Buttery Beer Bread

Once a month, I attend a luncheon for non-profit fundraising professionals. We're usually treated to guest speakers and I always leave having learned one new thing and having met one new person. But, the biggest treat of all is a lunch staple: beer bread. I have no idea who caters the meal, but what I do know is that the delicious bread is a crowd pleaser. (Seriously...one month it wasn't there and the attendees almost revolted!)

I've been raving about the beer bread to my mom for almost a year, so this past week we decided to try and bake our own. We used this recipe we found online. While my dad barbequed ribs, we got busy with the side dish of buttery beer bread.

Here's what we needed:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 bottle, 12 ounces, beer (we used Guinness)
1 stick unsalted butter, melted

First, mix together the dry ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Once those have been thoroughly combined, add the beer. We used Guinness but the recipe didn't specify what kind to use. Using a wooden spoon, mix the beer into the dry ingredients until you have a doughy consistency.

Dry ingredients with Guinness.

Mixed into dough.

 

While I was making the dough, my mom was buttering the glass baking dish.  After the dish was buttered, we added half of the melted butter stick, then the dough, and then topped the dough with more melted butter. It feels really excessive to be greasing the dish with butter and then added multiple layers of melted butter, but when baking the butter hardens to form the crust, so don't skimp on the butter! It is totally worth it. :)

 

Butter layer #1.

Butter layer #2.

 

Now, it's time to bake. We baked the bread for about 60 minutes at 350 degrees. We had to check and add a few more minutes towards the end, but it was worth the wait. It came out of the oven zizzling and perfectly golden brown.

 

 

The perfect slice!

 

The beer bread was really good. It was buttery and sweet, and the outside had the perfect crunch. It was a little different from the bread I eat at my monthly luncheons. It was darker in color and thicker in texture, which maybe is due to the dark beer. Regardless, it was delicious and we talked about making it again with chili or stews.

 

I wish I would have taken a picture of the beer bread and ribs because our dinner was so delicious, and they each complimented each other so well. I was just really excited to eat!

Mini Blueberry Lemon Bundt Cakes

It's been a crazy few weeks for the Girls Team. Between work obligations and out of town trips, we haven't been able to give MIHM the attention it deserves lately. Newly refreshed and ready to go, we were happy to be back in full force this week. We wanted our project to really connect with the reason why we created MIHM - something that served as a challenge, but built on our strengths. So with that said, we decided to bake mini blueberry lemon bundt cakes. Sure, we consider ourselves seasoned bakers, but bundt cakes are a treat we haven't attempted yet!

We found a really great, easy to follow recipe online. If you're interested in the details, click here. Here's the ingredient list:

For the Cake

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1 teaspoon for blueberries and zest
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
2 cups blueberries
2 tablespoons grated lemon zestjuice of one lemon
Nonstick cooking spray, for pan

For the Cream Cheese Glaze

1 (4 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon butter, softened
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk

After preheating the oven to 350 degrees, combine the dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

 

Then mix butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and lemon juice together. Once combined, slowly add the dry ingredients and sour cream into the mixer.

 

 

While I was battling the mixer (I had some momentary lapses in common sense, sending batter flying through the kitchen), my mom was tossing the fresh blueberries with lemon zest and flour.

 

 

After the berries are ready, gently fold them into the batter. Heavily grease the bundt cake pan (or in our case, the super cute mini bundt cake pan) and place the cakes in the oven.

 

 

Because we were making mini cakes, and the recipe we used was for one large cake, some google searching helped us determine that we only needed to bake the bundt cakes for 20-25 minutes. When we took them out of the oven, they looked (and smelled!) amazing.

 

 

My mom made the cream cheese glaze as the cakes were cooling. I forgot to get a picture of this part, so for directions, refer to the linked recipe above. We drizzled the glaze over the bundt cake for the final touch!

 

 

First of all, how beautiful do these look?! We were both so impressed by appearance alone. They came out of the oven light brown, not burnt or dark, and the blueberries were equally dispursed throughout the cake. Honestly, throwing all modesty aside, they look professionally made. :)

 

My dad and Nelson helped the Girls Team taste test and our mini blueberry lemon bundt cakes received rave reviews! The lemon flavoring was just tarte enough, and the blueberries were so sweet. Our cake was nice and fluffy, cooked to perfection. These are my favorite baking item we've done on MIHM so far. I will definitely add these to my staple baking list. Aside from tasting great, the mini size makes them a cute little treat to share.

 

Speaking of sharing, since we made 12 cakes, I brought some to work to share with a few co-workers.

 

 

 

Project Linus Blankets - Update!

Last month the Girls Team started to crochet blankets for Project Linus, a non-profit organization that donates volunteer-made blankets to children in the community. This week we wanted to track our progress on this project. If you missed our original post, check it out here.

My mom is crocheting individual squares. She is flying through this part! Once she is done with the squares, she will be sewing them together to make the full blanket. Even though she's been crocheting for years, she's never sewn squares together so that will be her challenge with this project!

How cute are these squares?!

Almost ready to be sewn together.

 

I'm using three colors of yarn and crocheting a blanket for a pre-teen girl. Since this is the first time I've ever crocheted, I'm learning the basic stitches of chains, single crochet and double crochet to make this blanket. Inititally, I thought the yarn would stretch out, so I didn't exactly measure the width when I started. This was a mistake! Project Linus has size specifications for each age group. The smallest blanket allowed needs to measure 30 inches by 30 inches to be used for infants. After many nights spent crocheting, I realized that my blanket wouldn't be big enough. Huge bummer!!

My orginal blanket, measuring 23 inches by 18

 inches, wasn't going to cut it.

 

Starting over! My new blanket measures 45 inches in width.

 

At first I was really annoyed I had to start over because I spent about 3 weeks on my first blanket. But this is my first time crocheting and it wouldn't be a learning experience without a few bumps in the road. Good thing I watch a lot of TV because I'll need a lot of time to finish my new, larger blanket!

 

Crocheting is a lot easier now that I've had some practice. At first I thought it was harder than knitting, but now I think they are just about equal. The Girls Team will keep plugging along and we'll make sure to post the final blankets when they are completed and ready to donate!

Glittered Easter Eggs

Happy Easter MIHM readers! This week the Girls Team was feeling festive and went back to our roots to create a unique Easter centerpiece for my kitchen table. We grabbed our favorite craft supply, decoupage, and were on our way tackling Martha Stewart's Glittered Eggs.

I'll let Martha  Stewart give you the strict directions if you are choosing to follow along at home. Her Glittered Egg How-To was very easy to follow (unlike some of her craft instructions!). All we needed for this project were some fresh eggs, decoupage, glitter and a foam brush.

Once we had gathered all of our supplies, it was time for the hard part - blowing out the eggs. Because my Girls Team partner thinks eggs are the most disgusting food on the planet, my dad helped me with this part. (In her defense, this step in the process was really gross, and I love eggs!)

First we used a nail to poke a small hole in both ends of the egg. This was challenging because too much pressure on the nail would cause the egg to crack or break. After doing this, we opened up a paper clip to poke around inside the egg, breaking up the yolk. This makes it easier to blow the yolk out of the egg (apparently).

 

Once both of the holes are made, we used a small straw to blow into one hole. If you're doing this correctly, the yolk will come out of the hole at the bottom of the egg and the egg will be totally empty inside. This part was so hard! It wasn't as quick and easy as Martha made it sound, and if you applied too much pressure the egg would crack or slip out of your hands and break. 

 

We planned to clean out six eggs, but by the second one I was feeling light headed. My dad helped me so I could take a few minutes to breathe between each egg. (Who knew MIHM was hazardous to your health?!) With his help, it took about 30 minutes to finish this step.

 

 

When the yolk was cleaned out, the egg shell was fully intact but sticky and gross. We ran our egg shells under warm water, and let the water run through both holes to clean out the inside.

 

 

After rinsing, we baked our eggs at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Baking them will dry them out and is the final step before applying and glue or craft product onto the shells. Martha doesn't mention this; my mom found this tip online.

 

After the eggs were baked and ready,

we applied a coat of decoupage.

 

 

Using coffee filters, we set our glitter out on the table. Covering the eggs completely took some time and a few layers of the decoupage/glitter step. We rolled our eggs in glitter, dumped glitter over them and even tried shaking them with glitter in ziploc bags.

 

 

Once our eggs were sufficiently sparkly,

we let them dry overnight for 24 hours.

 

 

The next night once the eggs were dry, I carefully placed them in a glass vase my mom bought for them and added it to my kitchen table. Don't they look great?! I'm actually surprised at how much I love these eggs. I'm not a huge glitter or sequins person, but I think these are so fun. Flashy, but classy. :)

 

 

Even though Martha's website has a long list of decorating options for blown out eggs, the Girls Team won't be trying this craft technique again. It was kind of disgusting. But, this project turned out great and was really fun once we started decorating. Also, these egg shells won't go bad, so I can use them for years to come.

 

We also dyed hard boiled eggs on Monday night and I can't wait to eat them. Happy Easter everyone! See you next week. :)

Baked Potato Throw Down!

Guys! Remember last year when my brother came home for Spring Break and the Boys Team joined us for a super fun and tasty Grilled Cheese Throw Down?! Well, he’s back again for break and we’ve invited the Boys Team to another MIHM Throw Down. This time, with some St. Patrick's Day spirit and Irish luck, we’re throwin’ down some baked potatoes!

The rules to this Throw Down are simple: provide your own creative toppings for a baked potato and make enough to share. Although some of us were trying to keep our ideas a secret, by the time everyone was running around the kitchen preparing their potatoes, we all knew what our taste buds were in store for. Everyone did such a great job creating unique topping ideas so let’s get right to it.

First up, and talking a big game, we have my dad. You might remember that he added salmon to his grilled cheese sandwich last year, which was unexpected but surprisingly delicious. This time around, he brought back his signature fish. My dad hollowed out his baked potato and filled it it with barbequed salmon, tomatoes, lettuce, and a lemon dressing. His potato was pretty tasty, and he didn’t stop reminding us that it was the best one on the table. :)

 

Next, my mom presented her baked potato. She made a baked sweet potato, topped with homemade black bean chili, sour cream, cheese and cilantro. You can’t go wrong with chili and cheese. We really liked the variety of the sweet potato (since the rest of us used normal potatoes) and she gets bonus points for making her chili topping from scratch!

 

 

My brother is always thinking outside of the box! His potato was a one-of-a-kind take on another favorite food of his – the cheeseburger. After grilling mini turkey burgers, he added tomato, lettuce, cheese, ketchup and the turkey burger to the potato. To eat his creation, we had to assemble the potato like a burger, with the baked potato replacing the bun. The whole family loved his burger because it was delicious, fun to eat and like eating a burger and fries at the same time!  

 

And lastly, I served up a baked potato with butter and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. The carb overload was well worth it as this potato was savory and scrumptious. I didn’t exert the extra effort to make the macaroni and cheese from scratch, but I think the Kraft version added a bit of nostalgia since we gobbled that up as kids.

 

We’re sure baked potatoes have come a long way since our Irish relatives made their way to America, as was reflected on our kitchen table last night! We had quiet the variety to choose from:

 

Because this was a friendly Throw Down, no winner was crowned. We are all winners in our own right for being so different and creative with our toppings! It was a lot of fun to take the simple meal of a baked potato and jazz them up.

 

With the help of the boys team, we enjoyed a great potato feast, some Irish beer and our favorite Irish Coffees for dessert. Happy St. Patrick’s Day from MIHM!

MIHM Memo Board

After seeing a magnetic memo board on Pinterest, my mom and I decided to try to make one ourselves. The materials we needed were a frame, a sheet of metal cut to the frame's size and fabric. Since the memo board will live at my mom's, she choose a very pretty blue and white print.

We tried to match up the lines of the fabric with the metal sheet so the print would be straight. Then we used hot glue to attach the fabric to the back of the metal sheet. Once the fabric was secure, we removed the glass from the frame and replaced it with the metal sheet.

It took about 30 minutes to finish the magnetic memo board. Overall the project was easy and turned out exactly as we envisioned. However, the pattern is crooked towards one side, so my mom plans to adjust that in the next few days. If any of our loyal readers are trying this at home, we recommend not using a symmetrical patterned fabric. It would make the project much easier not having to worry about lining the fabric up straight. 

 

 

MIHM  UPDATE! With help from my dad, my mom was able to straighten out her fabric in the frame. After hanging it on the wall, she also made cute button magnets for her board. Consider this project finished, and the Girls Team happy!

Sunday Funday

Spring is quickly approaching, and even though it hasn’t felt like we really had much of a winter, my plants sure look like winter got the best of them. Remember these cute flower pots the Girls Team planted back in August? Well, this is what they look like now:

 Yikes.

 

The newest addition to the patio is a lemon tree my parents gave me for birthday, back in September. It is awesome and I immediately got 4 lemons from it! But, it was still living in the plastic pot from the store and was looking kind of sad. We’d been meaning to plant it in the cute barrel I was gifted with it, but had yet to get around to that job.

Between the dead flowers and the plastic potted tree, my patio was looking pretty rough. So this weekend, the Girls Team joined forces for “Make It Happen Sunday – Gardening Edition” to spruce up my patio, just in time for spring!

First we tackled the lemon tree. Since we were just transferring this from the plastic pot to a cute barrel pot, this took about 15 minutes.

I filled the barrel half way with dirt.

 

Then we transferred the tree.

We filled the barrel with soil.

 

Once the tree was potted, we made sure it wasn't crooked and watered it a bit. We didn't need to add much water after this because apparently I’ve been overwatering the tree to begin with. Whoops.

Happy in its new home!

Once the lemon tree was settled, we moved on to planting new flowers in the terracotta pots. Some new soil and a trip to Green Acres for flowers were all that was needed for this update. (If you haven’t seen our original post on how to create the pots, click on the link at the top of this for directions.)

 

Fresh flowers, finally!

We rearranged the pots on the rebar, and like before, ended up with one extra pot. We decided to take the larger pot off the tower and plant the leftover flowers in that. I added the remaining flowers and an American flag I saved from 4^th of July, and then put it by the front door to add some color out front. I also scored major points with my roomie who loves a prominently displayed American flag. :)

Bad lighting, but you get the idea.

 

After everything was planted and cleaned up, the Girls Team was really impressed with the new and improved patio. The lemon tree looks fresh and happy, and the flowers are a bright and cheerful touch to the already beautiful view.

My favorite part of the apartment - the natural view!

Oh, and this spaz we call our pet came along to help. The new smells and interesting bushes provided enough entertainment for her while we were gardening, but she ended up guilt-tripping us into walking her through the trails when all the planting was done. Tough life, right? :) Even though it wasn’t as sunny as we had hoped it would be, this week’s Make It Happen project turned into a nice day spent outside with my mom and adorable dog.

 

Honorary Girls Team member. :)