Cheddar Rosemary Beer Bread

Another favourite from the Joy of Cooking, 1997 ed. The edition is important because after that one they modernised it a bit more, I hear, and it's not as good. This tome, however, is an invaluable classic, and pretty much the go-to book for all sorts of traditional things and other fun stuff. This recipe is listed as Quick Beer Bread, p. 775, and I took some ideas from the Beer, Cheese and Scallion variation, p.776.

First I mixed the dry ingredients - 2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup oats, 2 Tbsp sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt. I also threw in some chopped fresh rosemary, which we happened to have in the house, 2 tsp caraway seeds (because they're fabulous) and I also grated in some cheddar cheese.

Now came the easy part - throw in a cup and a half of beer! It foams nicely. It can be any beer, as long as it's still fizzy (and not stout). Now, since Christmas has only recently passed, we had some weird cans of beer we didn't particularly want to drink, as we're a bit snobby in that area. So I used Tuborg, something called 'Liquid Sountrack', who knows why. Mix, pour into greased loaf pan, cook 35-40 minutes. That's it!

The hubs had been nice enough with his time off work to make a fabulous chicken dinner called Coq au Biere, inspired by our new BeerBistro cookbook. So what better to go with it than another recipe that includes beer? Cooking with beer is fun. The Joy of Cooking also suggests this dense, savoury beer bread for soups, stews and cheese. A new addition to the cheese plate, perhaps?