What's for Dinner Wednesday?

It's the return of What's for Dinner Wednesday.  Tonight at our house is "Darn Good Chili" (our favorite chili) and Beer Bread.  Beer Bread is so simple and so easy, you'll never pay $7 for a mix from a home party company again.  Don't get me wrong, I love all the tasty, simple (ahem) items that the company has, but I never, ever buy their Beer Bread after finding this recipe.  It's so simple it's almost unbelievable.

Your ingredients:

3 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 oz beer, ideally at room temp
3 oz melted butter (or cooking spray)

Preheat oven to 375.  Grease a 9x5 bread pan well.

In a medium bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients.  Add beer, stir until combined, but don't overmix.

Spread batter in greased pan.  Pour the butter over the top (or to save calories, just spray the top with cooking spray, you really can't tell a difference).

Bake for 45 minutes, or until top is brown and crusty.

Turn loaf out of pan onto a cooling rack, and let cool 30 min before cutting.

Yum.  You can change it up by using soda instead of beer (lemon-lime soda is great, or you can use other fruity sodas like orange or Mt Dew, etc) or using a darker beer or a craft beer, etc.  If you want to make a whole wheat loaf, use a total of 3 cups of flour, subbing whole wheat for no more than 1 cup of regular flour.  Otherwise the loaf is extremely dense.