Without an appropriate transition, I'm just going to jump to the beer part of this post.
I live in a dry town. The only dry town in my state. I could talk about how its "dry-ness" seems to perplex people and the number of times I've heard people remark "Oh, I could never live there. It's dry." I won't talk much about that, because my opinion of all that just points out the ridiculousness in such statements. Really? The primary factor for deciding where you live is alcohol availability? Really? It's a big deal to have to drive the 3-4 miles in any direction to the town limits (there are alcohol stores all along the borders in all directions) to get your beer? Really?
What I will say is that my town is full of considerate folk who will pick up a six-pack for their neighbor when they've made that journey to buy some for themselves. Or, maybe they just show up at the bus stop and hand it out by the case. Which probably seems weird, but I'm sure that saved many a trip this weekend.
I turned down the first offer. Not because I'm anti-alcohol. I'm not. It doesn't matter one way or the other to me if you drink beer. But because I don't like the taste of it (and have never even drank a whole beer in my life) and because Ryan only drinks water. What would I do with beer? Sooo...I politely declined.
And then it hit me...bread!
Which means now we have beer in the house. Free beer I obtained at the bus stop while waiting on my child. For real.
You don't need a lot to make beer bread. It also doesn't take all day to get it going. Just mix up 5 ingredients, pour it into a pan and bake for an hour at 375.
Seriously, the easist thing in the world maybe.
3 cups of whole wheat flour
1 TBSP of baking powder
2 tsp of some kind of sugar
some salt
1 bottle of beer
That's it. (I did throw some flax seeds and raw pumpkin seeds into mine out of worry I haven't been feeding my family enough Omega 3's, but that was a derailment from the recipe.)
Truth be told, one could just eat bread for dinner and call it a day, except I am addicted to avocados and we had them. I made a spread (basically mashed avocado up with a little garlic) and topped all of that with chopped red peppers, grape tomatoes and chives.
We also had carrot soup. Because carrot soup is awesome. And because we have way too many carrots hogging up the space in my fridge.
I usually zone out around dusk on Friday nights and will myself to stay awake until the sky is dark. But there was that Girl Scout meeting going on in my house, (Is it wrong to bake beer bread when a Girl Scout meeting is happening? If so, no worries. I suppose you could report me, but it was the last meeting for the year and I've given my notice we don't have time to do it next year.) which meant parents stayed to hang out with me for awhile.
And then the Mormons came by.
I'm pretty "socialized out" at this point, but I do have to say it was a fun night.
