cuisine

Vanilla Cupcakes

Posted on January 7, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

VANILLA CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTSVanilCu-

CAKE

1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon orange zest
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup milk (2 tablespoons more later)

FROSTING

2 cups confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk

SPECIAL UTENSILS

muffin tin with 12 holes
12 paper baking cups
electric mixer

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Assemble all ingredients. This will give the butter time to soften as it approaches room temperature. (Of course the butter really softens when you must go muttering to the store and back for a missing ingredient.)

Put softened butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and orange zest in mixing bowl. Use “blend” or “cookie mix” setting on mixer to combine these ingredients.

Add flour, baking powder, and milk to another bowl. Use “cake” setting on mixer. Add this mixture to the concoction in the first bowl, fire up the mixer again using the “cake” setting.

Put baking cups in holes in muffin tin. Pour the mixture into all baking cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until a fork poked into a cupcake comes out clean.

While cupcakes are baking, mix confectionary sugar, butter, and vanilla extract with blender.

Remove cupcakes from oven and put them in the refrigerator to cool off. After cooling, top cupcakes with frosting. Serve to adoring public.

Okay, okay, maybe you couldn’t wait for the cupcakes to cool down enough to be covered with frosting. Maybe they smelled so good you accidentally ate one. Why then, tell everyone this is your recipe for Eleven Vanilla Cupcakes.

TIDBITS

1) Thomas Jefferson brought vanilla to America. He also wrote the Declaration of Independence, and made the Louisiana Purchase.

2) Those worthy achievements took him a lifetime.

3) You can make these cupcakes in an hour.

4) You can also eliminate musty car odors by placing a vanilla bean under the driver’s seat.

5) It is said that some fishermen put vanilla extract on their hands so that fish won’t smell them.

6) Why they would think fish would be jumping out of the water to smell any passing human hand, I’ll never know.

7) A few hundred years ago, noblewomen used vanilla extract to smell nice.

8) Then came soap.

9) Now you can get soap with vanilla in it. It’s all part of the great circle of life.

– 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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Chocolate Cupcakes With Cream-Cheese Frosting & Sad Sack Comic

Posted on January 5, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH CREAM-CHEESE FROSTING

INGREDIENTSChocCup-

CUPCAKE

6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons confectionary sugar
3 tablespoons granular sugar
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

FROSTING

1/2 cup white chocolate chips
6 ounces cream cheese

UTENSIL

cupcake pan
12 paper cups
electric beater or mixer

PREPARATION

Take butter out and let it soften. Beat eggs lightly. (They rarely ever beat you. They don’t even seem to try.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Put softened butter, eggs, confectionary sugar, and granular sugar in mixing bowl. Use beater set on mix until butter and sugars have blended. Add milk, chocolate chips, flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa. Use same setting on beater to blend all the ingredients.

Spoon an equal amount of the batter into each paper cup. Put the cups onto the cupcake pan. Put cupcake pan on center rack and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until toothpick stuck into cupcake comes out cleanly. Remove pan from oven and let cool for 15 minutes on wire rack.

Make frosting while cupcakes are cooling. Put white chocolate chips in small pot. Cook on low heat and stir constantly until all chips have melted. Remove from heat. Put cream cheese in mixing bowl. Add melted white chocolate chips. Blend with electric beater set to cream. (Some electric beaters have a “burst of power” button. It’s cool, like accelerating a FerrariTM. Well, maybe not. But a cool electric beater costs tens of thousands of dollars less.)

Spread an equal amount of the white frosting on top of cupcakes. Serve to joyous, clamoring guests.

TIDBITS

1) Chocolate comes from the Aztec word “xocolatl” meaning bitter water.

2) My spell checker does not recognize “xocolatl.” Perhaps this is fair as the Aztecs didn’t recognize what sugar could do for cocoa.

3) But the 15th century Spaniards did. So, the Spanish royalty sent conquistadors and chefs to the new land.

4) After a generation of bloody conquest of Mexico, the sugar isles of the Caribbean were safe for hot chocolate.

5) Lacking minimal amounts of No DozTM or even Red BullTM energy drinks, Napoleon carried chocolate with him on all his military campaigns.

6) Napoleon’s energized armies racked up victory after victory until his enemies starting carrying chocolate as well. Defeat for the French became certain when chocolate rich Switzerland defected from the Gallic side.

7) The world today remains in a state of precarious peace, based on equal access to chocolate for all nations.

– 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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Garlic Potato Rice Soup And Sad Sack comic

Posted on January 4, 2013 by pauldelancey

French Soup

GARLIC POTATO RICE SOUP

 INGREDIENTSGarPoRS-

1/3 cup rice
2/3 cup water

2 russet potatoes
1 red potato
2 garlic cloves
1/3 large yellow onion
1 2/3 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup water
1/3 tablespoon Poultry MagicTM Spice
1/6 teaspoon lemon pepper spice

UTENSIL

potato masher

PREPARATION

Cook rice separately according to instructions on package. While rice is cooking, peel russet and red potatoes. Cut both types of potatoes into eighths. Peel and mince garlic cloves and onion.

Put potato eighths, garlic, onion, chicken broth, water, Poultry Spice, and lemon pepper into large soup pan. Cook at low-medium heat for about 50 minutes or until all the potato eighths are completely soft. Stir occasionally. Mash the potatoes constantly until you feel no resistance. (No, there is no masher for human relationships. No. No! I said no.) Stir frequently. Add cooked rice to potato soup.

Supermarket potatoes cost almost the same whether you buy five pounds, two pounds, or just one microwavable tater. So, we all purchase the economical five-pound bag, leaving us with a lot of potatoes. This tasty recipe reduces your spud surplus wonderfully.

TIDBITS

1) The nutritious potato almost single-handedly kept European peasantry alive during the Thirty Years War in the 17th century.

2) Deadly nightshade is related to the potato. Unlike, its cousin, the tater, this plant is a deadly poison.

3) Which is why my recipes never include deadly nightshade.

4) Nor any other poison for that matter.

5) I do, however, use tomatoes frequently. Tomatoes are related to both the potato and deadly nightshade and were considered poisonous by American settlers in the late 17th century.

6) This fear by early colonials of the mighty tomato completely explains the lack of pizza parlors in early America.

7) Salem, Massachusetts became notorious for its Witch Trials of 1692.

8) In 1905, Lombardi’s in New York became the first restaurant licensed to sell pizza.

9) So, the Witch Trials delayed the licensing of American pizza by 213 years.

10) This explains resistance to capital punishment among many chefs.

– 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.

 

 

Sad Sack comic book from about 1967.

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Gateau A La Fleur D’oranger And Sad Sack Comic

Posted on January 3, 2013 by pauldelancey

French Dessert

GÂTEAU À LA FLEUR D’ORANGER

INGREDIENTSgateau-

1/2 teaspoon flour (1/2 teaspoon more later)
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar (1/2 cup more later)

1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup milk
1 1/4 teaspoons orange flower water

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

UTENSIL

9-inch cake pan
electric mixer
PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of flour along the sides and bottom of cake pan. Do the same with a teaspoon of butter. Sprinkle ½ teaspoon brown sugar over the flour.

Put 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt in first mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork.

In second mixing bowl, beat 2 eggs, but not so much they lose their dignity. Add sugar and brown sugar. Mix with whisk. Melt 1/2 cup butter. Combine contents of second mixing bowl into first mixing bowl. Add melted butter, milk, and orange flower water. Mix with whisk or electric mixer on “cake” setting. Pour entire contents into cake pan.

Put cake pan in preheated oven and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Allow cake to cool before topping cake with whipping cream.

TIDBITS

1) Many American beers are 3% alcohol. A twelve-ounce can contains .36 ounces alcohol.

2) Orange extract, a fair substitute for orange flower water, is 79% alcohol. My two-ounce container contains 1.58 ounces alcohol, the same as nearly 4.4 cans of beer.

3) I’m breaking out the orange-extract. Woo hoo! Party at my place!

4) “Honestly, officer, I only had a one-ounce bottle of orange extract.”

5) The officer rolls his eyes. “Like, I never heard that before.”

6) My Mexican vanilla extract is only 1.9% alcohol. This is why it isn’t as popular at Mexican parties.

8) Consumption of cough syrup soared during the Prohibition Era. Perhaps the alcoholic content of 50% or more contributed to this surge.

9) Why didn’t Al Capone simply open orange-extract tasting centers? People would have gotten their alcohol and Chicago would have been spared a crime wave.

10) But I can’t picture him behind an apron.

– 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.

sadsack8

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Baked Chocolate-Covered Doughnuts & Little Sad Sack Comic

Posted on January 1, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

BAKED CHOCOLATE-COVERED DOUGHNUTS

INGREDIENTSBakeCCD-

1 cup pastry flour or regular flour if not available
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons milk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 tablespoons creamy milk chocolate frosting
sprinkles (optional)

SPECIALTY UTENSILS

doughnut mold, or tray, for 6 doughnuts
no-stick spray.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in medium mixing bowl until all ingredients appear to be well mixed. Add milk, eggs, and vegetable oil to another medium bowl. Blend with whisk until mixture starts to get foamy. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix until all is combined.

Spray doughnut mold with no-stick spray. Scoop combined mixture into each dough form until half full. Put in oven and cook at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Doughnuts should be done when they spring back when gently poked.

Remove doughnut mold from oven. Let sit for about 3 to 4 minutes. Gently pry doughnuts from mold with knife or small wooden spatula. Use wooden spatula to gently (Yes, today’s cooking word is gently) spread chocolate frosting on top half of doughnut.

(Lots of people love doughnuts. The primal drive of the caveman to pounce on a bison has nothing on the modern person’s urge to eat a doughnut. This urge is so intense that your doughnuts might get eaten before they are even coated with chocolate. That’s okay. They’re happy and you will have less to clean up.)

TIDBITS

1) So many places proclaim themselves to be “Donut Shops” that I ever open one of those stores, I will say that my doughnuts are made with “real dough.”

2) “Dough” as American slang for money dates back to 1851.

3) I’ve heard that some economists claim that the size of the doughnut hole correlates with the health of the economy. When the economy booms, more dough gets used and so the doughnut hole becomes smaller.

4) My degree is in economics and I’ve never seen such studies, not even in my wilder classes or in the most blood-stirring journals of economics.

6) The exciting Gertrude Stein once used the phrase, “the hole of the doughnut,” to describe people personalities or souls.

7) Empirical economists use multiple equations replete with Greek letters to examine hypotheses.

8) During such examinations we economists like to eat pizza. However, we never turn down a good doughnut. In this way, we are like people everywhere.

– 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.

sadsack7

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The Lazy Susan – The Kitchen Wonder

Posted on December 29, 2012 by pauldelancey

A Lazy Susan is a rotating  circular plate placed on top of a large dining table and, well, rotates food. The Lazy Susan is also the one thing that keeps families from descending rapidly into savagery when tacos or chicken strips with honey-mustard sauce are being served.

The term “Lazy Susan” made its first written appearance in Good Housekeeping in 1906, although Lazy Susans were made in the 1700s. Family lore has it being invented by some Susan who was tired passing back and forth the many dishes necessary to construct the wonderful taco. We all agreed that this Susan was more entrepreneurial than lazy.

Show below are the organization skills of a Lazy Susan.

Lemon chicken

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Chicken strips with honey-mustard sauce.

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Nine Disgusting Food Delicacies – NOT From Forthcoming Cookbook

Posted on December 26, 2012 by pauldelancey

maggotcheese

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gentle readers, if you are courageous and possess strong stomachs, may I suggest a walk on the culinary dark side. Warning, it’s strong stuff.

http://www.culinaryschools.org/cuisine/10-disgusting-delicacies/

Picture shows maggot cheese.

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Blueberry Cheesecake

Posted on December 25, 2012 by pauldelancey

Merry Christmas, everyone.

American Dessert

BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE

INGREDIENTSBluebCh-

CRUST

4 tablespoons butter, usually a half stick
1 1/4 cups graham crackers, usually about 1 package
1/4 cup sugar (used 3 times in recipe for a total of more than 1 1/2 cups)

FILLING

4 8 ounce packages of cream cheese
5 eggs
1 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt

TOPPING

2 1/2 cups, about a 16 ounce bag, of fresh or frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 cups sour cream
6 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup water

PREPARATION OF CRUST

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt butter in small saucepan, one designed specifically for butter if you have it. Turn the graham crackers into crumbs by using food processor. (If you have the urge to make the crumbs with a hammer, it’s probably time to take a deep breath, pour yourself a nice, cold glass of root beer, sit down, and listen to few songs by Alvin and the Chipmunks before continuing.)

Pour the melted butter, crumbs, and sugar (First use of sugar.) into a baking dish at least 9-inches wide. Mix thoroughly with fork. Press firmly and uniformly on the mixture. Bake at 325 degrees for about 10 minutes or lightly browned. Let cool, on a baking rack if you have one.

PREPARATION OF FILLING

Place cream cheese, eggs, sugar, (Second use of sugar.) cornstarch, and salt in large mixing bowl. Use electric beater to combine ingredients. Start on lowest setting and gradually increase the speed of the beaters to “cream,” or almost the highest setting. (Your kitchen walls might resemble modern art if you immediately start with the highest setting.)

Bake for 70 minutes at 325 degrees or until cheese center barely moves when baking dish is moved. Let dish cool down. Chill completely in refrigerator.

PREPARATION OF TOPPING

Combine blueberries and cornstarch in food processor and chop and grind away until mixture is pureed.

Pour mixture into mixing bowl. Add sour cream, sugar, (Third use of sugar.) vanilla extract, and water. Blend with fork or electric beater set to “blend.”

Pour this topping into saucepan. Bring to boil while stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes while stirring.

Pour topping on top of cheesecake and spread evenly. (Yes, you will wash dishes with this dessert.) Refrigerate until chilled.

This recipe can be made in various ways: with or without sour cream, or with the sour cream separated out into another layer. Experiment and enjoy.

TIDBITS

1) During the Roaring ‘20s, “cheesecake” meant a woman who showed her legs.

2) Marshall Bernadotte of Napoleon’s Grande Armée was known as “Belles Jambes,” or “Beautiful Legs.”

3) Rod Stewart sang the hit song, Hot Legs.

4) Chicken legs are deep fried in hot oil.

5) America is dependent on foreign oil.

6) But it wasn’t in the ‘20s when “cheesecake” meant a woman who showed her legs.

– 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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Lemongrass Chicken

Posted on December 24, 2012 by pauldelancey

Cambodian Entree

LEMONGRASS CHICKEN

INGREDIENTSLemGrCh-

2 boneless chicken breasts
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce (2 more tablespoons)

2 stalks fresh lemongrass (or 2 teaspoons dried or 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest or 1 teaspoon lemon juice.)
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons ginger
1/2 tablespoon onion salt
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 cup rice
2 cups water

PREPARATION

Cut the chicken breasts into strips 1/2-inch wide and 2-inches long. Mince garlic cloves. Cut off the root end of the lemongrass stalk and strip off outside leaves. Mince inside core. (Or use dried lemongrass, or grated lemon zest, or lemon juice. Sometimes fresh lemongrass is as easy to get as Icelandic habañero peppers. Just do your best. I feel your spicing pain.)

Combine honey and soy sauce in mixing bowl. Thoroughly coat the chicken strips in this mixture.

Heat vegetable oil in wok or no-stick frying pan. Add chicken strips, garlic, lemongrass, onion salt, lime juice, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Cook on medium high until chicken turns white. Stir frequently. Add more soy sauce if too sweet and more honey if not sweet enough.

You really should have a supply of fresh onions around the kitchen. At the time of writing this recipe my onions had gone bad, surly even, and my wife rightfully pointed out I was crazy to think she’d be going to the store when she had the kids’ baseball uniforms to clean. Hence, the onion salt. Life is like that.

Cook rice according to instructions shown on bag.

Serve on lovingly cooked rice. (Your guests will sense the love that went into the rice and the whole dish and gaze upon you with undisguised affection. And if they complain about the freshness of the lemongrass or its absence, send them to Iceland. If you can place them in the path of a lava flow, even better.)

TIDBITS

1) Yes, Iceland has volcanoes.

2) It also produces bananas.

3) Icelandic farmers have burned bananas on at least one occasion to drive up prices.

4) Cambodia produces bananas as well.

5) I first had this dish in Nantes, France, the hometown of the great novelist Jules Verne.

6) Iceland and Cambodia have never gone to war with each other.

7) Probably because they both grow bananas and understand each other on a deep level.

8) Germany and France have been pretty much free of banana plantations. But they fought each other three times from 1870 to 1945. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

9) Bananas were also a favored prop during the heyday of the silent-film era. The world was at peace then. When bananas disappeared from cinema the world went to war.

10) Besides ending war, the banana’s potassium helps boost bone mass.

11) So, write your Congressman and ask him to sponsor banana plantations all across America and indeed the world.

– 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

Cajun Chicken Breasts

Posted on December 16, 2012 by pauldelancey

Cajun Entree

CAJUN CHICKEN BREASTS

INGREDIENTSCajunCh-


4 chicken breasts

1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon coriander

PREPARATION

Preheat skillet to 350 degrees. Completely defrost chicken breasts. Mix paprika, salt, cayenne, poultry spice, cumin, thyme, and coriander on large plate. Coat the chicken breasts with no-stick spray.

Place the chicken breasts on plate and roll them until they are coated with spices. Place chicken in skillet and cook for about 12 minutes, gently turning them over every 3 minutes, or until spices are blackened. Keep skillet’s lid on while cooking.

You should really try this dish. It’s so quick and easy to make, it looks impressive, and it tastes great.
TIDBITS

1) I first bit into Cajun food when I was in New Orleans for an economics conference.

2) In Louisiana, biting someone with false teeth is considered aggravated assault. Best have someone with regular teeth do the biting for you.

3) Chicken Legs Dominoes is a fun game.

4) Emperor Napoleon sold us New Orleans and the rest of the Louisiana Territory in 1803. He did so because his plans for a Caribbean empire faltered in Haiti. The foiler of his plans? The tiny mosquito.

5) The largest bridge over water in the world starts near New Orleans. It’s twenty-four miles long. I once had a tire-pressure indicator turn on just after I got on the bridge. No place to turn around. Boy, I was happy to get to a gas station on the other side.

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

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