Monday, March 30, 2009

Marinated Carrots

Marinated Carrots

5 cups carrots, carrots
1 large bell pepper
1 large Onion
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon red pepper
1 teaspoon
1 teaspoon dry mustard
Salt to taste
1 can condensed tomato soup
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Boil carrots until tender drain. Place carrots, bell peppers and onion in a bowl. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl, add tomato soup, oil, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Pour mixture over carrots, onions and bell pepper.
Serves 8-10.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Guinness Beer Bread

Guinness Beer Bread

Found this on Simply Recipes and it is simply wonderful

Guinness Bread with Molasses Recipe

This is fantastic eaten fresh, and nearly as good the next day toasted with some more butter. Do not use stale beer for this recipe, you want the carbonation.

Ingredients
3 cups self-rising flour*
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup molasses
A pinch of salt (roughly 1/8 teaspoon)
12 ounces of Guinness beer
Butter for greasing the pan and painting the top, about 3 tablespoons
* If you don't have self-rising flour, you can substitute using a ratio of 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, plus 1/8 teaspoon of salt, for every cup of self-rising flour. Have made both ways though and got better results from the self-rising flour.

Method
1 Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a loaf pan well with butter.

2 Pour the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl and whisk to combine.

3 Slowly pour the Guinness into the flour mixture. (The “pub cans” are larger than 12 ounces, but they have better carbonation, so I pour most of it out and leave a swig to drink. This has never failed me, but if you are a stickler, use a 12-ounce bottle of Guinness instead.) Start stirring the beer into the dry ingredients, and when you are about halfway done, add the molasses. Mix well, just to combine. Don’t work the heck out of the batter – because that’s what it’ll look like – but you don’t want lumps, either.

4 Pour into the loaf pan to no more than 2/3 full. Pop into the oven immediately and bake for 50 minutes. Since ovens can vary, check the bread after 40 minutes and see if a toothpick inserted into the deepest part of the loaf comes out clean. If it does, you’re done.

5 Let the loaf cool a bit, maybe 5 minutes, and then turn it out onto a rack. Paint it with lots of soft butter, which will melt as you go.