I’m Back…But Briefly.

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Wow! Where in the world have I been?? Well, Eric had my camera for a good week there last week and this week has been crazy busy with other things. I’m popping in today with a couple updates, from a my brand new HP laptop that ROCKS, but I have to be honest, I don’t know how much blogging I’ll be doing in November!

Now, I still plan on cooking and baking because, well, we gotta eat and I love it too much. I hope to update with recipes and photos, I just don’t know how much time and energy I’ll be able to devote to my usual creative commentary/storytelling. The reason being I have decided to take the plunge and give National Novel Writing Month a try here in November. If you’ve never heard of it, basically the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days from November 1st-30th. Yikes. Eric dared me to do it, since I won the little story contest in our paper last weekend. This is a little bit different. And much more daunting, but I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a try. If I don’t finish, I don’t finish…but I’d really like to be able to say I did it. We shall see. So, I’ll be back to blogging full swing in December…or when I get too frustrated with this whole book writing thing and give up. HA!

On to the food (so I can get back to my book, of which I have about 600 words written so far, LOL!) Here’s a super easy recipe that I spotted in Cooking Light that was phenomenal with a big bowl of spicy chili. Loved the sweet, savory and cheesy combo in this easy-peasy beer bread recipe. I’ll be making this again for sure!

APPLE CHEDDAR BEER BREAD (Recipe Source: Cooking Light – November 2008)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2  cup  shredded peeled Gala apple
• 1  tablespoon  olive oil
• 1/2  cup  minced shallots
• 1/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1  garlic clove, minced
• 13.5  ounces  all-purpose flour (about 3 cups)
• 3  tablespoons  sugar
• 2  teaspoons  baking powder
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 1  cup  (4 ounces) shredded extrasharp white cheddar cheese
• 1  (12-ounce) bottle hard cider
• Cooking spray
• 2  tablespoons  melted butter, divided

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375°.

2. Place shredded peeled apple in paper towels; squeeze until barely moist. Heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Cook apple and shallots in oil over medium heat for 7 minutes. Stir in pepper and garlic; cook 1 minute.

3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk; make a well in center of mixture. Add shallot mixture, cheese, and cider to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

4. Spoon batter into a 9 x 5–inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Drizzle 1 tablespoon butter over batter. Bake at 375° for 35 minutes. Drizzle remaining 1 tablespoon butter over batter. Bake an additional 25 minutes or until deep golden brown and a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

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