyone arrives. It is much better the second day! It will be a hearty and delicious accompaniment to the cold beer. Serve a loaf of beer bread with it, and, voila! Your reputation as SuperBowl SuperChef is solidified.

Here’s my favorite beer bread recipe: http://bit.ly/9cmtYR I use Guinness Stout in this as well.

Souper Bowl Beer Stew (serves 8-10)

2 T olive oil

salt and pepper

½ cup flour

2# round steak, trimmed of fat, cut into 2” cubes

1 c carrot coins

3 med potatoes, cut into 1” cubes

2 med onions, diced

3 cloves garlic, sliced

2 c beef broth, divided

2 c Guinness Stout (drink the rest as you mix up the ingredients)

1 T dried rosemary

1 T cinnamon

Heat oven to 300°. Heat the oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add salt and pepper to flour and mix well. Put in a paper or Ziploc bag and add meat cubes. Shake around to thoroughly coat the cube. Place cubes in hot oil and fry until all sides are brown. Remove meat from pan.

Add carrots, potatoes, and onions to the pan. Cook until onions are translucent. Add in garlic. Cook 2 minutes more. Remove veggies from pan.

Add ½ c broth to pan to deglaze it. Immediately add remaining broth and the Guinness Stout. Mix together. Add spices and mix well. Add meat and veggies back into the pan.

Cover the pan and place in oven for 2-3 hours, until veggies are . Remove and set aside to cool. The next day reheat on the stovetop and dish it up. Don’t expect many, if any, leftovers.

DH’s Rating: 4 Tongues Up. This is a tangy dish. One is not used to an underlying beer flavor, so the first bite catches you off guard. The beer bread enhances the stew’s flavor.