It’s amazing how much fun it is to decorate the house for Christmas and what a chore it is to take everything down.  And how do decorations get so dirty?!?  Do I stop and wash or clean things or say hell with it and pack ’em away, thinking I’ll be in a better vrame of mind to deal with them next year?!?

You may guess which route I chose…

Spending the day taking down decorations means a day not spent in the kitchen cooking.  But I still wanted a decent dinner.

Beef stew was the logical choice.  It could sinner while I stewed about the 487 trips up-and-down the basement steps with 632 plastic bins full of 7,874,928 santas and other decorations.

We decided that if we ever won the lottery, we would have two identical wings to the house.  One would always be decorated for Christmas.  We’d just close it off until the holidays and open it up and close the other.  I’d never have to worry about stowing dirty ornaments, again.

As we were getting towards the end of the bins, I decided we needed bread to go with dinner.

The quickest loaf to bake was definitely George and Suzanne’s Quick Beer Bread.

I made this particular loaf with Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale.  I keep several bottles of beer in the ‘fridge just for cooking and making beer bread.  I’ve been on the no-knead kick for a while and the beers have just been sitting there.  The type of beer definitely changes the flavor.  I tend to go for the darker beers, but a light pilsner works very well, also.

Beer Bread

  • 3 cups self-rising flour
  • 2 tbsp sugar (raw sugar works best)
  • 12 oz beer

Use a 4″ x 8″ bread pan. Mix and bake at 350° about 1 hour. Top with melted butter.

If you don’t have any self-rising flour in the cupboard, don’t fret.  Use:

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

per cup of flour.
I’m seeing toast for breakfast…..