Anger makes me bake strange things.

It has been incredibly windy on Oahu as of late.  According to The Weather Channel the wind is blowing 20mph with 25mph gusts.  I ride my bike around this lovely *cough*dirty*cough* city of mine and let me tell you, it is unpleasant when the wind is this bad.  I can sit on my two wheels and, if I'm facing the wind, actually go backwards.  So if the wind is coming at me from one side or the other, I go kind of sideways and have to put an extra push in my pedaling to stay upright. 

This has been going on for close to a week now, ever since the tsunami hit us. 

It makes me mad.

What makes me even more mad?  Why I'm going to tell you!

Being on the road with the pissy, cranky, ignorant, and generally mean motorists in Waikiki and the surrounding areas.  Two days ago,  I was struggling against the wind on my way home from a quick jaunt to the store to grab some soy milk (the boyfriend and I are both lactose intolerant) and beer (we are not beer intolerant, not ever) to go with dinner (I made a fresh salad, Spicy Buffalo Chicken bake, with Banana Bread Bread Pudding) when this guy honks at me.  HONKS at me.  Even at the best of times I do not take well to being honked at.  So when I'm already cranky from having to push my way through the wind to get home (I should also mention I'd just spent 2 hours at the gym as well, so I also smelled kinda funny and wanted to shower, which is makings for cranky right there) being honked at super, extra pissed me off.  So, I stopped in the middle of the road.  I actually pulled myself into the middle of it sideways, and stopped, giving the guy the dirtiest look ever.  EVER. 

If looks could kill this guy would have died a very painful death followed by burning followed by hell. 

Anyway, I'm in the middle of the road and the guy says, "What's that?"

"Why didn't you just go around me?"  I had been avoiding a giant pot-hole that always makes my hoo-ha sore to ride over when he honked.

"I was trying to be POLITE, but you were in the middle of the fucking road!" 

"No, I wasn't.  Make your turn asshole."  He had his right blinker on, so I flipped the guy off and went on my merry way.


Today on my WAY to the store, still against the wind, another man got very upset with me.  There is a crosswalk that goes from the right-hand sidewalk to the grocery store on the left of the road, where I buy almost all of my groceries.  I waited patiently for the cars going the same direction as me to pass (I was on the road, as a proper cyclist should be), and I crossed to the turn lane, which is halfway between where I was and the grocery store on the crosswalk.  This guy STOPS.  Just stops, even though I had obviously stopped long before he got to me and SCREAMS at me, "WHAT'RE YOU DOING IN THE CROSSWALK!  GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE CROSSWALK.  CROSSWALK!  CROSSWALKS ARE FOR WALKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Wow, really?  Good thing I'm in the turn lane.

Which is what I told him, followed by a very loud bellow of, "TURN LANE ASSHOLE!"  Then I proceeded to lock my bike up on the bike rack, go inside, and sob like a crazy person in the milk aisle.

Sufficed to say, I had a rough morning.  When I got back to my cave, I proceeded to put groceries away with the knowledge that I had one beer from the other night left, 3/4 of a lime, and two cartons of raspberries (buy one get one free!).  This thought had been forming for a while, and now it was coming to fruition: Lime Raspberry Beer Bread! 

I'm a huge fan of Bud Lite Lime, but on my first eventful trip to the store (soy milk and beer) I came accross Rising Moon Spring Ale, the seasonal beer from Blue Moon.  I love me a good Blue Moon with orange, so I checked it out.  I'm glad I did too, because it was perfect.  Limey and crisp, with a much deeper finish than any light beer can accomplish.  Besides, I could tell it would make perfect bread.

So today, distraught from Mr. Angry-pants (among other things), I proceeded to make just what I'd set out to.  I'm still not sure why, or what exactly I was thinking, but I decided to add in a couple few drops of food coloring to the mix.  Perhaps it's the flavor I was going for that I felt called for it, or maybe it was merely that I saw the box of food color sitting atop some obscure spice jar in the pantry while I was grabbing baking powder.  I don't know.  I do know, however, that the green makes this bread look like Christmas and Spring all rolled into one yummy, carby, concoction.  Besides that, it also made me smile when I told my boyfriend as he left for a job interview today that I was making green bread.  He looked mildly confused, but unsurprised.

Lime Raspberry Beer Bread

(Green color optional)

Adapted from Baking Bite's Apricot Beer Bread:

3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 salt
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp vegetable oil

1-3 tsp lime zest

1tbs lime juice (freshly squeezed)

1 12oz bottle of Rising Moon (or Bud Lite Lime, for more lime flavor)

3/4 cup fresh raspberries (frozen or dried works too, but I'd use 1/2 c for dried)

10 drops green food coloring (hehehe. . .)

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a bread pan (I always use 9x5 because that's he only size I have, and for this it's just right).  Mix flour, baking powder, salt, zest, and sugar in a large bowl.  Create a well in the dry ingredients and add food coloring, lime juice, oil, and the beer.  Mix just until there aren't anymore streaks of dry flour.  Add raspberries and gently mix them into the batter (it's ok if they break up, that just means more bites get to have berry!).  Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake for 55-60 minutes.  A toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf should come out clean when done.  It also gets a nice golden color on top and will spring back when you push gently.

Sidenote:

After eating a slice (and enjoying it very much), I would say that it needs a lot more zest.  Like, a lot for it to be really lime-y.  The raspberries also turn a little sour, so you might want to coat them in sugar first if you're looking for a real sweet bread.

Otherwise, holy crap!  This was yummy!