Posts Tagged With: apocalyptic

Brownies

Posted on September 26, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

BROWNIES

INGREDIENTS

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.

Categories: cuisine, history, humor | Tags: aerial combat, American, apocalyptic, British, brownies, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, dessert, government, HumorOutcasts, lions, Lutheran, pilots, planes, recipes, Royal Flying Corps, South Africa, thriller, vanilla | Leave a comment

Space Aliens and My Nose

Posted on September 24, 2015 by pauldelancey

People wonder why we never see any space aliens. It’s because they’re all teeny tiny and they fly their UFOs up my nose. My nose thinks the UFOs are pollen and I have allergies to pollen. So, my nose sneezes them out. I, like most people, sneeze at 200 mph, too much force for the itsy bitsy UFOs. The UFOs get obliterated. So we never see the UFOs.

Of course, the big questions is why would teensy weensy aliens repeatedly try to land or dock in my nose. Who knows?

– Paul R. De Lancey, a great sneezer

Categories: humor | Tags: apocalyptic, De Lancey, hilarious, HumorOutcasts, hunks, Lutheran, nose, Paul R. De Lancey, pollen allergies, space aliens, thriller, UFOs | Leave a comment

My Not to Do List – 5

Posted on September 23, 2015 by pauldelancey

I’m continuing with my virtuous inertia. Here are things I won’t be doing or eating today.

1) I will not cook or eat lutefisk. Cooking lutefisk in banned by the Geneva Convention. It looks like boogers, smells like a rat crawled on top of furnace and died, has the consistency of phlegm, and is otherwise unpalatable.

2) I will not make or eat haggis. This Scottish delicacy is an intestine stuffed with innards. Eating this food made the Scottish warriors tremendously fierce. The only reason the Scots didn’t conquer greats swaths of the world is because they kept coming up against the Vikings who ate lutefisk.

3) I will not cook or eat liver and onions. This culinary atrocity is a favorite of college cafeterias everywhere is the real reason why some 50% of students never graduate.

4) I will not eat VegamiteTM. The stench from this dried veggie/yeast paste can wake up people on the second floor even if all doors are closed. In grad school, a housemate didn’t properly put the lid back on. I had to go downstairs and . . . I can’t go on. The memory. Augh! The memory.

5) I will not prepare food with a penguin. They have definite culinary ideas and will end up taking over your kitchen.

– Paul R. De Lancey, great no-doer

Categories: cuisine, humor | Tags: apocalyptic, cafeterias, college, culinary, De Lancey, Geneva Convention, haggis, HumorOutcsts, hunks, lutefisk, Lutheran, no to do, Paul, penguin, Scots, Scottish, thriller, university, Vegamite, Viking | Leave a comment

Ask Dr. Economics – Poverty

Posted on September 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

Dear Dr. Economics,

Why is there so much poverty?

– Ms. Anne Thracks, Paducah, KY

Dear Ms. Thracks,

Too many people don’t have enough money.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: finance, humor | Tags: apocalyptic, Ask Dr. Economics, De Lancey, Dr. Economics, economics, hilarious, HumorOutcasts, hunks, Lutheran, mushrooms, Paducah, Paul De Lancey, thriller | Leave a comment

Christmas Gift Idea #1

Posted on August 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

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

Categories: history | Tags: apocalyptic, De Lancey, gift advisor, gift certificates, humorous, HumorOutcasts, hunks, Lutheran, mushrooms, relationship, restaurant, restroom, special someone, thriller | 3 Comments

Bucket List #1 – Scaling a Mighty Mountain

Posted on August 9, 2015 by pauldelancey

I’ve craved all my life the recognition of climbing a mountain. Now I have proof, as you can see in the picture shown to the right. You have to pass the rigorous test of having enough money to buy the decal. Not content with this test, I opted for advanced quizzing as evinced by the following conversation:

Me: I noticed this sticker says, “I climbed Cadillac Mountain.”

National Park Gift Shop Employee (NPGSE): Yes, it does.

Me: That’s different from, “I climbed the entire mountain.”

NPGSE: That’s right.

Me: So, it’s perfectly okay to count the climbing I did around here as climbing the mountain.

NPGSE: I think so.

There you go, not only am I an intrepid mountaineer, but a scrupulously honest one as well. My appetite for exciting adventures has been whetted. I look forward to my next bucket-list item. If danger scares you, feel free to participate at a safe distance through my blogs.

– Paul R. De Lancey, danger seeker

Categories: humor | Tags: apocalyptic, bucket list, Cadillac Mountain, De Lancey, hilarious, HumorOutcasts, hunks, Lutheran, mountaneer, mushrooms, rigorous test, thrller | Leave a comment

Soul Crunching Computers

Posted on August 8, 2015 by pauldelancey

Computers that take forever to load, freeze, or crash make you cuss. Repeatedly. They make you say horrific things that will cast your soul down to the fiery pits of Hell. You don’t want to go there, it’s unambiguously bad. Think of a presidential debate that never ends. But you can’t survive without your Facebook and kitchen pictures. What can be done?

When buying a computer, look for the following five characteristics:

It works.
It works.
It works. If you see this, it’s already too late.
It works.
It works.

For pity’s sake do not purchase a computer lacking any of the above five points. A working computer will give you a chance to go to Heaven. A bad computer will send you to Hell. Choose wisely.

– Paul R. De Lancey, computer owner

Categories: humor | Tags: apocalyptic, computers, De Lancey, heaven, Hell, hilarious, HumorOutcasts, hunks, Lutheran, mushrooms, Paul R. De Lancey, presidential debate, soul, thriller | 1 Comment

Chicken Prosciutto Sandwich

Posted on July 22, 2015 by pauldelancey

Fusion Entree

CHICKEN PROSCIUTTO SANDWICH

INGREDIENTS

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

Categories: finance, history, humor, international | Tags: apocalyptic, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, French, fusion, golden, HumorOutcasts, Italy, Lutheran, Napoleon, ninja, Parmesan, proscuitto, recipes, sandwich, St. Helena, thriller | Leave a comment

Peanut Butter

Posted on July 20, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

PEANUT BUTTER

INGREDIENTS

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

Categories: cuisine, history, humor, politics | Tags: America, American, apocalyptic, appetizer, Chef Paul, Civil War, constitution, cookbook, De Lancey, Declaration of Independence, Georgia, Grand Canyon, Great Britain, independence, Jimmy Carter, lawmakers, Lutheran, onions, peanut butter, Peanuts, recipes, Thomas Jefferson, thriller, Union, United States, War Between the States | Leave a comment

Lamb Stew From Western Sahara

Posted on July 17, 2015 by pauldelancey

Western Saharan Entree

LAMB STEW
(Mreifisa)

INGREDIENTS – BREAD

4 cups flour (1 additional tablespoon later)
1½ cup water
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour

INGREDIENTS – STEW

1 pound lamb
2 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup beef broth
1 cup water
½ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

rolling pin
cookie sheet
Dutch oven

Makes 3 bowls. Takes 55 minutes.

PREPARATION – BREAD

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add 4 cups flour, water, and salt to large mixing bowl. Knead with hands for 5 minutes or until ingredients become a well mixed ball of dough . Dust flat surface with 1 tablespoon flour. Add dough to flat surface. Flatten dough with rolling pin until it is ½” thick. Place flattened dough on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until bread starts to brown. Set aside.

PREPARATION – STEW

While bread bakes, chop lamb into ½” cubes. Dice garlic cloves and onions. Add garlic, onion, lamb, and olive oil to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens and lamb cubes brown. Add beef broth, water, and salt to Dutch oven. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes or until lamb is tender.

Crumble bread and divide equally among bowls. Pour equal amounts of stew into bowls.
TIDBITS

1) Mreifisa is an anagram for “I fire Sam.”

2) Sam is not a common name in Western Sahara.

3) In fact, Sam is a tour guide. He lead a group of foodies to Western Sahara to eat mreifisa, all perfectly normal.

4) But he headed east to rebel-held territory and got captured. Why did Sam take his charges east?

5) Because someone asked Sam, “Would he eat mreifisa on a beast. Would he eat in the east?”

6) “Yes,” said Sam while being held in a snake-filled pit. “I would eat on the sand. I would eat if it’s bland.”

7) “Would you,” said his captors, “eat it in the sky? Would you eat it while you die?”

8) “I would eat it in this life. I would eat it with my wife.”

9) “Would you eat it with a lord? Would you eat it on a sword?”

10) “I would eat it with a whisk. I would eat it with lutefisk.”

11) His blond, blue-eyed captives blanched at that. “You eat lutefisk?”

12) “Yes!” said Sam. “I’d eat lutefisk with a gnu. Do you want some lutefisk, too?”

13) “No, lutefisk does so stink. If we ate lutefisk, we’d need a shrink.”

14) Sam said, “Try it, try it I implore. If you don’t, I’ll bring more.”

15) “No,” said the leader Abu, “A thousand years hence, our tribe left Sweden. No more lutefisk we’d be eatin’.”

16) “Would you eat lutefisk in a tree? Would you eat it with a bee ?”

17) Abu said, “We would not eat it in a car. To not eat it, we’ve traveled far.”

18) Sam brightened when he said, “You’re not giving it a chance, that is plain. I’ll get you lutefisk flown from Spain.”

19) “Oh that lutefisk makes us ill We’ll release you, yes we will.”

20) Even though Sam and his tour group got released from the snake pit, some of the tourists seized on that event to demand their money back. So, I had to fire Sam.

21) Would you, could you fire Sam? Would you, could you eat this stew of lamb?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: apocalyptic, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, entree, lamb, lamb stew, lutefisk, mreifisa, recipes, Sahara, Spain, Sweden, thriller, Western Sahara | Leave a comment

Posts Tagged With: apocalyptic

Brownies

BROWNIES

Space Aliens and My Nose

My Not to Do List – 5

Ask Dr. Economics – Poverty

Christmas Gift Idea #1

Bucket List #1 – Scaling a Mighty Mountain

Soul Crunching Computers

Chicken Prosciutto Sandwich

CHICKEN PROSCIUTTO SANDWICH

Peanut Butter

Lamb Stew From Western Sahara

Follow Blog via Email

Paul’s archives

Posts Tagged With: apocalyptic

BROWNIES

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

CHICKEN PROSCIUTTO SANDWICH

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Follow Blog via Email

Paul’s archives