Nearly fifty of the world’s finest authors contributed to Bump Off Your Enemies.
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Oh, this is a work of fiction.
– 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.
Bahamian Entree
CHICKEN MANGO WITH WHITE WINE
INGREDIENTS
3 chicken breasts
4 garlic cloves
2 mangoes
2 1/2 cups white wine
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
PREPARATION
Cut chicken breasts into fourths. Mince garlic cloves. Peel mangoes and cut off the fleshy part into strips. Pour wine into large pot. Put chicken into pot. Cook on high heat for 7 minutes. Pour 1 cup of liquid from the pot into a cup and save. Remove the rest. (This is probably not the best recipe for your Dom Perignon.)
Add butter and garlic to pan with chicken. Fry for about 7 minutes or until chicken starts to turn golden brown. Add saved wine, mango strips, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, orange juice, and soy sauce. Simmer at low heat with lid on for 10 minutes. Serve to appreciative guests.
TIDBITS
1) Mangos are the most popular fruit in the World
2) Really?
3) The paisley pattern used on ties is based on the mango.
4) Why not ties based on tacos or brownies?
5) Or even tie pattern with a strong marinara theme. That way if you’re having a job interview at a fancy Italian restaurant and you spill marinara sauce on your tie they’ll never notice.
6) Buddha meditated under the cool shade of a mango tree. Sipping a Roy Rogers works for me.
7) I like to think Buddha would have enjoyed a nice, cooling Roy Rogers drink.
– 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.
Hawaiian Entree
HAWAIIAN PIZZA
INGREDIENTS
no-stick spray
1 pizza crust
1 cup pineapple chunks
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1 cup pasta sauce
6 ounces deli-sliced ham
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
SPECIALTY ITEM
pizza pan
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray pizza pan to keep the pizza from sticking. (It’s not a good feeling to have your great looking, great smelling pizza fall apart because it sticks to pan when you try to serve it.) Put crust on pan. Mix pineapple juice, brown sugar, and pasta sauce until sugar dissolves. Spread mix evenly over crust.
Cut deli-sliced ham into 1″ squares. Place ham squares and pineapple chunks on crust. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Put pizza in oven and bake at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese or crust in golden brown. Now you have a Hawaiian pizza. Life is good.
TIDBITS
1) In 334 BC Alexander the Great, invaded the Persian Empire, changing culinary history forever.
2) In 327 BC, while conquering much of the known world, he discovered sugar cane.
3) Alexander the Great came so close to dying in battle in 334BC.
4) If he had died then, he wouldn’t have conquered the Persian Empire. If he hadn’t have conquered the Persians, he wouldn’t have been able to bring back sugar to the Mediterranean.
5) In 1493, Columbus introduced sugar to the New World.
6) Sugar was so prized by European nobility up until 1800 that many bloody wars were fought over islands with thriving sugar plantations. These plantations required vast numbers of slaves to work them.
7) So if Alexander had died at a young age in battle as Alexander the Mediocre, a lot of conflict and misery might have been avoid.
8) On the other hand, we’d have no doughnuts, no cakes, and no brownies. And no pizza too; the yeast in the pizza requires sugar to rise.
9) So, Alex’s wars of conquest resulted in some good as well. Life’s life that.
10) 2001, sugar is found in outer space. Yay!
– 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.
Cuban Entree
ARROZ CON POLLO
INGREDIENTS
2 cups rice
3 chicken breasts or 2 pounds chicken parts
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 bay leaf
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 red bell pepper
1/medium tomato
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
2/3 cup white wine
2 cup chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon cilantro.
PREPARATION
Cook rice according to instructions on package.
While rice is cooking, cut chicken breasts into 1″ cubes. (If you are using parts such as chicken legs, leave them as they are.) Mince garlic and onion, Dice green and red bell peppers. Coat chicken with black pepper, cumin, oregano, and paprika. Puree tomato.
Add olive oil, garlic, and onion to frying pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion turns soft. Add spice-coated chicken, bay leaf, green and red bell pepper, tomato, lemon juice, wine, and chicken broth. Bring to boil at high heat then reduce to low and simmer for 20-to-30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. (You might have to cut off a bit and taste. Maybe taste a second piece, a third…)
Serve with rice in a bowl. Garnish with cilantro.
TIDBITS
1) Sugar was first made into cubes in Cuba. That’s why we call sugar “cubes.” Before cubes, sugar had always been scooped.
2) People would always ask, “One or two spoons?” when serving sugar with coffee.
3) Indeed, specialized spoons were made for sugar. The first major producer of sugar spoons was Krupp of Essen, Germany.
4) Krupp made a fortune off their sugar spoons. So much so they were able to enter the burgeoning armaments industry.
5) Germany bought so much artillery from Krupp in the 1900s that it started an arms race in Europe. The heavily armed nations of Europe inevitably went to war in 1914.
6) A scarred Germany resentful of the peace terms imposed by the victorious powers in 1918 seethed for revenge.
7) And so, World War II erupted in 1939. The years from 1939 to 1945 were a bummer.
8) The war alliance between The United States and the Soviet Union proved ephemeral. (Cool word, huh?) They soon constructed vast arsenals to intimidate each other.
9) Tensions between America and Russia lessened considerably in the 1990s when the countries’ presidents took the first step toward peace, The Lutefisk Ban treaty.
10) Or so I’ve heard.
– 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.
Hawaiian Entree
SIMPLE HAWAIIAN PANCAKES
INGREDIENTS
8 frozen waffles
4 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 cups pineapple juice
4 ounce can pineapple chunks
PREPARATION
Toast waffles according to instructions on package. Cut butter into 16 pats. Combine in mixing bowl: sugar, milk, and pineapple juice. Place equal amounts of butter and mixed juice and 2-to-4 pineapple chunks of each toasted waffle. Aloha!
TIDBITS
1) In 1869, women of Wyoming got the right to vote. The waffle iron was first patented in 1869. It was a good year.
2) One-hundred years later, the amazing New York Mets won their first World Series championship after years of last place finishes. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
3) The waffle began its illustrious culinary journey during the Middle Ages. The waffle! So if someone calls this era the Dark Ages, waggle your finger at the fool and say, “Nooooo!”
4) The waffle became so popular that bloody fights became common between waffle vendors seeking prime locations. So much so, that a King of France took off time from wars and mistresses to decree a minimum distance between the warring vendors.
5) It has been said the French Revolution started in 1789 in part by disgruntled vendors seeking to throw out royal enforcement of the waffle decrees.
6) America annexed Hawaii in 1898 to ensure a steady supply of pineapple chunks in juice for its burgeoning appetite for Hawaiian waffles. A drastic measure perhaps, but it is worthwhile to note America has never since been involved in any military conflict over foreign pineapples. The same cannot be said for oil.
– 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.
American Dessert
INGREDIENTS
6 ounces cola (Mexican cola still uses sugar)
1/2 tablespoon grenadine
1 maraschino cherry (with stem is preferred)
ice (optional)
PREPARATION
Put all ingredients in tall glass. Stir. Drink. Repeat as needed.
TIDBITS
1) Roy Rogers was known as “King of the Cowboys.”
2) Roy is old French for king.
3) Only kings were allowed to rule France. According to Salic law a queen could never inherit the throne of France.
4) Henry IV of England claimed the French throne in 1415 based on tidbit 3). He and his English army routed French chivalry at the battle of Agincourt.
5) Shakespeare’s play Henry IV and the movie versions by Sir Lawrence Olivier and Kenneth Brannagh were all based on tidbit 4).
6) I’ll have to watch what I put down in my tidbits. Clearly, I have an awesome responsibility.
– 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.
Guyanese Entree
INGREDIENTS
2 chicken breasts
1 red bell pepper
4 garlic cloves
2 stalks green onion
1 medium onion
2 medium tomatoes
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon celery seed or celery salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 teaspoons cornstarch
Makes 4 bowls. Takes 40 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cut chicken into 1/2″ cubes. Seed bell pepper and cut it into strips 2″ long and 1/4″ wide. Mince garlic, green onion, and onion. Puree tomatoes.
Heat vegetable oil in saucepan at medium-high heat. Add sugar when bubbles start to form. Continue heating the mixture–it seems so wrong to say sauté sugar–for 30 seconds. Stir frequently. Add chicken cubes, green onion, onion, and garlic. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add bell pepper, bay leaf, celery seed, black pepper, thyme, and tomato. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes with the lid off. occasionally. Add in cornstarch. Stir. Serve. Enjoy.
Add in cornstarch. Stir. Serve. Enjoy.
TIDBITS
1) This recipe contains celery seed. Watch out because . . .
2) Ancient Romans believed celery to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
3) Modern scientists say celery contains androsterone. This pheromone, released by men’s sweat glands, attracts females.
4) Chocolate has been shown to make women happier.
5) Don’t reverse it guys and eat the chocolate while giving your date a bag of celery.
5) You spend more energy chewing celery than you get from eating it.
6) Celery rocks!
– 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.
Dominican Republic Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups pineapple juice (1/2 cup more later)
1 cup sugar
6 eggs 1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup pineapple juice
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Add 1 1/2 cups pineapple juice and sugar in pan. Cook at medium-high heat or until sugar dissolves completely. Stir frequently. Pour pineapple syrup into mixing bowl. Add eggs and milk. Use whisk or lowest setting on beater until egg/pineapple syrup mixture becomes frothy. Pour mixture into mold or casserole dish. Pour 1/2 cup pineapple juice on top.
Put in oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until inserted knife comes out clean. Let cool, if you can. The hungry hordes might not wait that long. You can serve the quesillo by itself or top it with the syrup from the casserole dish.
TIDBITS
1) Santo Domingo’s history from 1500:
Period Owner of Santo Domingo
————– ——————————-
1500 – 1808 Spain
1808 – 1814 Santo Domingo
1814 – 1821 Spain
1821 – 1822 Santo Domingo
1822 – 1844 Haiti
1844 – 1861 Santo Domingo
1861 – 1865 Spain (voluntary return to Spanish authority)
1865 – 1870 Santo Domingo
1870 – 1872 Seeks unsuccessfully to be annexed by United States
1872 – 1916 Santo Domingo
1916 – 1924 Occupied by United States (which missed the 1870 invitation by 46 years)
1925 – present Santo Domingo
2) The most popular spice mix in Santo Domingo is sofrito and is rubbed on meats and sautéed.
3) Baseball is the national sport of the Dominican Republic. Felipe Alou, Juan Marichal, Manny Mota, Rico Carty, Cesar Geronimo, Cesar Cedeno. Tony Fernandez, and Sammy Sosa all hail from this country.
4) The Dominican Republic gets a lot of hurricanes.
5) ‘Merengue’ music comes from Santo Domingo.
6) What more do you need to know?
– 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.
American Soup
INGREDIENTS
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
2 medium onions
2 red bell peppers
1 cup fresh spinach
3 big tomatoes
1/2 cup raw, unsalted peanuts
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup milk
2 cups vegetable broth
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon Jamaican All Purpose spice
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon tarragon
1/2 teaspoon thyme
SPECIAL APPLIANCE
spice grinder
PREPARATION
Mince carrots, celery, onions, red bell peppers, spinach, and tomatoes. Grind peanuts into powder. Add all ingredients to large soup pot. Cook on medium-high heat until soup boils. Stir frequently. Lower temperature to low heat and simmer with lid on for 40 minutes or until onion and carrot is tender. Stir occasionally.
TIDBITS
1) This Powegian soup has a rich tradition.
2) In late 1863, Annabelle and Clayton Morrison left Vicksburg, Mississippi for good. They had lost everything during the Great Siege even though they had resolutely taken no sides during the Civil War. The Confederate Army had requisitioned all their crops, all their livestock. The Yankees burned their home and all their buildings to the ground.
3) After the briefest of cries, Annabelle had told her husband she never wanted to see their accursed land again. But Where would they go?
4) “I’d like to go to California to grow carrots, celery, red bell peppers, spinach, tomatoes, and peanuts,” said Clayton,
“Why, I declare,” said his devoted wife, “when did you come up with this pla?.”
Clayton furrowed his brows for dramatic effect. “I’ve always wanted to grow all that.”
“I never knew,” said Annabelle. “Why did you never say anything about it.”
Clayton shrugged. “There’s a powerful lot of pressure ‘round these parts to grow cotton. Folks would have laughed at me if I had grown anything but cotton. King Cotton, hah!” He gestured to the burnt farms all around. “Annabelle, I need to go to California, where a man can grow whatever produce and herbs he wants and no one will think the less of him for it.
Annabelle nestled against her husband’s shoulder. “And so you shall. I’ve always wanted to catch a peak of the Golden State.”
4) And so, Annabelle and Clayton Morrison made their way west by wagon train. They faced floods, raging rivers, poisoned wells, and Apache attacks. Some of their fellow wagoneers turned back, but not the Morrisons. Fired by their vegetarian dream, they pressed on.
5) Finally, on May 5, 1864, they reached Poway, California. Their hearts soared at the valley’s majestic beauty. So did the flocks of bluebirds that flitted and swirled about them.
6) Months later they harvested a bumper crop of carrots, celery, red bell peppers, spinach, tomatoes, and peanuts. Annabelle wanted to provide a feast right there and then.
“Not yet, dear wife. I need to go to the port of San Diego. I’ll be gone a few weeks.”
“Land sakes, Clayton, two weeks, whatever for?”
Clayton smiled. “A surprise, a wonderful surprise.”
7) Two weeks later Clayton returned bearing fabric for new dresses for his love. She had not had a new dress in years. More importantly though, he had traded for: bay leaves, Jamaican All Purpose spice, ground mustard, parsley, sea salt, tarragon, and thyme.
Annabelle threw up her hands in delight. “Now I can make wonderful. I’ve already made mayonnaise and vegetable broth and I can borrow some milk from the Hendersons.”
8) Thus Annabelle, Poway’s great pioneer lady, made her soup. And it was indeed wonderful.
– 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.
American Dessert
INGREDIENTS
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup white chocolate flavored cocoa (or an extra 1/2 cup sugar)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 ounces Heath Bar BitsTM
Makes 20 cookies
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Preparation is easier if the butter is already soft. You can accomplish this by simply taking the butter out of the refrigerator an hour before you’re ready to start. (Or get a good aerobic exercise by flattening those sticks of butter with your fists. Show it who’s boss.)
Use whisk to blend flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.
Place butter, sugar, flavored cocoa, egg, vanilla extract, and Heath Bar BitsTM in another mixing bowl. Mix with hands or electric beater set on “cookies.” Gradually add in the blended flour mixture. Again, blend thoroughly.
Roll dough into little balls about an inch wide. Place dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. Leave a 1″ gap between dough balls.
Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand on cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then cool on wire racks for faster cooling. If you don’t own a wire rack, either let the cookies cool for a long time on the hot sheet or transfer them with a spatula to a cold plate. The hungry hordes, however, might have other ideas about waiting.
TIDBITS
1) The egg listed in the ingredients is a chicken egg. You could substitute an ostrich egg for the chicken egg.
2) However, the ostrich egg is twenty bigger than the chicken egg. To keep the cookies’ texture the same you’d need to multiply all the ingredients by twenty times as well, twenty cups of sugar for example.
3) You’d have 400 cookies. Where would they all be eat eaten? At a fund raiser? Church picnic? Would people want to eat cookies made from ostrich eggs?
4) There are roadside stands near my home that sell ostrich jerky. So maybe the public is ready.
5) However, while it is easy to carry a carton of twelve chicken eggs, the same amount of ostrich eggs would weigh 32 pounds.
6) Heavy, you bet. Maybe future Olympic weight-lifting could include ostrich-egg events.
7) Ostrich egg juggling would require much skill 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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