Monthly Archives: September 2012

Swedish Meatballs

Posted on September 20, 2012 by pauldelancey

Swedish Entree

SWEDISH MEATBALLS

INGREDIENTS

1 pound lean ground beef (not the leanest, it sticks.)
2 slices dry bread
milk (optional. If used, enough to cover bread crumbs or at least 1/2 cup.)
1 egg
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons allspice
1/4 teaspoon sugar

PREPARATION

Use dried bread, let bread dry out overnight, or toast bread. Let bread soak in milk overnight. This last step is a matter of preference and can be omitted. (Do this part after your spouse has gone to bed, if the two of you disagree on the inclusion of milk.)

Combine meat, bread (soaked or not, did you win the argument?), eggs, salt, black pepper, allspice, and sugar. Make small meatballs, not more than 1-inch wide.

Cook in electric skillet at 340 degrees. Turn occasionally. Meatballs should be at least dark brown all over.

These meatballs are great. They disappear fast. They can be rewarmed in a little water.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe comes from my Grandma Anna. According to her, these are the authentic Swedish meatballs.

2) She said the big gravy-covered meatballs served at buffets were not.

3) Grandma Anna served these meatballs to my Dad’s parents when they came over to meet my mother’s parents for the first time. Upon seeing the meatballs, my Dad’s father said, “What are these little black things?” Fortunately, Grandma Anna laughed, my parents married, and I was born. Whew!

4) Grandma Anna used to say, “Be useful as well as ornamental.”

5) Whenever my brother or I did something to displease her she’d say, “You’re in bad trouble.”

6) This  has been a much anticipated dish at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Moroccan Harira Soup

Posted on September 19, 2012 by pauldelancey

Moroccan Soup

HARIRA SOUP

INGREDIENTS

2 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1/2 pound chicken breast
1 14.5 ounce cans chick peas, also known as garbanzos
1 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 large onion
1/4 cup rice
5 tablespoons lentils
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon Vegetable MagicTM spice
1 tablespoon fresh celery
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro (or 1 tablespoon dried cilantro)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley (or 2 teaspoons parsley flakes)
1 tablespoon flour
2 lemons

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

colander, if you have one.

PREPARATION

Pour chicken broth and water into large cooking pot. Add shredded chicken. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Use this time to shred chicken in food processor.

(Food processors are truly wonderful labor-saving devices for that special chef in your family. So give one as a gift. Also give a box of chocolates or a case of beer, lest the chef interpret the food processor as another step into kitchen drudgery. Remember, an enraged chef has access to sharp knives.)

Use colander to drain chick peas.(If you are like most people and do not have such a utensil, carefully pour the water out of the can of chick peas. Ask for a colander for Valentine’s day.)

While shredded chicken, broth mixture simmers, dice onions, cilantro, and celery. Add chick peas, diced onions, tomatoes, rice, lentils, cinnamon, cumin, paprika, pepper, turmeric, and vegetable spice.

Stir frequently while bringing soup to boil. Simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally. If soup is too thick for your liking, add water until you obtain your desired consistency.

Add celery, parsley, and flour to soup, Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While soup simmers, cut lemons into halves. Serve soup with lemon halves on side of bowl. Add squirts of lemon to taste.

TIDBITS

1) Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour starred in the 1947 movie, Road To Morocco.

2) My mother had lunch with Mrs. Hope.

3) Mom rarely served garbanzo beans for dinner.

4) When I was small my family went on vacation with another family. Their names are lost in the sands of history. A diner served our two families lots of garbanzo beans.

5) To keep us kids happy, the adults promised us a penny for every garbanzo bean we ate. I managed to earn the princely sum of seven cents.

6) However, a kid in the other family ate about 100. I highly suspect he became an industrial giant.

7) I had this dish at the Moroccan restaurant in Disney’s Epcot Center in Orlando. It cost about $15.

8) So now you know what you can charge whenever you get to be as famous as Disney.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Huevos Rancheros

Posted on September 18, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

HUEVOS RANCHEROS

INGREDIENTS

1/2 onion
olive oil
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
7.5 ounces black beans, or 1/2 of 15 ounce can
7.5 ounces refried beans, or 1/2 of 15 ounce can
1 4 ounce can diced green chiles
2 teaspoons cilantro flakes
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon Vegetable MagicTM spice
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/4 dried chives
2 eggs (6 eggs total for the recipe, two here and four below)

1 tablespoon butter
4 eggs (6 eggs total for the recipe, four here and two below)
1/4 cup salsa

4 corn tortillas
1/4 cup Cotija cheese
1/2 cup grated four Mexican cheeses
1 green onion

PREPARATION

Dice onion. Put enough oil in first sauce pan to cover bottom. Add onion. Cook onions until soft or translucent. Add diced tomatoes, black beans, refried beans, green chiles, cilantro flakes, chili powder, cumin, vegetable spice, white pepper, coriander, chives, and eggs. Stir occasionally or enough to prevent burning on the bottom.

Heat this sauce on medium-high heat. Add two eggs once sauce bubbles. Stir and cook until eggs are done.

Melt butter in second sauce pan on medium-high heat. Turn heat down to medium and add eggs. (Note breaking eggs makes the eggs cook faster. This is important if you have allergies to runny yolks.) Spread salsa on top and fry until eggs are done to your liking. (Fried eggs done this way are great.)

Microwave 4 corn tortillas for about a minute. Mix cheeses together. Dice the green onion.

Spread a layer of the sauce on the bottom of a plate. Put a corn tortilla on top of that. Next comes a fried egg. Sprinkle cheese mixture and green onions on top. Ondole.

TIDBITS

1) The English word for tortilla is tortilla.

2) The Spanish word for people is pueblo.

3) Spanish-speaking people have a word for everything.

4) Donde esta las juanetas? is Spanish for “Where are the bunions?”

5) Onions are healthy for your diet and provide great texture. Not so much for bunions.

6) There was a burger place around Oklahoma City that had wooden rabbits outside. They made all their burgers with onions. My friend and I called it “Bunny Onion.”

6) I don’t know if bunnies like onions. Certainly, onion bunnies would not be as popular on Easter as chocolate ones.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

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Chicken Tamale Pie

Posted on September 17, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

CHICKEN TAMALE PIE

INGREDIENTS

1 pound chicken breasts
2 16 ounce cans of chili with beef
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 large jalapeno pepper
½ cup grated Four Mexican cheeses (1½ cups total, 1 cup below)
¾ cup yellow corn meal
2 cups water
1 cup grated Four Mexican cheeses (1½ cups total, ½ cup above)

no-stick spray
PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Dice the chicken in a food processor. (If you are using a knife for the chicken, the chicken is most easily diced when partially thawed.) Add chili with beef, diced tomatoes, jalapeno pepper, and 1/ 2 cup of Four Mexican cheeses. Cook on low heat for 15 minutes.

Mix the corn meal and water until well blended. Bring to boil then reduce heat to low. Stir constantly for 12 minutes. Remove from heat.

Lightly coat baking pan with no-stick spray. (You might need two if your baking pans are small.) Pour chicken mix into baking pan. Spoon-corn meal mix on top of chicken mix. Smooth corn meal mix with spoon. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup of Four Mexican cheeses on the top.

Bake for 40 minutes at 375 degrees.

TIDBITS

1) You’ll have to be satisfied with chicken breasts that weigh close to one pound. Scientists have yet to come up with chickens that have breasts weighing exactly one pound.

2) And if scientists could alter the size of chicken breasts at will, don’t you think they’d work on human ones first?

3) My wife cleaned up the huge mess after this meal. Thanks, honey.

4) I’ve seen “corn meal” spelled “cornmeal” as well.

5) It used to be that cans were always 16 ounces. Now they’re 15 ounces or 14.5 or some stupid nonsense like that. The sneaky supermarkets do that instead of raising prices which is more noticeable. It sure makes cooking a little more adventuresome. So now you’re not only a chef, but a trail blazing one as well.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Margherita Pizza

Posted on September 16, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

MARGHERITA PIZZA

INGREDIENTS

PIZZA CRUST (If you have a bread maker)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup water
2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
no-stick cooking spray

TOPPING

3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Roma tomatoes
2 ripe red tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
8 ounces mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon thyme

UTENSILS

1 16-inch pizza dish or 2 12-inch dishes
bread machine
no-stick spray

PREPARATION.

Measure out the flour and set aside. Pour the water into the bread maker. If you measure the water before the flour, the flour will stick to the sides of the measuring cup. Egads!

Add oil, sugar, salt, and yeast to the bread maker. Do not put the yeast directly on top of the salt. Salt is bad for yeast and yeast makes the dough rise. (I debated putting a comment here, but decided not to.)

Set the timer or the menu on the bread maker to “Dough.” Wait the required time, probably a bit more than an hour. In the meantime liberally spray the pizza pan with no-stick spray. This will prevent the crust from forming a glue-like bond with the pan.

While bread making is whizzing away, mince garlic cloves. Slice Roma tomatoes and ripe red tomatoes. Put garlic, olive oil, and sea salt. Mix with whisk. Coat all tomato slices in mixture and set aside.

Take the dough out of the bread maker and roll it out until the dough covers the pizza pan. If you do not possess a rolling pin, any canned food can will do as long as it is at least 6 inches tall. It is best to spray the can or coat it with a thin layer of flour before spreading the dough.

After rolling, let the dough sit and rise for 30-to-60 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Coat pizza crust with garlic/tomato mix. Put Roma tomato and ripe red tomatoes slices evenly on pizza crust.

Mix Mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, basil, oregano, pepper, and thyme in small mixing bowl. Sprinkle cheese/spice mixture evenly on pizza crust.

Bake pizza in oven at 400 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.
TIDBITS

1) This margherita is a pizza. Eating it will not get you drunk or even give you a buzz. Jimmy Buffet was not “wasting away in Margheritaville.”

2) Okay, you could assemble the sugar and the other ingredients that go in the bread machine and let them ferment until you get alcohol. But I suspect you’d only get a sour tasting alcoholic glob.

3) Margherita Pizza was named after the Queen of Naples sometime ago.

4) It’s difficult to remember to type in that “h” in “Margherita.” My spell checker doesn’t like it either. Why, why couldn’t that queen have been named something easy such as, “Maria” or “Sophia?”

5) My two sons have simple names just in case they create a world-famous pizza.

6) Italy was unified during the years 1860 to 1870. This event, thank goodness, put an end to Neapolitan queens bestowing their weirdly spelled names on perfectly good pizzas.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Together We Will Upgrade The English Language

Posted on September 15, 2012 by pauldelancey

If something has a bad odor, it stinks. What do you call it if it has a nice odor? There is no verb for this. We need a verb. Other languages probably have a word for it. We cannot allow a “verb gap” to occur.

My suggestion: To vanil, from the noun vanilla which has a wonderful fragrance.

Your suggestions please. The state of the English language and civilization at large depends on your participation.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Italiano Pigs In A Blanket

Posted on September 14, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

ITALIANO PIGS IN A BLANKET

INGREDIENTS

1 16 ounce package jumbo biscuit dough
2 slices provolone cheese (12 slices in 8 ounce bag)
4 teaspoons pasta sauce
8 links pork sausage

UTENSIL

cookie sheet

PREPARATION

This is a treat on Italian camping trips.

Defrost sausage links. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate the dough into eight pieces. Elongate each dough piece with a rolling pin dusted with flour or simply roll a frozen sausage link along the dough if any are remaining.

Cut the two cheese slices into eight pieces. Put one piece onto each of the eight dough circles. Add a 1/2 teaspoon pasta sauce on each biscuit. Smooth the sauce with a spoon. Put a sausage link near one end of a dough piece and wrap the dough around the link. Put this masterpiece on a cookie sheet so that the dough overlaps on the bottom. Otherwise, the dough will brake apart and you will have Italiano Pigs As Ground Cover.

Bake in oven at 350 degrees until biscuits are golden brown or for about 10 to 15 minutes. Be sure to monitor your Italiano Pigs in a Blanket to make sure they don’t burn or cook unevenly. It’s discouraging to have part of a baked dish be burnt on one side and doughy on the other. You might need to rotate the Pigs at least once. Heat escapes each time you open the oven, so in these cases you might need to cook the dish a minute longer.

Remember, vigilance when baking. It’s darn difficult to unburn something.

TIDBITS

1) The Italian Peninsula was fragmented into various states until 1494 and then, more or less, under the thumb of Spain, France, or Austria, until 1870, when Italy was completely united.

2) In 1983 I bicycled from The Hague, Netherlands to Nice, France. I put my bike on a train going to Genoa. I made it to Genoa. My bicycle never showed.

3) I’ve gone camping in France, but never in Italy.

4) I did the hokey pokey in Saint Mark’s Square in Venice. This occurred during the city’s big carnival. A lot of other people were putting their left foot in, so it was all right.

5) My gosh, there aren’t many free public toilets in Venice. And at many restaurants there is a fee to sit down at the dining table. Even Ryan Air, Spirit, and American Airlines have yet to do these things.

6) Napoleon, the emperor of France, was almost Italian. Genoa sold Corsica, his birthplace, to France only one year before his birthday.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Loving Poem About Regret

Posted on September 13, 2012 by pauldelancey

Regret*

Said the mother penguin to her chick,
“Bring your furry ass over here
I need to regurgitate
and make room for beer.”

“No, mom, no I want a pizza
A pizza eater I shall be.”

“No, son you’re a penguin.
A fish eater you’ll be.”

“You’ll be neither,” said the fishermen
as he harpooned them both.
“I’ll mince you and can you
For Penguins of the sea.”

“Bummer,” said the expiring penguins.

* – Best Poem at the Southern California Writers’ Conference – 2009. First such award in a decade

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Pasta Salad

Posted on September 12, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

PASTA SALAD

INGREDIENTS

6 ounces tri-colored Rotelle pasta
1/2 head iceberg lettuce
1 green bell pepper
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise

PREPARATION

Cook pasta according to instructions, or boil pasta for about 7 minutes. Shred lettuce. Dice bell pepper. Do not drain diced tomatoes. Drain pasta. Let it cool. Add all ingredients to large salad bowl. Mix ingredients.

(Almost as simple as cooking a Pop TartTM but with the virtuous feeling that can only come from eating fruits and vegetables.)

TIDBITS

1) Apparently a Roman general saw a goat eating lettuce. He said, “Like lips, like lettuce” and burst out laughing for the only time in his life.

2) My Roman History professor in college laughed for the only time over this one as well.

3 My friend and I tried to get a t-shirt made for the professor, with the apparently hilarious joke written in Latin.

4) But it cost too much money, so he didn’t get the shirt.

5) I had a superstition about tests.

6) If I studied enough, I would get an “A.”

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Loving Poem About Bean Burritos

Posted on September 11, 2012 by pauldelancey

The Bean Burrito

Oh bean burrito,
Oh bean burrito,
You’re oh so neato.
You need no meato.

Dear reader, you can tell
Today, I’m fond of doggerel.
Just don’t put that meatel
In this, my bean burritel.

 

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: food, humor, poems | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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