Hi ChattyRoo,
I hope you are toasty & warm in your most comfy clothes! I certainly understand about the time factor w/ the bread machine, I used to have one & used it for some of the same reasons and the smell of bread baking is simply the best no matter what the method used to do so!
Now I just latley remember a recipe I used one time called "Beer Bread" using self-rising flour, 1 can beer, and 1 cup of sugar. You would mix all this together and put into a greased loaf pan and bake, smelled just like yeast bread cooking and didn't taste too awful bad! I just do not recall the exact amount of flour in the recipe and the oven temp. Maybe someone else will recall this and let us know! But it was easy and in a pinch you could make it when you didn't have time to make yeast bread. And I like the suggestion KYH gave about adding a pinch of baking soda to the selfrising flour recipes to cut down on the acidity, especially in the case of this "beer bread" recipe.
I can't help you out on the "Monkey Bread" as I have never heard of it, I will leave the honors to KYH!
I do not envy your weather, although her in North Georgia it is supposed to drop to 20 tonight! YIKES
I only like tepid weather, but the cold weather makes it nice to bake {apple pie in the oven right now}
Take Care, CCCathy