That late St. Patrick's Day recipe.. Cheddar Chive Beer Bread

I had a hankering for beer bread when St. Patrick's Day rolled around last month, and I happened to find this recipe on the Kitchn blog. Now, clearly because I was doing the beer shopping the day before St. Patrick's there was no Guinness to be found. The nice man at the LCBO recommended a Jamaican stout, Dragon Ale. Since I don't really drink beer, ever, I figured it was as good as anything and went with it. It turned out great, I was eating this bread for days! It doesn't keep more than about four though, when it hit that mark the beer taste started to do some funny things.

Cheddar & Chive Guinness Bread
makes one 8 1/2-inch loaf

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 (12-ounce) bottle Irish stout beer (Dragon Stout works too, however the bottles are not the right size, you need one and a bit.)
1 cup grated Irish cheddar cheese (about 4 ounces)
1/4 cup chopped chives
1/4 cup Irish butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375° F. Line 8 1/2- x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, or coat with butter.

In a mixing bowl, thoroughly whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Pour in the beer and mix until the dry ingredients are evenly moistened. Fold in 3/4 cup of the cheese and the chives.

Transfer the batter to prepared pan. Pour the melted butter evenly over top of the dough. Bake about 30 minutes then scatter the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese over the top. Return the loaf to the oven and bake 15 to 20 minutes longer or until a tester inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes.

Turn out and serve warm, sliced.

Things are coming along

I'm back from New York, and painted all weekend, so most of me hurts. Progress requires payments, I just wish I could do it in installments.

AIPAD was awesome, and I got to meet up with half of Team Rochester for dinner and drinks, which was awesome. The show had far more vintage and historic works than I expected, which was really fun to browse through. Actually knowing most of the names was handy too, so it's nice to see the education finally paying off.

Hi guys! Team Rochester shopping for the GEH's collection. And because this is me, spot the porn on the wall.

I also had the opportunity to see Adam Savage and Jaime Hyneman live, on stage in the Tdot. Oh Yes.

FAN GIRL MOMENT!! While Adam's hard to photograph in low light, Jaime was great at holding still for long periods of time.

They hit Toronto as part of their Behind the Myths tour, and my buddy and I got some really sweet, third row seats. I wasn't picked for any of the audience participation, but it was still awesome being that close. I know a fair bit of the show was scripted, but they made it seem fairly natural and friendly. It was an awesome show with a hint of danger and a splatter zone.

This is a mildly terrifying video of the paint ball aspect of the audience participation. The sound doesn't do it justice, but the paint ball gun/rapid fire machine gun they were using was incredibly loud and bass-y when it hit the target wall and person.

Paint! A lot of it! I spent the weekend painting the gallery for our upcoming exhibition. We needed about three coats in total, and while time consuming, it was totally worth it. Now I just have to scrape off the purple stuff I have everywhere. We'll be mounting the works in the next few days and will be celebrating the whole thing with a reception soon. I've already chosen the outfit for it.

Taping.

Painting, slightly fuzzily.

So. Much. Purple.

I have actually cooked a fair bit lately, I did a St. Paddy's special and some real experimentation for my birthday, all of which I will blog about a bit later when I'm feeling less dead. Here's a wee hint for the Paddy's recipe until I get back.