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Matambre, Argentinian Stuffed Flank Steak

Posted on October 2, 2015 by pauldelancey

Argentinian Entree

MATAMBRE
(stuffed flank steak)

INGREDIENTSMatambre-

2 pounds flank steak (or skirt steak)
2 eggs
2 carrots
1 celery stalk
2 garlic cloves
1 large onion
2 tablespoons olive oil (2 more tablespoons later)
¼ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon parsley
¼ teaspoon thyme
5 ounces spinach
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cups beef stock
1½ cup red wine

Makes 4 plates. Takes 2 hours.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

Dutch oven
kitchen mallet
kitchen twine

PREPARATION

Butterfly steak if more than 1″ thick by slicing it lengthwise from one side to ½” of the other side. Pound the steak to flatten to less than ½” thick and to even out the thickness. Add eggs to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Boil for 9 minutes. Remove eggs and let them cool. Peel eggs. Cut each into 4 slice along their lengths. While eggs boil, mince carrots, celery, garlic, and onion. Add carrot, celery, garlic, onion, and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens.

Rub pepper and salt into butterflied flank steak. Sprinkle carrot/celery/onion mixture, parsley, and thyme over steak leaving a ½” border along the sides. Layer the spinach over the oniony mixture. Top with egg slices.

Tightly roll up steak into a long roll. Tie steak with kitchen twine. Tie at 1″ intervals. Put 2 tablespoons olive oil in second pan. Add steak roll to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5-to-8 minutes or until steak is golden brown on all sides. Turn steak roll occasionally to ensure even browning. Add beef stock and red wine. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for about 1½ hours or until meat is quite tender. Cover Dutch oven if liquid doesn’t completely cover the steak roll. Turn occasionally to ensure even cooking.

Remove beef and place on cutting board. Cut steak roll crosswise into ½” slices. Add slices to plate. Top with beef stock/wine as desired. Goes well with small boiled potatoes such as Yukon gold. This dish is also quite tasty when served cold. Save the leftover beef stock/wine. It makes an excellent base for soup.

TIDBITS

1) Matambre is an anagram for Beam MartTM.

2) Beam Mart is your one-stop place for all sorts of beams.

3) High beams is quite a popular sport. All of the high beams used in the Olympics are manufactured and sold by Beam Mart.

4) All.

5) India and Pakistan once were the favorites to host the Olympics for a particular year. Both tried to outdo each other with building new, state-of-the-art athletic venues and with wining and dining the Olympic committee. The competition between the two countries grew fierce. Tensions escalated rapidly. The two nations rushed infantry and tanks to their common border. Fighter planes and bombers were armed. Military commands took their “Launching Nuclear Weapons For Idiots” off their bookshelves. Generals started to jaywalk. Things looked grim.

6) Beam Mart stepped in. The company, in no-uncertain terms, told India and Pakistan to back off. If they went to war, Beam Mart would stop supplying high beams. No high beams for practicing, no gold medals for the high beams. No gold medals for the high beams, no prestige at all in the international community. Other nations, Liechtenstein included, would laugh at them. Pooh pooh even.

7) The generals wavered.

8) And no high beams for your fancy automobiles, thundered Beam Mart, if you go to war. But we must have something to show our peoples for all our effects, whimpered the military leaders.

9) So, Beam Mart sold them their famous Beam SmilesTM with only a 10% markup. The leaders of Pakistan and India quickly agreed to a comprehensive peace. And the people of both lands smiled and smiled and beamed and beamed.

10) This happy state of affairs didn’t last forever, of course, but things never again got as tense between these two countries ever again. The leaders know firsthand the power of Beam Mart and make sure never ever again to rattle their sabers so vigorously.

11) Of course, the world still has hot spots. In these cases, at least one of the angry nations has no desire to win Olympic gold medals for the high beams. It seems incredible that countries could act that way, but it’s true. There is a limit to corporate diplomacy, even for Beam Mart.

– 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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Brownies

Posted on September 26, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

BROWNIES

INGREDIENTSBrownies-

13 tablespoons butter
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
½ cup flour
no-stick spray.

Brownies assuming a defensive posture against lions.

SPECIAL ITEM

8″-square baking pan
or 8″-square oven-safe casserole

Makes 16 brownies. Takes 40 minutes to cook and 45 minutes to cool, if you can wait that long.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees if you are using a baking pan and if 300 degrees if you are using a casserole dish. Add butter to pan. Cook using low-medium heat until butter melts. Stir frequently. Add cocoa. Reduce heat to low. Mix thoroughly with whisk until all lumps disappear. Remove from heat. Add salt, sugar, and vanilla extract one at a time to pan. Mix with whisk after each ingredient until mixture becomes thoroughly blended. Add eggs one at time. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add flour. Mix batter with whisk until you can no longer see any flour and there are no lumps.

Spray baking pan with no-stick spray. Pour batter into baking pan. Smooth batter with spatula. Bake batter at 325 degrees for 20-to-25 minutes or until a toothpick stuff into middle of batter comes out clean. Carefully remove 8″-x-8″ brownie from baking pan. Let cool for 45 minutes. Cut into 16 2″-square brownies.

TIDBITS

1) The natural enemy of the feral brownie is the lion. This is why brownies inhabiting the African grasslands travel in threes. (See above picture.) There is safety in numbers.

2) Aerial combat first occurred during World War One. Single planes proved easy prey to multiple enemy planes. However, there was no favored flight formation until Burton Manley from South Africa wrote the Royal Flying Corps how brownies covering territory in a certain pattern–Shown above–rarely suffered losses to even the most ferocious lions and that maybe their pilots should do the same. The Royal Flying Corps gave it a try. It worked! British pilots dominated the skies. The war would be won. A grateful British government gave Manley a medal, a cookie and some milk.

– 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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Syrian Chicken Casserole (fatti dejaj)

Posted on September 14, 2015 by pauldelancey

Syrian Entree

FATTI DEJAJ
(chicken casserole)

INGREDIENTS – MAINFattiDejaj-

1 cup rice
2 cups chicken stock (additional ⅔ cup later)
3 chicken breasts
2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup chicken stock
3 pita loaves or rounds
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup tahini
2 cups plain yogurt
1½ tablespoon ghee or butter
1 cup almonds, cashews, pistachios, or combination (slivered or halves)
½ tablespoon parsley

SPECIAL UTENSILS

2 casserole dishes

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Add rice and 2 cups chicken stock to rice cooker or pot. Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves. Add chicken cubes, garlic, bay leaf, pepper, salt, and ⅔ cup chicken stock to first casserole dish. Coat chicken cubes thoroughly. Bake at 450 degrees for 45minutes. Stir every 15 minutes to keep chicken from drying out. Remove bay leaf.

While chicken bakes, cut pita rounds into 1″ squares. Add pita squares and oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until pita squares turn golden brown. Place pita squares on paper towels.

Add lemon juice, tahini, and yogurt to mixing bowl. Mix gently with spoon. Add ghee and nuts to pan. Toast them on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until they start turning golden brown. Stir constantly.

Add sautéed pitas squares to second casserole dish. Smooth with fork. Add rice. Smooth with fork. Add lemon juice/tahini/yogurt sauce. Smooth gently with fork. Add chicken cubes. Smooth with, oh what the heck, spoon. Sprinkle sautéed nuts and parsley over chicken cubes.

Serve to guests who darn well better appreciate all the effort you made preparing this wonderful dish.

TIDBITS

1) Syrian has many people.

2) People have bones in them.

3) There are enough bones in the human body to enable a person to stand up with enough bones leftover for arms and hands.

4) Arms and hands are used to drink root beer from glass mugs.

5) Root beer tastes like good childhood memories.

6) There is a man in Syria called Ryan.

7) Ryan drank root beer. He had a good childhood.

8) He’s old now, but as a child was very well liked.

9) People used to greet each other with, “Is Ryan healthy?” or “Is Ryan happy?” or “Is Ryan drinking root beer?” or even, “Is Ryan doing his econometrics homework?”

10) This happened so often that when the region became independent of France in 1946 people naturally wanted to call their country “Isryan.”

11) However, Ryan, a perpetually modest man, demurred.

12) But the people persisted. Isryan. Stamps with Isryan were printed.

13) Ryan demurred.

14) Fortunately, the World Anagramist Society met in Damascus a scant two weeks after independence.

15) They suggested Syrian for the name of the country. The people were contented. “As long as ‘Is Ryan’ in their somehow. Ryan was happy as well. He could pretend the country wasn’t named after him.

16) Remarkably, it took until 2002, the year the Angels finally won the World Series, for people to realize than Syrian sounds more like someone from Syria than a country. So after consulting Ryan and getting his permission, the people held a referendum and changed the country’s name to Syria.

17) If ever come across a stamp bearing the word “Isryan” save it, for goodness sake. It’s quite valuable.

– 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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Christmas Gift Idea #1

Posted on August 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

RestroomCertificate

What do you get for that special someone who has everything? Why a gift certificate for a restaurant restroom, of course. This memorable present is sure to take your relationship to an entirely new level.

 

– Paul R. De Lancey, gift advisor

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: history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Shawarma

Posted on August 13, 2015 by pauldelancey

Emirati Entree

SHAWARMA

INGREDIENTS – CHICKEN AND MARINADEShawarma-

2 pounds chicken breasts
½ teaspoon ginger
3 garlic cloves
¼ teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon red chili flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain yogurt
4 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
1 egg
3½ tablespoons lemon juice
no-stick spray

INGREDIENTS – SALAD

1 cucumber
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
1 tomato
1 cup lettuce, shredded
2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds (It’s cheaper to buy a pomegranate and scoop out the seeds.)

INGREDIENTS – DRESSING

1½ tablespoons fresh cilantro
1½ tablespoons fresh mint
3 tablespoons lemon juice
⅓ cup tahini sauce
1 cup plain yogurt

INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY

6 pita loves

Makes 6 pita sandwiches. Takes 40 minutes for preparation and 2-to-3 hours to marinate.

PREPARATION – CHICKEN AND MARINADE

Cut chicken into strips ¼” thick. Mince garlic. Add all chicken-and-marinade ingredients to large mixing bowl. Mix by hand until ingredients are well blended and chicken strips are thoroughly coated. Marinate in refrigerator for 2-to-3 hours.

Add marinated chicken to skillet. Cook at medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside and marinade is nearly dried out. Stir occasionally.

PREPARATION – SALAD

Peel and dice cucumber. Dice cilantro and tomato. Shred lettuce. Use fork to combine all salad ingredients in mixing bowl.

PREPARATION – DRESSING

Mince cilantro and mint. Add all dressing ingredients to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

Add pita loves to second skillet. Use medium heat for 1 minute or until pita loaves are warm. Turn over at least once. Divide salad equally among pita loaves. Top loaves amount of chicken and marinade. Ladle dressing over chicken and marinade. Shoot anyone who says you left out an ingredient. Be sure to revert to your role as a gracious host before serving. Manners matter.

TIDBITS

1) Shawarma is in an anagram for “Has a warm.”

2) Has a warm what?

3) This is the poser that has bedeviled humanity ever since it started painting millennia ago. This might be our ultimate question, followed only by, “What happens to all those socks that disappear while in my clothes dryer?”

4) Lest you doubt, the phrase, “Has a warm” can clearly be seen in the prehistoric paintings in the famous Lascaux Caves of France.

5) However, a few decades ago, archeologists–whoa, I spelled that correctly on the first try–gave up trying to figure out what word or words would complete the sentence started by “Has a warm.”

6) The French government closed those caves to all but a few people so as to spare their archeologists further embarrassment.

7) If you take out the “r” in “archeologist” you get “acheologist.” An acheologist studies pains. Similarly, a painologist studies pains. What is the difference between an acheologist and a painologist? Two years of graduate stiudy? Kinda like the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist.

8) An ologist studies olos.

– 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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Chicken Prosciutto Sandwich

Posted on July 22, 2015 by pauldelancey

Fusion Entree

CHICKEN PROSCIUTTO SANDWICH

INGREDIENTSChickenProscuitto-

4 chicken breasts
1 cup aioli sauce
6 ounces mozzarella
1 Roma tomato
4 sesame-seed hamburger buns
1 cup bread crumbs
8 slices proscuitto
4 lettuce leaves
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

kitchen mallet
parchment paper
3 cookie or baking sheets

Takes 1 hour 40 minutes. Makes 4 sandwiches.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Flatten chicken breasts with kitchen mallet. Add chicken breasts and aioli sauce to large mixing bowl. Turn chicken breasts by hand until chicken is thoroughly coated. Put in refrigerator and marinate for 1 hour.

While chicken marinates, cut mozzarella and tomato into 4 slices each. After marinating, add bread crumbs to 2nd mixing bowl. Place a mozzarella slice on each hamburger-bun top. Remove chicken breasts from 1st mixing bowl, saving the remaining aioli sauce. Dredge chicken breasts through bread crumbs until they are completely coated. Spray 1st cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. (You will be adding two more cookie sheets after 13 minutes.)

While chicken is baking, place parchment paper on 2nd cookie sheet. Place proscuitto on top of parchment paper. Place all hamburger bun halves, including the ones with cheese, on 3rd cookie sheet. After the chicken has baked for 13 minutes, add the proscuitto and the cheese-covered buns to the oven. Continue baking for another 7 minutes or until chicken crumbs are golden brown, proscuitto is starting to become crispy, and the cheese on the buns has melted.

Spread saved aioli sauce on hamburger-bun bottoms. Place lettuce leaf on bottom hamburger bun. Put chicken breast on lettuce leaf, then add 2 prosciutto slices. Complete with cheese covered hamburger-bun top.

TIDBITS

1) Have chicken prosciutto sandwiches always been round?

2) No! Prior to the siege of Picanza, Italy by Napoleon’s troops in 1813, they were triangular. The Picanzans found that shape easy to hold while eating.

3) The triangular sandwiches were also deadly weapons in the hands of the town’s ninjas, particularly after the snack had hardened from being left out in the hot Italian Sun for two weeks.

4) Oh! Don’t forget to go to Picanza’s annual Ninja Chicken Prosciutto Sandwich Toss Festival every April 1. Teams from all over the world compete for the Golden Sandwich Trophy, although Italy and Japan have done all the winning. Be sure to get out of the way of the tosses!

4) The odor from two-week old prosciutto often drove away invading armies just by itself. Well, at least until 1767 when it became standard for armies to carry pumpkin-spiced incense sticks.

5) But in 1813, the clever Napoleon constantly moved his troops upwind from the city. The gale forces winds of that summer continually blew the chicken-prosciutto-sandwich-death triangles back into the city whey dealt widespread carnage among the cafe drinkers. To this day, Picanzans always drink their espresso inside.

6) It looked bad for the Picanzans. The French would fire cannon balls into the city. The Picanzans unable to hurl their hardened sandwich resorted to making scary faces at the besiegers. It was an unequal struggle.

7) Thank goodness for the annual Bowling Ball Festival. Unlike most bowling festivals, this one took place on the precipitous Strada Ripido. Why was it held on such a steep street? The competitors used Parmesan wheels as bowling balls and those 200 pound rounds are heavy. Francesco Poblano suggested they crush the French army by rolling Parmesan cheese at them. The mayor said, “Are you crazy! How will we make eggplant Parmesan?” The ever-clever Franceso said, “Why not make our chicken prosciutto sandwiches round. That way, when they don’t get eaten, we can roll the hardened sandwiches down our steep hills and crush the French down below.”

8) The mayor and other notables proclaimed Francesco a genius and erected a statue in his honor made of bread crumbs and eggs. That statue is still there.

9) Anyway, the Picanzans rolled chicken-prosciutto sandwiches dried out to death dealing hardness at Napoleon’s forces. The bowled over French fled the surrounding hill in terror. Napoleon suffered an irreversible blow to his prestige. Nations all over Europe took courage from his humiliation and rose up against him, swamping the French armies by sheer force of numbers.

10) By 1815, the once great French emperor was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena, where he eked out a tenuous living selling French-style hot dogs out of a vending cart.

11) Oh! Don’t forget to go to Picanza, Italy for its annual Bowling Ball Festival. It’s exciting, particularly if you watch the event at the bottom of Strada Ripido. I suggest paying extra for seats at the top of the steep road.

– 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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Flatbread From Somalia (Sabaayad)

Posted on July 21, 2015 by pauldelancey

Somali Appetizer

FLATBREAD
(sabaayad)

INGREDIENTSFlatbread-

2⅓ cups flour
⅔ cup wheat flour (another ⅓ cup later)
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
1 to 1½ cups water
4 tablespoons vegetable oil (another 4 teaspoons later)
⅓ cup flour
4 teaspoons vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric skillet

PREPARATION

Add flour, wheat flour, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Add ghee. Mix again with whisk. Gradually add water to bowl. Knead flour and water by hand each time. Add water until dough becomes smooth and flexible. Let dough sit for 45 minutes.

Make 8 equal dough balls. Dust hard surface with ⅓ cup flour. Roll out dough ball into a circle 8″ wide. Spread ½ tablespoon oil evenly over dough circle. Fold edges of dough circle in so that four parts meat in the square. You should now have a square.FlatbreadDough-

Roll out square until it is again 8″ wide. (This gives the bread layers and makes it flakier.) Repeat for 7 remaining dough circles.

Set skillet to 325 degrees or medium. Place 8″ dough square in skillet. Let dough square cook for 1 minute or until dough square starts to puff. Flip the dough square and add ½ teaspoon oil evenly to the top. Cook for 1 minute. Continue to cook 1 minute per side until each side turns golden brown Repeat for the remaining 7 dough squares. Drain the golden brown flat breads of paper towels.

Serve warm with: fried eggs, honey, curries, or other stews

TIDBITS

1) The top picture on the previous page looks like a sock. The bottom picture on that page appears to be a sock puppet. These similarities are not an accident. There are an homage to the great Rome-to-Somalia olive-oil-for-socks trade.

2) This trade started in 31 BC after Caesar Augustus secured his position as emperor with his victory over Mark Anthony in the battle of Actium.

3) Rome desperately needed a new source of socks for its vaunted army. Without good socks, the legionnaires developed foot blisters. No soldier can march far with blistered feet. If the Roman legionnaires couldn’t march, they couldn’t catch the invading barbarian hordes before they looted and fired the Roman towns. Unfortunately, the long series of Roman civil wars, 83 BC – 31 BC had completely destroyed the once vibrant sock industry. Things looked grim. The Roman Empire was readt to collapse. The plays of Plautus, Terrance, and Maccius would have been replaced by barbarian reality plays.

6) Fortunately, in 18 BC, Primus Secundus Tertius, a goat herder set out from the tiny village of Perdiem in the southern Egypt to find a missing goat. He headed south, because all good goat herders know that goat only go missing in the south.

7) He walked for years looking for that goat. He was no quitter. Finally, he came across some villagers in Somalia. They were cooking lamb stew. The villagers didn’t give their real names upon meeting Primus for the first time. After all, Somalia is an anagram for Mo’ Alias.

8) While enjoying a delicious meal, Sam and the villagers engaged in pleasant conversation and swapped witty and urbane anagrams. Eventually, Sam handed his empty bowl to the villagers; his mother had raised him to always bring his dirty dishes to the sink. As he did so, he noticed a goat tag at the bottom of his bowl. It read, “Daphne, owned by Primus Secundus Tertius.” The villagers had killed his own goat. The fact that Daphne tasted great after being marinated in lemon juice and pepper only eased his rage a tiny bit.

9) With all the wonderful books deliberately burned in Alexandria’s magnificent library in 395 AD, it’s amazing and perhaps ironic that we have amazing that we have a partial, written record of the following conversation:

Primus: You killed my Daphne?
Villager #1: Who is this Daphne? No woman around here is called Daphne.
Villager #2: I think he means his goat. Roman goat herders like to name their goats Daphne.
Villager #3, Good Primus, are referring to the goat that was in this stew?
Primus: (Shows the goat tag.) I am.

10) The villagers, as was their custom, agreed to compensate Primus with ten pairs of socks. Primus was ecstatic. Emperor Augustus had promised to give a million denarii to any one securing a sock source for the empire. So Primus became fabulously wealthy, the legionnaires got their socks, and the empire became well defended again. It was only when the olive-oil-for-socks trade route got permanently disrupted in 476 AD, that Rome fell. Today, the production of socks is protected everywhere by an international treaty.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Peanut Butter

Posted on July 20, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

PEANUT BUTTER

INGREDIENTSPeanutButter-

4 cups roasted peanuts (1 cup then 3 cups)*
2 tablespoons peanut oil (½ tablespoon at a time)
½ tablespoon honey
¾ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon sugar

* = 4 cups peanuts weigh about 1 pound. Purchase peanuts with the skins still on for added flavor and fiber. Buy skinned peanuts if you prefer a smoother peanut butter. And, oh gosh, buy shelled roasted peanuts. It takes forever to shell enough peanuts to make this recipe; just as long as a lecture in theoretical economics lasts..

SPECIAL UTENSILS

blender
mason jar

Makes 1½ cups. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add 1 cup peanuts in blender. Blend on lowest for about a minute or until the peanut bits are the size you desire. (People’s preference for the chunkiness of their peanut butter and the power of their blender vary considerably, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on the blending.) Remove and set aside.

Add remaining 3 cups peanuts, ½ tablespoon oil, and honey to blender. Set blender to lowest setting that works. (A weak blender will just make plaintive whirring noises and do nothing if it’s on too low a setting. Gradually decrease the speed of the blender to low as it becomes more and more to blend. (I think I can. I think I can. ) Blend on low setting until mixture becomes quite smooth. (The oil should be coming out of the peanuts.) If mixture is too dry to spread, add another ½ tablespoon oil and puree again. Repeat as needed with oil until mixture is easy to spread. Add salt and sugar. Fold in salt and sugar with wooden spoon.

Store in refrigerator. It should be good for 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on the seal of the jar used for storage. I prefer mason jars. Oil might rise to the top over time. Simply mix the oil back into the peanut butter with a wooden spoon.

TIDBITS

1) Each American eats seven pounds of peanut butter a year. It’s a federal law dating back to the drafting of the Constitution. Georgia simply would not sign the great document unless its mighty peanut industry was protected. After much negotiation, the states agreed on seven pounds per person per annum. Georgia signed and America had a basis for strong government

2) Some people spread out their required peanut-butter consumption evenly over the entire year. This comes out to .3068 ounces per day. To achieve such precision, people need sophisticated scales. This need explains why American kitchen scales are the envy of the world. Indeed, NASA uses these scales in its space programs.

3) Other people eat all their peanut butter in one day. Pause and reflect.

4) Americans could fill the Grand Canyon with all the peanut butter that eat in one year. This actually happened on April 1, 2000. It was a glorious occasion with millions of loaves of bread being flown and trucked in. Thousands and thousands of trucks that normally hauled crude oil were converted to dispense grape and strawberry jelly. And the toasters! Oh, they were everywhere. People said nice things to each other except, of course, for those with peanut butter stuck to the roof of their mouths.

5) Unfortunately, this happening could not become an annual event. Many tourists, especially those from countries with low peanut-butter consumption, insisted of seeing the Grand Canyon in its peanut-butter free glory.

6) We also cannot forget the frenzied riot that took place between the smooth-peanut-butter fanatics and the chunky-peanut-fanatics. Culinary historians still shake their heads when they contemplate how close America came to civil war. It certainly affected the presidential election.

7) Speaking of presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter grew peanuts. Mr. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Two peanuts growers, one Independence writer. We can conclude from this that every other peanut grower in America would write a Declaration of Independence.

8) Or can we conclude this? Thomas Jefferson declared independence from Great Britain. Jimmy Carter couldn’t do the same; we had already severed connections from the mother country.

9) So, who could have Mr. Carter declared independence from?

10) From America. Jimmy Carter could have penned a declaration of independence for Georgia from the United States. He didn’t, of course, but it was a near run thing.

11) In 1980, American lawmakers mindful of the horrifying carnage of the War Between the States in 1861-1865, passed a law requiring all peanut farmers to sign an annual pledge not to make their state secede from the Union.

12) Or at least to grow onions as well. No onion farmer has ever written anything advocating independence. Onion farmers are a rather down to earth sort of folks. Thank goodness.

– 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, politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beer Pizza

Posted on July 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

BEER PIZZA

INGREDIENTSBeerPizza-

1 beer pizza crust (See above recipe.)
1 small onion
1 Roma tomato
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ pound ground sausage
¼ cup beer (additional ¼ cup later)
½ cup pasta sauce
¼ cup beer
1¼ cups tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
no-stick spray

Takes 30 minutes.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

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.

Thinly slice onion and tomato. Add Italian seasoning and ground sausage. Mix with hands and form several small meatballs. Add meatballs and ¼ cup beer to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Stir a couple times to ensure even browning. Remove meatballs.

Add pasta sauce and ¼ cup beer to liquid already in pan. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Ladle beer/pasta sauce evenly over crust. Sprinkle onion slices, tomato slices, meatballs and Parmesan cheese over sauce. Put pizza in oven and bake at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese or crust in golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Old King Arthur’s knights loved beer pizza. When the blessing of the food was over, all hands shot out to grab a big piece. However, the Knights of the Square Table who sat at the corners were at a severe disadvantage over the knights who sat at the sides. Hence the saying, “As hungry as a corner knight.” These hungry knights invariably challenged the pizza-chomping side-of-the table knights to mortal combat. King Arthur found his army of knights so depleted by pizza-fired duels, that his kingdom was wide open to foreign invasion. Then, he hit upon the happy idea of making a round table for pizza eating. All knights were equidistant from the pizza. All Knight of the Round Table were equally fed and content. It was a glorious time.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Beer Pizza Crust

Posted on July 14, 2015 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

BEER PIZZA CRUST

INGREDIENTSPizzaCr-

2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup beer
½ cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1¾ teaspoons active dry yeast
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker
16″ pizza pan

Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add flour, beer, water, oil, sugar, salt, and yeast to the bread maker. Do not put the yeast directly on top of the salt. Salt is bad for yeast and yeast makes the dough rise. “Ask not what your yeast can do for you. Ask what you can do for your yeast.” Set the timer or the menu on the bread maker to “Dough.” Wait for the required time, about an hour. In the meantime preheat the oven to 400 degrees and liberally spray the pizza pan with no-stick spray. This will prevent the crust from forming a glue-like bond with the pan.

Take the dough out of the bread maker and roll it out until the dough covers the pizza pan. If you do not have a rolling pin, any canned food can will do as long as it is at least six inches tall. It is best to use no-stick spray on pan or coat it with a thin layer of flour before spreading the dough.

TIDBITS

1) Ancient Egyptians invented the pizza crust to honor their sun god They made the crust round and flat because the Sun looked, and still looks, to be flat and round. Whenever the Egyptians drew a map of the world, they did so on a crust. They then covered it with: grapes, fish, and asps (venom removed) and ate the whole thing. Hence, the famous saying, “I could eat the world for lunch.”

2) Folks over the centuries drew so many pizza-crust maps that people came to believe the Earth had to be flat. Then in 1488, Christopher Columbus’ mom made a pizza topped with great big, round meatballs. He thought, “Hey, I think the world is round, just like these meatballs.” Four years, came Columbus’ great voyage of discovery. The world be changed forever.

– 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: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

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