Beer Bread - My Way

I admit it, I LOVE to eat bread and I HATE to buy bread.

Every time I have to buy bread and check the label I am grossed out

by all the chemicals and unpronounceable ingredients.

Yes, the fresh bakery bread usually uses less ingredients, but the possibility of

cross-contamination with allergens is far greater.

The good news though, it really only takes a few ingredients to make delicious,

healthy bread. This recipe does not take long at all

as the dough does not need to be kneaded and left to rise.

Inspiration for it came from Marions Kochbuch website and

I marked the changes with an * again.

Bread Dough:

2 c. white flour*

2 c. whole wheat flour*

1 Tbsp. baking powder

3 Tbsp. David's Roasted & Salted sunflower seeds*

2 Tbsp. flaxseeds*

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. sugar*

2 c. beer (I used Amber O'Douls)

Preheat your oven to 350F.

In a bowl whisk together all the dry ingredients until well combined. Slowly add the beer, it will foam quite a bit. Stir with a wire whisk until everything is incorporated and make sure not to over mix. This dough will have the texture of very thick cake dough. Pour the dough into a greased glass loaf pan. Bake for 60 minutes and check for doneness with a wooden toothpick. Turn the oven off. Release the bread from the pan and put it back into the warm oven for anther ten minutes. This will give it a nice crust.

Finally, let it cool on a wire rack.

Blueberry Pie with Sunbutter Streusel Topping

A few years ago I came across this recipe for a blueberry pie from Epicurious. In my mind it was perfect! The only problem with it was that it used butter and almond paste, two big no-nos in our house. With all the sweet, juicy blueberries from the farm I just had to recreate this recipe. Thankfully I was able to use Epicurious recipe as a guideline and found this recipe for the topping and substituted the butter and Sunbutter for the peanut butter.

Here is my recipe, changes marked with an *:

Filling:

4 c. fresh blueberries*

1/3 - 1/2 c. sugar, depending on how sweet the blueberries are*

2 Tbsp. cornstarch*

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. lemon zest*

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan over medium high heat. When the blueberries start releasing some of their juices, the filling will thicken. Take it off the burner and let cool.

Crust:

1/4 c. cold lard*

1/4 c. cold dairy free margarine (I used Nucoa)*

1 1/4 c. flour*

1 tsp. sugar*

1/4 tsp. salt*

3 Tbsp. ice water*

In a food processor fitted with a blade cut up the lard and margarine. Add flour, salt and sugar and pulse until pea size pieces start to form. Through the opening on the top add ice water one tablespoon at a time. When the dough comes together and pulls off the sides of the bowl it is done. Shape into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap . Let cool in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. In the meantime work on the topping.

Topping:

1/4 c. dairy free margarine (Nucoa)*

1/2 c. plus 1 Tbsp. flour

1/2 c. brown sugar

2 Tbsp. Sunbutter*

In a food processor combine all ingredients until they start to crumble into pea size pieces. Refrigerate!

To assemble and bake:

Preheat oven to 400F. Roll out the dough in between two pieces of plastic wrap. That way it won't stick and you and turn it over, check if it's big enough and put into a 9 inch glass pie dish. Once the dough is in the pie dish pour the blueberry filling into it and top with streusel.

Bake the pie in the lower half of your oven for about 50 minutes. I like the glass dish for this because you can see if the bottom is browning nicely, too. If the top browns too much too quickly cover it loosely with aluminum foil!

Serve with your favorite ice cream or whipped topping.