Monthly Archives: October 2015

Cuban Ropa Vieja

Posted on October 27, 2015 by pauldelancey

Cuban Entree

ROPA VIEJA

INGREDIENTSRopaVieja-

2 pounds flank steak
½ teaspoon salt
1 Roma tomato (1 additional later)
1 large onion
1 green bell pepper
3 garlic cloves
1 Roma tomato
3 tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup red wine

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add flank steak, and salt to large pot. Add enough water to cover steak with 2″ to spare. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 hours or until steak shreds easily. Keep adding water as necessary to keep steak covered. Remove steak. Reserve 1 cup of the water from the pot. Shred the beef using two forks.

While steak simmers, puree 1 Roma tomato. Seed bell pepper. Mince onion. Dice bell pepper, garlic cloves, and 1 Roma tomato. Add oil, onion, and bell pepper to skillet. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and bell pepper soften. Stir frequently. Add pepper, garlic, pureed tomato, diced tomato. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add shredded steak. Add wine and 1 cup water reserved from boiling the steak. Continue simmering at low-medium heat for 8 minutes or until well blended. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) Most of today’s younger folks have no idea how difficult it is to make ropa viejas, assuming incorrectly that it just shows up on their dinner plates. Nooo! It’s far more complicated than that. The feral flank steak only inhabits certain supermarkets. You’ll need to go online and hire a reputable safari guide if you wish to bring down this cut of meat.

3) And goodness sake, respect the defenses your ingredients have built up after years of human contact. The vicious onion will make your eyes hurt when you slice it. You hurt it. It hurts you. Best way to cut onions is under water. Do you have good scuba gear? The tomato stains your shirts whenever you cut it. This is a reflex action on its part, no thinking is involved. The only known defense against an enraged tomato is to wear red colored shirts.

3) Some ingredients are our friends, though. The friendly garlic bulb wards off blood-sucking vampires, which is good. Do your research. Pick ingredients wisely and be on guard.

– 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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Mexican Molettes

Posted on October 27, 2015 by pauldelancey

Mexican Dessert

MOLETTES

INGREDIENTSMolettes-

¼ cup butter
4 rolls
1¼ cups refried beans
1 cup grated Four Mexican Cheeses
½ cup salsa or pico de gallo

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Let butter soften at room temperature. Cut rolls in half. Remove a little bit of the insides from each half to make a hollow spot. Spread butter over the hollow spots on the roll halves. Put rolls in over. Bakel at 400 degrees for 5-to-10 minutes or until rolls turn crispy and golden brown.

While rolls are baking, cook refried beans in pan at low heat. Put beans in hollow spots in rolls. Add salsa and sprinkle cheese over each roll.

Makes 8 moletttes or half rolls. Takes 15-to-20 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) This dish is sold in the morning by street vendors all over Mexico.

2) The east coast of Mexico is on the Gulf of Mexico.

3) Gulf gas stations used to be all over America.

4) America’s Cup goes to the winner of an international sailing event.

5) Sophia Loren, the famous Italian actress, wore a C cup.

6) Vitamin C is good for you. It helps banish colds.

7) Ice cream is cold. So is Iceland.

8) Iceland also has volcanoes. So does Mexico.

9) But Mexicans eat molettes while Icelanders do not.

– 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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These People Will Run America in 2016

Posted on October 25, 2015 by pauldelancey

B&Ctasty

Everybody likes bacon and chocolate. Few people like our current politicians. It stands to reason that the Bacon & Chocolate Party will sweep to victory in 2016. Who are these people? Mostly Facebook friends. Some, I’ve even met. All nice people. That’s enough for me to appoint them to important positions.

America’s Future Government

President – Paul R. De Lancey
Vice President – Candace C. Bowen
Secretary of Agriculture – Launa McNeilly
Secretary of the Crisper – Michelle Hickman
Secretary of the EPA – Lee Diogeneia
Secretary of State – Mark Kennet
Tsar of Holidays – Kathleen Smiley
Ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire – Stacy Fisher
Ambassador to Cuba – Daphne Anne Humphrey
Ambassador to Fiji – Amy Buckheister Gettinger
Ambassador to Luxembourg – Donna Cavanagh
Head of the Secret Service – Mike Allsopp
Speaker of the House – John Rucker

Bacon & Chocolate Party’s Ideals

1. Bacon is good.
2. Chocolate is good.
3. We will save our bees.
4. Car alarms suck. They’re loud, go off all the time, and they no longer serve a purpose.
5. We don’t like people who block aisles in supermarkets.
6. We like to take naps.

Bacon & Chocolate Party’s Current Campaign Chest

$0.00*

* = There is some dispute over this. Some say a person found a quarter under the sofa cushions and donated it to Bacon & Chocolate Party’s Super PAC.

Bacon & Chocolate Party’s Corporate Sponsor

HumorOutcasts Press

Visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BaconChocolateParty

– Paul R, De Lancey, America’s next president

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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Ćevapi – Bosnian Sausage

Posted on October 24, 2015 by pauldelancey

Bosnian Entree

ĆEVAPI
(sausage)

INGREDIENTScevapi-

2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground lamb
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Makes 48 small sausages. Serves 6. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION                                                                                      The Big Bang shown with sausages.

Mine garlic and onion. Add all ingredients to small mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly with hands. Make sausages 2″ long and 1″ wide. Grill using medium heat for 5-to-10 minutes or sausage is brown and cooked through.

Goes quite well in somun, a Bosnia pita bread, or pita loaves. Ćevapi also pairs well with ŝopska salata, a salad consisting of: tomato, cucumber, onions, peppers, sirene or feta cheese, and parsley.

TIDBITS

1) A startling new theory says the entire universe started as a big, big, really big, gigantic even, Bosnian sausage.

2) In splendid contrast to old Big Bang thought, this theory explains how the Big Bang started.

3) It started when someone wrapped the immensely vast Bosnian sausage in aluminum foil and put it a microwave that measured light years across, then set the microwave for 30 minutes.

4) Boom!

5) The Big Bang! Billions and billions of smaller Bosnian sausages flung out in every direction. With time, gravity and radiation from the exploded microwave produced stars, planets, Bosnia, Leonard Nimoy, and Taco BellTM.

6) How do we know this? Because we have brains. Bosnia is an anagram for “ao bains,” which is close to “O, brains.” Coincidence? I don’t think so.

– 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, history, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Double Chocolate Pudding

Posted on October 20, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE PUDDING

INGREDIENTSDoubleChocolatePudding-

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup whole milk (1½ cups more later)
3 ounces (3 squares) unsweetened baking chocolate
¾ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
whipped cream for topping (Optional? I don’t think so.)

Makes 6 pudding cups. Takes 30 minutes to 8 hours, depending on how long you can wait.

PREPARATION

Cut butter into little bits. Add cocoa powder and cornstarch to bowl. Blend thoroughly with whisk. Add ½ cup milk. Stir until there are no lumps.

Add baking chocolate to pot. Simmer at low heat until chocolate melts. Stir constantly. Gradually add sugar and salt, stirring constantly with whisk until well blended. Slowly add 1½ cup milk. Stir constantly with whisk until well blended. Add butter, vanilla extract and cocoa/cornstarch mix from bowl. Stir constantly until thoroughly blended. Increase heat to medium. Continue whisking for 3 minutes or until pudding comes to a boil and thickens. Lower heat to warm. Simmer for 1 minute. Stir constantly.

Pour pudding into pudding cups. Let cool for 10 minutes if you wish to eat warm, soft pudding, If however, you desire a cold, firmer pudding, cover cups with plastic wrap to prevent a thick skin from forming on top. Place cups in refrigerator. Chill for 3-to-8 hours. Serve as is to distant acquaintances and tolerated relatives. Top with whipped cream to friends and loved ones.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe is endorsed by the Bacon & Chocolate Party.

2) Bacon & Chocolate stands for things America really like, like bacon and chocolate.

3) Party followers are a diverse lot liking all sorts of things, many of them contradictory. Sorta like Schrödinger’s cat. B&C is on the ballot on all but fifty states and has already amassed a campaign chest of $0.00. Vote Bacon & Chocolate for a tasty tomorrow.

– 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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Ethiopian Beef Stew (Siga Wat)

Posted on October 17, 2015 by pauldelancey

Ethiopian Entree

SIGA WAT
(beef stew)

INGREDIENTSSigaWat-

1½ pounds, chuck or other cut of beef
4 garlic cloves
2 onions
3 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
1½ cups water
2 tablespoons Berbere spice mix
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons tomato paste
4 eggs
2 Roma tomatoes

PREPARATION

Cut chuck into 1″ cubes. Dice garlic and onion. Add onion garlic, and ghee to large pot. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low. Add chuck cubes, water, Berbere spice mix, ginger, paprika, salt, and tomato paste. Cover and simmer for 40 minutes or until meat is tender. Stir occasionally.

While beef and spices simmer, boil 4 eggs. Remove eggs and let them cool. Peel eggs and cut egg one into 4 slices. Cut tomatoes into 6 slices each. Top stew with egg and tomato. This dish goes on injera (See recipe.) or on pita bread.

TIDBITS

1) Ghee is clarified butter.

2) Ghee makers make ghee. They have been making ghee for centuries. Not the same people, of course, successive generations take over.

3) Ghee makers make it on their knee, in a tree, for a fee, not for free oh gee, you see, for me, for we, for a bee, mais oui. hee, hee. The clarified butter industry is an ebullient one.

4) Indeed, people are so happy when making ghee, they sing with glee. And they form formidable glee clubs, and enter competitions. Every year an Ethiopian glee club wins the International Glee Competition, held in Östersund, Sweden.

5) Swedish ghee makers, of course, are avid readers of Dr. Seuss. They’ve also all devoured War and Peace by Tolstoy. Go figure.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Promise in ‘Plan B’ by Mary L. Farr – Book Review

Posted on October 13, 2015 by pauldelancey

PlanBCover

Promise in ‘Plan B’ is the first inspirational book that inspired me to finish it. This is because Ms. Farr’s book is more personal than others and not at all pompous; I mean her horse helped write it. She, Mary, not the horse, certainly relates grand success stories, which is good, but Mary Farr truly shines in depicting the mini successes that others have achieved and that we can accomplish as well. This made me feel very good. It is so nice to be told we are not alone and that we don’t have to achieve everything ourselves, there are many avenues to success, and there are many types of fulfillment. And her coauthor, Noah the horse, is funny. Serious talk about overcoming and sidestepping obstacles interspersed with witty, funny writing makes Promise in ‘Plan B’ excellent.

See her book on Amazon.

– Paul R. De Lancey, reviewer

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Why the Latest End of the World Didn’t Happen

Posted on October 10, 2015 by pauldelancey

NoApocalypse

It’s getting embarrassing. People confidently shout to everyone that the end of the world will end tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes. And it doesn’t end. Again. Oh sure, you might have gotten a migraine or you found no hot coffee waiting for you when woke up, but that’s not entirely the same thing as the complete destruction of seven billion people. Be fair, it isn’t.

So what happens to the doomsayers? Humiliated, they slink off to their innermost lairs, tails between their legs, until enough time has elapsed for them to come out and forecast with complete uncertainty the next apocalypse. This, of course, is a shame as most of the end-of-the-Earthers are the nicest people you’d ever meet. George, who predicted the end of the world in 2012 makes doughnuts at his bakery and has a smile for everyone, including those who pay for their purchases entirely with pennies. Sarah, a newcomer to doom, runs a charity to provide hearing aids to northern Greenland.  Prudence, a veteran with seventeen predicted apocalypses under her belt, provides the voice that says, “Recalculating,” whenever your GPS notices you’ve taken a wrong turn.

All these people are wonderful folks. It’s always a great loss to the community whenever hide because of yet another highly visible, spectacularly, amazingly, world shakingly–oops sorry, bad choice of words there–End-It-All Soothsayers. What can we do to soothe their bruised egos?

Give them excuses

1* It’s the president’s fault.

2* It happened at night. No one noticed.

3* It happened, but we all got better.

4* It happened. It did! It just happened in a parallel universe. You know the one that takes our orphan socks from the clothes dryer.

5* It can’t happen until the Cubs win the World Series. Maybe this year they will and the apocalypse will back on track.

6* Apparently we don’t need the apocalypse, we have ComcastTM.

7* The Earth didn’t get slammed by a giant Coca PebbleTM, because an immensely huge space alien, I mean a hundred times the size of Jupiter, ate the last box of immensely huge Coca Pebbles.

8* We were on Daylight Savings Time.

9* Dr. Who saved us.

10* It happened, but no one will give the doomsayers any credit. It isn’t fair.  Just because people won’t dwell on the negative, preferring to rebuild their lives and face the slaggy, radioactive world with a joyful song.

– Paul R. De Lancey, comforter

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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Not to Do List – Today’s the End of the World

Posted on October 7, 2015 by pauldelancey

CocoaPebble

My quite helpful not-to-do lists are generally meant to describe normal days, like when the Earth be around. But dedicated people keep telling us that our World is going to end and they can’t always be wrong. In fact, a large number of folks, over six, aver that our planet will be annihilated this very day. This kind of news gives what were not going to do a new urgency. In honor of the last day of our life, here are things I really, really, really won’t be doing today:

1) I will not clean the hardened egg off the frying pan. This really is a tough job. I normally put it off for hours. But now, I can avoid forever. Woo hoo!

2) I will not change my clothes. It’s the apocalypse and I’m greeting it in my comfy jammies.

3) I will not worry about all those End-of-the Earth scenarios. They’ve been narrowed down to one, thank goodness.

4) I will not clean out the garage. This alone makes our mass destruction worthwhile.

5) I will not worry where all those orphan socks from the clothes dryer went to. They’ve gone to a better place.

6) I will not spend another day in a world with Windows 8.

7) I will not remove that big weed that’s miraculously–my gosh, I spell that word correctly on the first try–growing in a crack in the sidewalk in front of my house. We will spend our last day in a spirit of live and let live.

8) I will not eat lutefisk, not even if doing so would prevent that giant Cocoa Pebble from smashing into the Earth. Don’t judge me.  Not unless you’ve already eaten lutefisk.

9) I will not hold to my diet today. I’m having a 3 by 3 three-animal style burger, French fries-animal style, and a chocolate milkshake at In-n-Out today.

10) I will not read any software terms-of-agreement.

11) I will not go to Schnecteday, New York.

12) I will not look up the correct spelling of Schnecteday.

13) I will not move the laundry along.

14) I will not change out of my comfortable jammies.

Write and let me know what you didn’t do today.

– Paul R. De Lancey, mystic seer

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: humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Ayran – Bulgarian Yogurt Drink

Posted on October 6, 2015 by pauldelancey

Bulgarian Dessert

AYRAN
(yogurt drink)

INGREDIENTSBugarianYogurt-

3½ cups Bulgarian or plain yogurt
2½ cups water
½ teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

Add yogurt to large bowl. Beat yogurt with whisk or electric blender set on medium until well blended. Add water and yogurt. Blend with whisk. Serve cold. Woo hoo! That’s it. This is simple. Woo hoo!

TIDBITS

1) Run, Dick, run.

2) Dick, ran, ran.

3) Did Dick run?

4) Ay, ran he did.

5) Ayran, is an anagram for Ayn Ra. Ayn Ra is not related to Ayn Rand, the famed novelist of The Fountain Head. Many people love her political views. Many don’t.

6) However, everyone loves Ayn Ra. She’s a sweetheart. Not a sweatheart as many people who can’t spell would have you believe.

7) Does Ayn Ra sweat? No, she’s a descendant of Ammon Ra, Chieftain of the Egyptian Gods, god of the sun, sky and heaven, Patron deity of Egyptian Thebes, who didn’t sweat.

8) Wow! Ammon Ra has an impressive resume. He could get any job she wanted.

9) Was Ammon Ra really a god? No, but he didn’t sweat, not even under the hot Egyptian sun. That’s kinda impressive. Okay, amazingly impressive. So his fellow Egyptians started liking him a lot and when his neighbors found out that mosquitoes never bit him, well that was an enough for them to start worshiping him. Ammon Ra was cool was this. Being a god always got him invited to the most exciting parties. I mean who wouldn’t want to invite a god?

10) Ayn Ra inherited the Ra gene for non-sweating, which is good thing since she lives in Florida. Ayn currently runs a Bulgarian yogurt shop. It’s the most popular Bulgarian yogurt shop in America.

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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