Cheap and Easy Bread

I love fresh-baked bread and will be putting some of my recipes on the blog over time, but the easiest, fastest, cheapest, most impressive bread to make when you feel like making something but don't want to tear up the kitchen is beer bread. I was introduced to beer bread at a home sales party. It was $8.00 for a bag to which you add a beer. The ingredients of that secret and elusive mix turned out to be flour and sugar. That is it. To make beer bread take 3 cups of self-rising flour, 1/3 cup sugar and mix. Add one 12 ounce beer, pour into a greased loaf pan, and pour two tablespoons melted butter over the top. Bake one hour at 375. It is foolproof, tasty, and really inexpensive when using Miller High Life, the house beer of choice at our house. For company, I will splurge and use a Bourbon Barrel Stout from Bluegrass Brewing Co. which makes it dark and earthy. There is no end to the permutations of rosemary, garlic, gruyere, jalapeno, etc. that can be added to make it interesting. Recently I served it along with a White Bean Chili and a pecan pie for dinner with friends and it was a huge hit. The whole dinner cost about $15 for 6 of us and everyone enjoyed themselves as if I had served a rack of lamb.