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.

What's for Dinner? Wednesday

I'm starting a new themed day, because I think we all can use some dinner ideas.  This is one of my husband's favorites, and when he took leftovers into work the next day they asked him what restaurant he went to for dinner the night before.  :)  I love that!  This is an adaptation from this recipe submitted by Star Pooley on one of my favorite recipe sites - Allrecipes.  I did some modification to the technique (quite a bit) and the ingredients.  It's extremely rare for me to make a recipe with zero modifications!

Swiss cheese is not pictured as I need to get more today!

Cajun Seafood Pasta 

If you don't care for seafood, you can easily make this with cut-up chicken breasts instead.  Also, you can use all scallops or all shrimp if you prefer.  I make it with all shrimp about 1/2 the time, as I can't always find scallops on sale.  If you use the large sea scallops, cut them  into quarters. It is also very good with crumbled bacon in it.

2 cups fat-free half & half (or milk)

1 tbsp chopped fresh dried basil (or 1 tsp dried)

1 tbsp chpped fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried)

2 tsp salt (can use less)

2 tsp ground black pepper

1 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (can use more or less to taste)

1 tsp ground white pepper (sub more black if you don't have it)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 c sliced mushrooms

1 c chopped green onions

1 c chopped fresh parsley (1 T dried or a bit more)

1/2 lb shrimp, peeled & deveined

1/2 lb scallops

1/2 c shredded Swiss cheese

1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese (fresh, not the bottled powdery stuff)

1 lb dry fettucine (or spaghetti or linguine) pasta

Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling water until al dente (see box for cooking time depending on pasta thickness)

Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat, cook shrimp & scallops in a tiny bit of olive oil and/or butter until shrimp is pink.  Add minced garlic, mushrooms and green onions.  Once mushrooms are soft, add half and half (or milk).  Add the thyme, basil & parsley.  Cook over medium heat 7-8 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened (it should coat the back of a spoon).  Stir in cheeses until well blended.

Serve over drained pasta.