But, what happened Friday?

Bob is taking each Friday in December to both use up his vacation days, and get Sunday School lesson preparation started. Bob teaches the gray-haired class one more Sunday, then Pastor Mark moved him over to teach the "family class" (parents mostly, but no children, and folks that think they are too young to join their parents in the gray-haired class).

My first order of "Tastefully Simple" foods arrived early Friday morning. The instructions are simple, thankfully. And I made a mental note to make Bob the beer bread as soon as I got home from a planned lunch with my old friend, Nance visiting her kids near Denton. Getting from Arlington to Denton is a hoot. It involves traveling up 360 to Grapevine, and 114, then swinging north of DFW airport, and changing lanes in always heavy traffic to I-35E but getting on 121 for a few miles. 121 in under construction, and so it has traffic lights by Grapevine mall, and then there are these BEWARE: "last free exit" signs and I only needed to stay on it for two exits before heading north toward Denton. Needless to say, I will get a bill in the mail in about a month for $2.20 and I will scratch my head trying to remember if we were visiting Bob's uncle, or was this my trip to Denton to see Nance? I think God put some workers on the entrance ramp to a freeway I did not recognize, and so I was able to get on I-35 this time without having to circle back (like last year).

I did not allow enough time, so I was fifteen minutes late getting to Nance's son's house. But, she was ready, and had a desire for Mexican food not found in Ohio. Spinach enchaladas at El Chico. They tasted pretty good. We walked around the small, yet clean and uncrowded Golden Triangle mall. I found some tea light candles for my rock candle holders---candle holders that do not burn down the house if I forget them. And Nance found a secret pal gift she was needing for an office party. We oooo-ed and aaaahhh-ed over the doodads. And then went back to her son's house where his family was just getting home, and visited with them a while. Such cute grandkids, Nance has. It has been fun watching them grow in pictures, and from the stories from Grannie Nance. Her granddaughter gave me some refrigerator art as I was leaving. I needed some more. Usually, my niece keeps me supplies with frig art, but she is getting older now, and our grandbaby has not shared just yet.

When I called Bob to let him know I was headed home---a little later than I had earlier proclaimed, he mentioned that our youngest son had dropped in, and that he had taken Ben to lunch. I am so glad they got some quality time together. Come to find out Saturday morning--they did a little Christmas shopping, too! There is a huge box in the back bedroom to mom from Ben. It is a very heavy box. I wonder...

That sneaky Bob---here I thought I was getting out of his hair so that he could get his Sunday School lesson done, and he was out shopping with our youngest son!

When I got home about 4pm, I opened the first box of the Tastefully Simple beer bread. The instructions say to mix it with a 12 ounce beer, and only for 30 seconds, put it in a greased loaf pan and bake for an hour. That sounded too simple, and so I assembled the necessary bowl, loaf pan, and was so thankful I just happened to have some Shiner Blonde in the frig---seemed like a waste of a good Shiner, however. Now I will have to get some cheap beer to use up that other box. Ha. And certain ones will make fun of me for having cheep beer in my frig. I will be embarrassed to even be caught buying cheap beer. Ha.

Just as I am about to start, our firstborn calls from Ohio. And so we all chat on our phones and there is this echo of our voices on their cell phones. The grandchild chimes in, too. Then we hear an "uh-oh" and nothing, so we figured they went down into a valley or something. I go back to the kitchen to get the bread going and into the oven, when the firstborn calls back, and Bob decides to give them a blow by blow descriptions of my bizarre (to him) behavior in the kitchen: "mom is pouring a beer in a bowl of flour..." Good thing the grandchild is too young to be impressed by questionable Grannie Ethics.

It was ridiculously easy to make---and it turned out SWEET. How is that possible?? Beer is not sweet. I poured a beer in the mix, put it in the loaf pan and cooked it. It is more like cake. After studying the box more closely, I noticed they have other options, like adding spices or creamed corn. Oh, my. I have more choices---but Bob liked it hot out of the oven. In fact, we almost spoiled our supper. (midwest phrase from my youth: don't eat that or you'll spoil your supper, as in, be too full to eat what is good for you). And we finished off the rest of the loaf for breakfast toast. Bob said he ate his with a fork, as it is crumbly.

My question is---who to give it to, and to wonder if they have beer in their frig?? Or, would you need to give a friend a box of beer batter bread with a beer just in case??

Now to try the Cherry Crisp Mix. I don't want to be giving stuff out without having taste tested it, you know.

If you happen to have loads of cheap beer, and would like to make some super easy bread, go to this military wife's SITE and ask for a look at her Tastefully Simple supplies. It is a very friendly, easy website to use.