Ditch the potato salad, put away the cole slaw and say goodbye to the grill. Instead, go for simple flavors: some cheeses, salami, pepperoni, olives and good crusty bread.

served by picapp.com

The key, of course, is the bread. Try this one:

Polish Beer Rye Bread
This recipe is for a bread machine and tweaks just slightly a bread found in The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, which I highly recommend.

1 c beer (we last used Victory Hop Devil – the original recipe called for flat beer but I’ll go on record as saying that I don’t have the patience to wait “several hours” so I kept my open only a few minutes)
3 T vinegar
1-1/2 T honey
1 T melted butter
1 T minced onion

2 c bread flour
3/4 c rye flour
1/4 c wheat flour
2 T cornmeal (I use a very grainy milled cornmeal from NC)
2 tsp caraway seeds
1-1/2 tsp salt

(You may also want to add 2 T gluten – not gluten flour. This isn’t a terribly heavy bread but it does both rye and wheat flours which can make it dense. I’ve made it with and without and prefer it with

Place everything in your bread machine, set crust as desired (I like medium), 1-1/2 pound loaf and basic/white bread cycle. Hit start and sit back.

Come picnic time, cut with serrated knife into thin slices. Pack up in a ziploc with a paper towel to absorb the moisture – or use aluminum foil. Keep your cheeses and meats in blocks – you can slice them up as you go. No plates needed, just a few napkins, a knife and a cutting board. Wash it all down with a nice wheat beer. Perfection!

Post from: EveryJoe

Tasteful Tuesdays: Beer Bread (Perfect for a Picnic)

She’s experimented with a host of different breads, but one staple of her baking has been beer bread. There, too, she’s experimented, in this instance with different beers. The last loaf was made with Harp, but she’s also used brown ale and even a pilsner.

Since yesterday’s post was about liquid bread, I figured I’d provide recipe for beer bread. Fortunately, there are others who have covered this topic before, so you can check out this interesting looking beer bread (with cheddar cheese), or about.com’s beer bread and beer pizza dough recipes.

If you try it, let us know how it is!

Post from: EveryJoe

Liquid bread meets the real thing