food

The Great Ketchup Quest – Attempt #1 – Hot Dogs

Posted on January 25, 2013 by pauldelancey

All major American brands of ketchup now contain high-fructose corn syrup. Ugh. It is up to this great country’s citizens to rectify this horror. As I mentioned in my last post, I have pledged myself to develop a truly tasty ketchup recipe sans bad stuff. Here are photos of my first effort.

(Okay, I really wish I could add scratch-and-taste media to this post. Maybe in a few years.)

– 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.

Roma tomatoes – They gave their all Bacon-cheese hot dog with ketchup

Ketchup from new recipe with other fixings.

Categories: cuisine, food | Tags: America, American, attempt #1, bacon, cheese, citizens, Great Ketchup Quest, high fructose, high fructose corn syrup, hot dogs, media, recipe, Roma, scratch, taste, tomatoes | Leave a comment

Cheese-Egg Salad

Posted on January 18, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Entree

CHEESE-EGG SALAD

INGREDIENTS

1 head iceberg lettuce
4 hard-boiled eggs
1 1/2 cups Four Mexican cheeses
1 cup ranch dressing

PREPARATION

Wash the head of lettuce. Peel off any wilted leaves.

Chop up the head of lettuce. (Can you “chop down” a head of lettuce?) This is one of the few times where chopping by hand is far preferred to a food processor. A salad shouldn’t have minuscule strips of lettuce.

Mash or dice the peeled hard-boiled eggs. Again, go for medium size bits. Add the egg bits to the lettuce while they are still warm. Mix in the cheese and dressing.

Simple and tasty.

TIDBITS

1) People from Wisconsin are called “cheese heads.”

2) Nowhere are folks known as “egg-salad heads.”

3) I used to bicycle from Madison, Wisconsin to the tiny town of Paoli to get fresh Swiss cheese.

4) Oh, and I bicycled back, too.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: America, American, bicycled, cheese, cheese heads, cookbook, egg, entree, iceberg, lettuce, Madison, Mexican, Mexico, Paoli, ranch, salad, tasty, Wisconsin | Leave a comment

Cashew Chicken

Posted on January 14, 2013 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

CASHEW CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless and skinless chicken breasts

MARINADE

2 teaspoons peanut oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
1/2 cup honey
4 teaspoons corn starch
2 teaspoon malt vinegar

MAIN

2 cups cashews
1 stalk green onion

4 green bell peppers
1 medium white onion

3 teaspoons soy sauce
3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 1/2 malt vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 cup rice

PREPARATION

MARINADE

Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. Place cubes in mixing bowl. Add soy sauce, chili powder, ginger powder, corn starch, and malt vinegar. Mix thoroughly with hands or until chicken cubes are completely coated with this mixture. Let marinate from 30 minutes to several hours, the longer the better. (That is if your stomach stimulated by the wonderful aroma received by your nose will let you.)

MAIN PART

While waiting for chicken to marinate, add cashews to saucepan and cover with water. Bring water to boil and simmer for about 6 minutes until cashews become soft. Remove pan from heat, drain water, and set softened cashews aside. Dice green onion.

Mince green bell peppers and white onion. Sauté bell peppers and onion in saucepan until onion become soft and clearer. Add in: marinade, soy sauce, water, white pepper, sugar, malt vinegar, and sesame oil. Heat on medium high until all the chicken cubes are no longer pink inside. Determine the color by cutting a cube open. (Unless, of course, you are SupermanTM and have x-ray vision.) Stir frequently.

While chicken is cooking, prepare rice according to instructions shown on bag. Combine chicken cubes, marinade, green onion, and cashews. Serve on top of rice and enjoy.

TIDBITS

1) Ancient Babylon’s women ate sesame seeds and honey to prolong health and beauty.

2) Ancient Roman’s soldiers ate the same things to get strength and energy.

3) I wonder how many times the sesame seed/oil mixture gave beauty to the Roman soldiers and strength to Babylonian women. I mean sesame seeds and oil aren’t smart at all. I could very see how these inanimate objects could confuse these two missions.

4) Danged ants keep running across my keyboard. What do they expect to find here? There’s no food here. Stupid ants.

5) Great! Now, I’ve lost my train of thought. Stupid ants.

6) I wish I could make a deal with them. Stay out of my house forever and I’ll dump every morsel of food that doesn’t get cooked–such as fat, yum–-or eaten.

7) But ants aren’t that smart. That’s why they sometimes crawl over my keyboard looking for food. Stupid ants. Whap! One fewer ant. One fewer ant for Paul’s office, one great victory for picnickers everywhere.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, ants, Bablyon, breasts, cashew, cashew chicken, chicken, chili, China, Chinese, cookbook, Eat Me, entree, ginger, green onion, Kindle, Paul, picnickers, rice, Roman, sesame, soldiers, soy, women | Leave a comment

My Surefire Two-Day Weight Loss Program

Posted on January 11, 2013 by pauldelancey

Suppose you simply must lose weight in the next two days. How is this possible you ask? I am glad you asked. I am here to help. The best thing to do is give up desserts for the next 48 hours. However, when desserts look like the following it is clear an alternative path to quick weight is needed.

May I suggest the following?

1) Do nothing. Your cells are busy doing all sorts of tasks. This takes energy. Making energy depletes your fat cells.

2) Brush your hair. Dandruff is excess weight.

3) Cut your hair. Hair is excess weight.

4)Dice an onion. Tears are excess weight.

5) Have sex. Bodily fluids are excess weight. Good aerobic exercise, too.

6) Worry a lot. Worrying uses up energy.

7) Weigh yourself in the morning. It’s been quite a while since you’ve eaten anything.

8) Visit the toilet before weighing. Which brings us to a great, sure weight loss method.

9) Get a colonoscopy. A proper colonoscopy is good for an easy six-to-eight pound loss. Be sure to set aside a full twenty hours before the colonoscopy for Toilet Day. Kinda gross, but are you dedicated or not?

10) Oh wait, wait, wait, this is critical. The weight reading on your scale varies considerably depending on where you stand on it and how you stand, upright or listing to the side. Indeed, if you do this simple trick well enough, you can eat all the yummy desserts you want and skip all those pesky suggestions above.

Bon appetit.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international | Tags: aerobic exercise, bon appetit, colonoscopy, dandruff, desserts, energy, sex, toilet, weight loss, weight loss program, worrying | Leave a comment

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

Chicken strips with honey-mustard sauce.

Categories: cuisine, food | Tags: 1906, chicken strips, entrepreneurial, families, Good Housekeeping, honey-mustard sauce, kitchen, lazy, lazy Susan, lemon chicken, savagery, taco, tacos | 1 Comment

Blueberry Cheesecake

Posted on December 25, 2012 by pauldelancey

Merry Christmas, everyone.

American Dessert

BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE

INGREDIENTS

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

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: alvin and the chipmunks, America, American, Belles Jambes, blueberry, blueberry cheesecake, cheescake, Christmas, cookbook, cream-cheese, De Lancey, dessert, foreign oil, Grande Armee, Hot Legs, Marshall Bernadotte, Napoleon, recipes, Roaring '20s, Rod Stewart | Leave a comment

Cajun Chicken Breasts

Posted on December 16, 2012 by pauldelancey

Cajun Entree

CAJUN CHICKEN BREASTS

INGREDIENTS

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

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, recipes | Tags: Cajun, Caribbean, cayenne pepper, chicken breasts, cookbook, coriander, cumin, dominoes, entree, Haiti, Louisiana, Louisiana Territory, mosquito, Napoleon, New Orleans, paprika | Leave a comment

La Daube Provencale

Posted on December 15, 2012 by pauldelancey

French Entree

LA DAUBE PROVENÇALE

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds stewing steak or better
2 yellow onions
8 whole cloves
1 carrot
4 garlic cloves
1 10 ounce can diced tomatoes
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 ounces bacon strips
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
1/4 cup red wine

PREPARATION

Cut the steak into 1/2-inch cubes. It is all right to use a better grade of steak than stewing. (As I write this recipe, my local supermarket is having such a sale on top sirloin it’s cheaper than the fattiest ground beef. Go figure. Now if they would only have a sale on gold.)

Peel the 2 onions and cut each of them into 4 wedges. Stick a whole clove into each of the 8 onion wedges. Scrape off the surface of the carrot. Cut the carrot into round pieces no more than 1/2-inch thick. Peel and mince garlic cloves.

Put olive oil and bacon strips in skillet. Heat at medium-heat until bacon begins to brown. (Some versions of this recipe call for strips or slices heavily marbled with fat. This is no problem at all. Simply pick the package of bacon that is on top of the others. Some good Samaritan has gone before you, heroically going through all the bacon packages looking for the meatiest and leaving you exactly what you wanted.)

Back at the range it is time to add to the skillet: steak cubes, onion wedges with cloves in them, carrot pieces, garlic,
diced tomatoes, bay leaf, peppercorns, orange zest, sea salt, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. (“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?” Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Cook on medium heat until steak cubes start to brown. Add red wine. Bring to boil. Lower temperature to between off and warm. Cover with lid and let stew simmer for 2 1/2 hours.

This is great. Give it only to loved ones or a boss at promotion time.

TIDBITS

1) Insects don’t like the scent of onions. So, cut open an onion and rub the two halves all over your body before crossing a mosquito-infested swamp.

2) The French tried to build the Panama Canal before the Americans did. They failed because too many of their workers succumbed to malaria.

3) The Americans succeeded because they discovered malaria was borne by mosquitoes. We destroyed the pesky critters by destroying their swamps.

4) Mightn’t it have been simpler to have the canal workers rub their bodies with onion halves before going to work each day?

5) Of course, the thousands of sweaty, oniony workers would have had problems convincing beautiful ladies to dance with them after work.

6) But just how many spiffed-up young ladies could the workers have found in the middle of a mosquito-riddled swamp?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes | Tags: America, Americans, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, France, French, insects, la daube Provencale, malaria, mosquitoes, orange zest, Panama Canal, recipes, red wine, rosemary, sirloin | Leave a comment

Hawaiian Hamburger

Posted on December 14, 2012 by pauldelancey

Hawaiian Entree

HAWAIIAN HAMBURGER

INGREDIENTS

3/4 pound ground beef
1 egg
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard
1/2 medium onion
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 tablespoon tomato sauce
1/2 cup pineapple juice

4 pineapple slices
4 hamburger buns

PREPARATION

Dice onion. Mix ground beef, egg, brown sugar, mustard, onion, bread crumbs, and tomato sauce by hand. Don’t say “ew” when doing so.

Make four patties. Brown both sides of each patty. Pour pineapple juice into pan. Cook at medium-high heat until all the meat in the patty turns color. (You can clip off a small section of a patty to look. After a few times, you’ll be an adept chef and know by looking at the meat’s outside or by a finely honed sense of how long things take to cook.)

Toast buns. Put patties in buns. Top each patty with a pineapple slice.

TIDBITS

1) Pineapples were a sign of hospitality in antebellum mansions. Many sea captains would return and put an apple atop on of the posts by the front gate. This meant that the man of the house was home and that you were welcome to visit the homestead.

2) However, it did not mean you would receive special hospitality from the lady of the mansion if you spent the night in a four poster topped with four wooden pineapples. Instead, finding those pineapples on your bed meant you had overstayed your welcome. The number of pineapples denoted the seriousness of the “please leave” message.

3) “Hawaiian” is one of the few English words with the letter sequence “aiia.”

4) If the first hamburger restaurant to have gone national had been from Hawaii, our favorite fast food restaurant might have been Nâwilliwili burgers.

5) This would have caused a national crisis as most word processors, including mine, don’t have the necessary foreign character of “a” with a straight line over it.

6) Would a national character crisis be bad for America? I don’t know, but the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was pretty scary.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: America, antebellum, cookbook, Cuban, Cuban Missile Crisis, English, entree, hamburger, Hawaii, Hawaiian, mansions, Nawilliwilli, pineapple | 1 Comment

Arriba Burgers

Posted on December 8, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

ARRIBA BURGERS

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
1/2 jalapeno pepper
4 ounces diced green chiles
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon cumin
3 ounces Cotija cheese
3 ounces grated Four Mexican cheeses
6 to 8 hamburger buns
lettuce

PREPARATION

Mince the onion, cloves, and jalapeno pepper. Make 6 to 8 thin strips of Cotija cheese.

Mix ground beef, onion, cloves, pepper, green chiles, coriander, and cumin by hand. Sorry, but this really is the best way to blend these ingredients. (And your dog will really appreciate you petting him immediately after this step. By the way, have you ever met a dog called Fido or Spot in real life?)

Make 6 to 8 patties. Cook in frying pan until meat browns. Put a strip of Cotija cheese and sprinkle grated Mexican cheese on each patty. Fry patties until cheese begins to melt. Don’t cook longer as cheese will seep onto pan and the grease in the cheese will begin to separate out.

Toast hamburger buns in toaster or in frying pan after patties are removed. You will need to be vigilant with the buns if you choose this latter method as the buns can burn quickly.

Serve with lettuce. Arriba!

1) “Arriba!” was the favorite word of Speedy Gonzalez, the cartoon mouse.

2) Speedy Gonzalez always defeated El Pussy Cato, who had a remarkably flat learning curve.

3) Mexicans drive fast. My wife learned to drive in Guadalajara. The drivers here don’t scare her a bit.

4) I learned to drive in the huge parking lot of the Santa Anita Racetrack.

5) We are always told to buckle up, but when I was growing up there were no seat belts in the back seat.

6) I have never driven in Mexico. Mexicans are grateful.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: Arriba, burgers, cheese, cookbook, cotija, entree, Guadalajara, Mexican, Mexico, Santa Anita, Santa Anita racetrack, Speedy Gonzalez | Leave a comment

food

The Great Ketchup Quest – Attempt #1 – Hot Dogs

Cheese-Egg Salad

CHEESE-EGG SALAD

Cashew Chicken

CASHEW CHICKEN

My Surefire Two-Day Weight Loss Program

The Lazy Susan – The Kitchen Wonder