What's cookin? Beer bread and blueberry cobbler!

-     I thought it was high time I made a proper taste worthy Sunday dinner, even if it is 102 outside.  In the summer on most Sundays we usually do the grill, making your typical summer fare of burgers, hotdogs, steak, chicken on the rotisserie (which is amazing), fajitas, and the like.  Today I wanted to do a delish dish of goat cheese and basil roasted bone in chicken breasts, by Barefoot Contessa, skillet fried potatoes with sautéed onions, haricot vert with garlic and butter (the skinny french greens bean that you don't have to snap are the best!), honey beer bread, and blueberry cobbler.  It was a feast people let me tell you.  I have never made beer bread before, but I got the recipe off Pinterest from Gimmie Some Oven and thought it looked pretty amazing so I thought I would give it a try.  

Yes, there is a whole bottle of beer in here people!

 

 Ingredients

3 cups flour

3 T sugar (original recipe called for 2, but I think I might even do 4 or 5 T next time)

1 T baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 T honey

1 bottle of beer (I used an Amber Lager that Big D had lingering in the fridge)

4 T butter melted

-Grease a 9x5x3 loaf pan

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together.  

-With a wooden spoon, (OK I don't know if it's imperative to actually use a wooden spoon or life altering to perhaps use plastic, but that is what the recipe said, so that is what I did!), with a wooden spoon, mix in the beer and the honey into the dry ingredients until just mixed.

-Pour half the melted butter into the bottom of the loaf pan.  Spoon the batter into the pan.  Brush on the rest of the melted butter with a pastry brush to the top of the loaf.

-bake 50-60 minutes until top is golden brown, and a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean. (Mine took about 55 min in a gas oven which is usually a faster cooking oven)

The bread comes out of the loaf pan beautifully!  You could also add some cheese to the batter to add some savoriness to the bread.

And my blueberry cobbler...Blueberry cobbler has been made in my family for generations.  I come from a long line of pie bakers, and I can say with complete sincerity, that I make a fairly kick ass pie...  And don't tell me that making crust from scratch is hard.  Calculus and climbing Mt. Everest is hard, giving birth is hard, thinking 'asshole' instead of screaming asshole to your significant other is hard, pie crust is not.  Pie crust is easy.

For the crust...

2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup vegetable shortening

5-7 T ice water

-Combine the flour, salt, and 1/3 of the shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture is broken up

-add the other 1/3 cup of shortening with the pastry blender until the mixture looks like peas.

-add the ice water 1 T at a time until you the dough holds together just enough without being to wet or too dry

-roll out on floured parchment paper

For the filling

-8 cups of blueberries rinsed and picked over for stems

-1 cup sugar

-1/2 c plus 1 T flour

-2 T butter

-Crystal Sugar for dusting 

-Pour the sugar and flour over the blueberries and pour into a deep pie dish

-Chip the cold butter on top

-Place crust on top of berry mixture

-Cut a few steam holes on top of crust

-Sprinkle crust with crystal sugar

-Bake at 425 for 35-45 minutes or until crust is golden brown and berry mixture is bubbling.  You may need to cover the crust with foil to avoid excessive browning

And then it looks like this...