Oof.

I simply can't stop eating beer bread. And it's so easy to make, and the house smells so good when it's baking, and oh! is my life hard.

Here's the recipe. I made it up (using half-remembered recipes from my youth and whatever I could find in the kitchen) Thanksgiving morning:

3 cups flour (this was the one thing I had to run out and get Thanksgiving day, and they only! had! white! flour! at the one grocery store still open. So the bread I've been playing Chronos-and-his-children with is made completely of unhealthy and uncomplex carbohyrates. Oh well).

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt (plus a little bit more)

3 tablespoons sugar

approx 3 palm-fulls of fennel seeds

a little more than that of sesame seeds

about half a stalk's worth of rosemary leaves

grated cheese (I've been using Pecorino Romano, which has a nice sharpness that goes well with the yeasty beer flavor. As for amounts, I have no idea -- I've just been going with what looks right - maybe 1/4 a cup?).

1 bottle (12 oz) beer (I've been using Sierra Nevada).

Preheat the oven to 375. Mix together the dry ingredients, then add the beer. Stir until you've got a nice dough-like consistancy (you might need to add more flour if it's too sticky). Oil up a bread pan and plop it in. Bake for about an hour.


So yeah. It's pretty yummy. And you've got to start eating it, see? 'Cause if we all gain a few pounds at once, we'll look the same as ever relative to one another, and won't seem to have gained any weight at all. And that's what makes America great.

You know, now that I think of it, we totally have oat flour in the pantry. Hurrah! Time to try out a new recipe!