Monthly Archives: March 2013

Bump Off Your Enemies Ebook Anthology Will Soon Be Released

Posted on March 20, 2013 by pauldelancey

Categories: book reviews and excerpts, humor | Tags: anthology, Bowen, Bump Off Your Enemies, Candace C. Bowen, ebook, murder, Paul R. De Lancey | 2 Comments

Shorba Baida – Algerian Chicken Soup Recipe

Posted on March 19, 2013 by pauldelancey

Algerian Soup

SHORBA BAIDA
(Chicken Soup)

INGREDIENTS

2 chicken breasts
1 medium onion
2 inch cinnamon stick
2 large tomatoes
10 ounce can chick peas
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon basmati rice
1 tablespoon barley
2 large tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon coriander
1/2 tablespoon parsley flakes
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder
Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cut chicken breasts into 1/2″ cubes. Mince the onion. Grind the cinnamon stick until you get powder. Dice the tomatoes. Drain the chick peas.

Use medium-high heat to sauté the chicken, onion, and cinnamon with olive oil in Dutch oven. Cook for 5-to-10 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently.

Add chick peas, chicken broth, lemon juice, rice, barley, tomatoes, chili powder, parsley, pepper, sat, and tumeric. Cover the Dutch oven and simmer on warm heat for about 1 hour or until rice and barley are soft.

This is great. People love it. Eat your share while you can.

TIDBITS

1) This heavenly soup is the reason the French conquered Algeria in 1830.

2) This heavenly soup is the reason Algeria threw out France in 1962. The Algerians didn’t want to share.

3) Did the Algerians get any culinary benefits from 132 years of Gallic occupation?

4) I hope so. A Vietnamese man once said the only benefit his countrymen derived from French colonial rule was the baguette.

5) Vietnamese culinary artists combined the baguettes with their way of preparing meat to produce the tasty and world-famous banh mi sandwiches.

6) America fought in Vietnam for the banh mi sandwiches. And so it goes.

– 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: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: Algeria, Algerian, America, baguettes, banh mi, barley, basmati, broth, chick peas, chicken soup, cinnamon, cookbook, culinary, De Lancey, Dutch, France, French, Gallic, lemon juice, parsley, pepper, recipe, recipes, rice, shorba, shorba baida, tumeric, Vietnam, Vietnamese | Leave a comment

Powegian Garlic Bread Soup Recipe

Posted on March 16, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Soup

POWEGIAN GARLIC BREAD SOUP

INGREDIENTS

2 10″ garlic bread halves
3 garlic cloves
3 stalks green onion
1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium yellow onion
6 Roma tomatoes
1 green bell pepper
3 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 eggs

SPECIALTY UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Dice tomatoes and green bell pepper. Cut garlic bread into 1/2″ slices. Mince garlic, green onion, and yellow onion. Sauté bread, garlic, green onion, and yellow onion with olive oil in Dutch oven on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until onions begin to soften. Stir frequently.

Add broth, tomato, green, bell pepper, sour cream, Italian seasoning, and pepper. Cook on high heat until soup begins to boil. Stir frequently. Add eggs. Stir frequently until eggs are cooked to your desired level of doneness. Not a good time to contemplate the infinite.

Serve to happy hungry hordes.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe uses three eggs. In the stateroom scene from the movie Monkey Business the zany Harpo Marx constantly asks for two eggs.

2) Harpo Marx is not related to Karl Marx.

3) Karl Marx was not at all zany, preaching constantly for a worker-run state via violent revolution.

4) The comedic career of Karl Marx never got anywhere. Indeed, it is doubtful he even tried.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, America, American, bread, Dutch, eggs, garlic, Harpo Marx, hordes, Italian, Karl Marx, Marx, Monkey Business, movie, Nook, Poway, Powegian, revolution, Roma, soup, tomatoes, zany | Leave a comment

Sale! Sale! Sale On Corporate Sponsorships For Bump Off Your Enemies Literary Event

Posted on March 13, 2013 by pauldelancey

I had previously stated that corporate sponsorships of the *Bump Off Your Enemies* literary events must be $100,000. However, with the economy’s recovery from the Great Recession being wobbly at best and companies spending their excess cash on investment we’ve received few, read zero, corporate sponsorships.

So for today only, corporate sponsorships for this great event can be had for the quite reasonable amount of $1.98.

Undertakers, this is a natural event to sponsor.

Join the *Bump Off Your Enemies* tsunami.

Authors Candace C. Bowen and Paul R. De Lancey invite you to fictionally “Bump Off” your enemies in 200 words or fewer.

Enemies do not have to be specific people. They can be types of people such as telemarketers or people who block aisles in supermarkets. Two winners will be crowned Kingpin/Queenpin. Winning entries with a short bio of the winners will be posted on Facebook, Paul De Lancey’s blogsite (www.pauldelancey.com), his website (www.lordsoffun.com), and Candace C. Bowen’s website (www.knightseries.com). Good Luck!

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: humor | Tags: authors, Bowen, Bump Off Your Enemies, Candace C. Bowen, corporate, De Lancey, Great Recession, investment, knightseries, lordsoffun, Paul R. De Lancey, sponsorships, supermarkets, telemarketers, tsunami | Leave a comment

Hungarian Goulash Recipe

Posted on March 12, 2013 by pauldelancey

Hungarian Entree

GOULASH

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds pork tenderloin
3 red potatoes
1 1/2 medium onions
1 garlic clove
2 medium carrots
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cups pork or beef broth
1/2 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon flour
1/3 cup sour cream

SPECIALTY UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cut pork into 1″ cubes. Dice potatoes. Mince onion and garlic. Dice carrots. Put vegetable oil in Dutch oven. Add onion and garlic. Sauté onions and garlic at medium-high heat for about5 minutes or until onions are soft. Stir frequently. Add pork cubes. Sauté for about 20 minutes on medium heat or until pork cubes start to brown. Stir frequently.

Add potato, carrot, broth, paprika, parsley, pepper, salt, and thyme. Cook on low heat with lid on for about 2 1/2 hours or until pork and potato are tender.

Remove from heat. Add flour and sour cream. Stir and serve to lucky guests or family.

TIDBITS

1) I went to Hungary in 1972 with my parents and brother.

2) As was expected, Hungarian goulash was everywhere. I was in heaven.

3) The Soviet Army was there as well. That was not so heavenly. Indeed, there were signs on roads telling us not to take photos of there army bases.

4) Foreigners were not allowed to take Hungarian money, the forint, out of the country. So my family like many others bought a lot of Hungarian chocolate before we left.

5) The Soviet Army left a few decades later. Because of my visit? Who can say.

6) But the Hungarian love for goulash remains strong as ever. Life goes on. Rainbows continue to dot the Hungarian landscape.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes | Tags: Amazon, broth, Dutch, entree, forint, goulash, Hungarian, Hungary, Nook, onion, oven, paprika, parsley, pepper, pork, rainbows, saute, sea salt, sour cream, Soviet, Soviet Army, tenderloin, thyme | Leave a comment

How To Make Polite Conversation With Ghosts

Posted on March 11, 2013 by pauldelancey

Ghosts were people too. They have feelings. Indeed, many of them are sensitive spirits. Many of them fly away at even the mention of an exorcism. Remember manners are always are must whether dealing with a friend, a socially undesirable person such as a cannibal or telemarketer, and even someone from the Great Beyond.

With that in mind here are several responses designed to make Joe or Jane Ghost feel useful and at ease.

Ghost: I’ve been dead for 126 years.
You: You haven’t aged a bit. You don’t look a day over 29.

Ghost: I’ve been wandering these halls for 423 years.
You: Oh thank goodness, you must know where to find the bathroom. I’ve been holding it in for nearly an hour.

Ghost: Do I scare you?
You: No, not a bit. You can’t be a politician. I can see right through you.

Ghost: I haven’t eaten in centuries.
You: There’s only lutefisk in the fridge.

Ghost: My business partner murdered me last year.
You: He’s being audited.

Ghost: I left the water running.
You: I turned it off.

Ghost: I have no purpose
You: Would you help me find my car keys?

Ghost: I frighten to death nearly every one I chance upon.
You: Could I give you my ex’s address.

Ghost: I can never feel the touch of a human again.
You: Dentists are people.

P.S. The size of the photo is medium.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: humor | Tags: audit, business, car keys, conversation, dentists, ghosts, lutefisk, medium, murder, polite, politician | Leave a comment

Putting Our Dead-Beat Ghosts To Work

Posted on March 9, 2013 by pauldelancey

For too long American ghosts have been living the high life feasting on our psychic energy.

What do these ghosts give us in return? Nothing, and that’s bad for us living folks. And truly, subsisting on stealing our psychic energy has to be demoralizing to these ghosts who haven’t done an honest day’s work in their deaths.

Likewise, it’s time for us the living to get over our prejudice over hiring dead workers. Let’s face it, being dead is one of life’s truly enduring resume stains. Can you recall even one instance of a ghost getting a job over an able-bodied person. I though not.

But it needn’t be this way. There are many jobs that ghosts can do better than the living. Please consider:

1) Hiring ghosts as security guards. They’d scare the heck out of robbers and even if tempted wouldn’t be able to cart away your valuables.

2) Use them as night lights. Look at how the eyes of the young woman in this picture. See how they glow. Don’t you want a little bit of light when you need to visit the bathroom at 3 am?

3) They’d be great for the CIA. They can fly anywhere, pass through and spy on anyone without being seen.

4) They’d be superb scouts for our armed forces. Even if caught–and how would that happen–how could any enemy kill them?

5) They could periodically check inside our nuclear reactors for leaks. What could radiation do to them? Many ghosts already glow a bit.

6) Nighttime security. Living people hate working at night and by themselves. Ghosts love it.

Ghosts and people working together. It’s a win-win situation.

*****************************************************

Still time to enter the *Bump Off Your Enemies* Literary Event
Hosted by Candace C. Bowen and me, Paul R. De Lancey
https://www.facebook.com/events/501973503178459/

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: humor | Tags: America, American, armed forces, bathroom, Bump Off Your Enemies, Candace C. Bowen, CIA, De Lancey, dead, dead-beat, event, Facebook, ghosts, literary, nuclear reactors, Paul, psychic energy, radiation, robbers, security guards, spy, welfare, work | Leave a comment

Potato Chervil Soup Recipe

Posted on March 8, 2013 by pauldelancey

French Soup

POTATO CHERVIL SOUP

INGREDIENTS

3 medium brown potatoes
1/2 onion
1 medium carrot
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/4 cups vegetable broth
3/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons chervil
1/2 teaspoon French four spice (Muntok white pepper, nutmeg, ginger, powdered cloves)
1/4 teaspoon parsley

PREPARATION

Peel potatoes. Dice potato, onion, and carrot. Put potato, onion, butter, and olive oil in large pot. Sauté potato and onion on medium heat for about 10 minutes or until potato and onion begin to soften. Stir frequently.

Add diced carrot, vegetable broth, milk, chervil, French four spice, and parsley to the pot. Cook for 20 minutes. Start at medium heat reducing to low when soup starts to boil. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) People use chervil a lot more during the Lenten season than other times as it symbolizes new life and rebirth.

2) People often give up foods for Lent.

3) I always give up lutefisk.

4) Successfully.

5) During all the non-Lenten times as well.

4) I looked up fun facts for chervil on the internet. I found chervil improves the taste of radishes growing next to it.

5) Fun fact, you bet.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: butter, chervil, cloves, cookbook, De Lancey, France, French, ginger, internet, Kindle, Lent, Lenten, lutefisk, Muntok, Nook, nutmeg, olive oil, pepper, potato, radishes, rebirth, recipe, recipes, soup | Leave a comment

Herb Substitutions

Posted on March 7, 2013 by pauldelancey

HERB SUBSTITUTIONS

There comes a moment in every chef’s life when he or she simply doesn’t have every herb needed for that devastatingly delicious recipe and guests are arriving in 10 minutes and my gosh, oh my gosh. Fret not, simply consult the below list of herb substitutions and restore serenity to your life.

Basil – Italian seasoning, marjoram, oregano, thyme
Chervil – parsley, tarragon
Chive – green onion, leek, onion
Cilantro – chervil, parsley
Italian seasoning – basil, marjoram, oregano, parsley, red pepper (ground), rosemary, sage, savory, thyme
Mint – basil, marjoram, rosemary
Marjoram – basil, Italian seasoning, oregano, savory, thyme
Mustard, powder – horseradish powder, wasabi powder (1/4 times as much), prepared mustard (3 times as much)
Oregano – basil, Italian seasoning, marjoram, thyme
Parsley – basil, chervil, cilantro, Italian seasoning
Poultry seasoning – marjoram, rosemary, savory
Rosemary – Italian seasoning, poultry seasoning, thyme, tarragon
Sage – marjoram, poultry seasoning, rosemary, savory,
Savory – Italian seasoning, marjoram, poultry seasoning, sage, thyme
Tarragon – chervil, fennel seed, aniseed
Thyme – basil, Italian seasoning, marjoram, oregano, savory

According to my Webster’s New World Dictionary, an herb is, “any seed plant whose stem withers away to the ground after each season’s growth, as distinguished from a tree or shrub whose woody stem lives from year to year.”

Hot stuff, you betcha.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, Uncategorized | Tags: aniseed, basil, chef, chervil, cookbook, De Lancey, dictionary, fennel, herb, herb substitution, herbs, hot stuff, Italian, leek, marjoram, mint, mustard, onion, oregano, parsley, recipes, rosemary, sage, savoy, serenity, tarragon, thyme, wasabi, Webster's | Leave a comment

Spice Substitutions

Posted on March 6, 2013 by pauldelancey

SPICE SUBSTITUTIONS

Not everyone has 100 bottles and bags of spices and herbs. Not everyone wants to drive five miles to a grocery store just to get one spice, particularly if the contents in your pan are about to burn. Dear harried chefs, this spice substitution list is dedicated to you.

Allspice – Cassia, cinnamon, ginger, mace, nutmeg, cloves (ground)
Aniseed – fennel seed, anise extract (only a few drops)
Annato powder – turmeric
Cardamom – cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
Cassia – allspice, cinnamon
Chili powder – cumin, hot pepper sauce, oregano
Cinnamon – allspice (use 1/4 as much), cassia, mace, nutmeg
Cloves, ground – allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg
Cumin – chili powder
Fennel seed – aniseed
Ginger – allspice, chili powder, cardamom, mace, nutmeg
Mace – allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
Mustard, powder – horseradish powder, wasabi powder (1/4 times as much), prepared mustard (3 times as much)
Nutmeg – allspice, cardamom, ginger, mace
Saffron – Only a dash for color of: annato powder, turmeric
Turmeric – annato powder, mustard powder

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor, international, recipes | Tags: allspice, aniseed, annato, cardamom, cassia, chefs, chili, cinnamon, cookbook, cumin, De Lancey, fennel, ginger, grocery, herbs, mace, mustard, nutmeg, recipes, saffron, spice, spice substitutions, substitutions, turmeric | Leave a comment

Monthly Archives: March 2013

Bump Off Your Enemies Ebook Anthology Will Soon Be Released

Shorba Baida – Algerian Chicken Soup Recipe

Powegian Garlic Bread Soup Recipe

Sale! Sale! Sale On Corporate Sponsorships For Bump Off Your Enemies Literary Event

Hungarian Goulash Recipe

GOULASH

How To Make Polite Conversation With Ghosts

Putting Our Dead-Beat Ghosts To Work