Posts Tagged With: appetizer

Pasta Sauce

Posted on March 8, 2014 by pauldelancey

Italian Appetizer

PASTA SAUCE

INGREDIENTSPastaSauce-

2 garlic cloves
2 pounds Roma tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon savory
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon thyme

makes 2 ½ cups

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves. Puree tomatoes in blender. Add remaining ingredients to large saucepan. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 45 minutes or until sauce thickens. Cool.

TIDBITS

1) It’s helpful to know whenever you’re at an anagram convention that pasta sauce is an anagram for: cause a spat, a cat’s pause, sautes a cap, and cue ass pat.

2) A pat is a small slice of butter. A stick of butter is much longer than a pat.

3) When German soldiers invaded the Netherlands in 1940, they confiscated the locals’ butter. Culinary historians suspect the main impetus behind Germany’s patently unpleasant wars of aggression was a massive butter shortage in the Fatherland. The Netherlands has ample stocks of butter, so it was overrun by its larger bread-spread lacking neighbor to the east.

4) Sure, Germany invaded other nations as well, but that was mainly from inertia. Once you start invading other countries, it’s kinda hard to stop. Besides, Belgium had fries, France had cheese and baguettes, and Russia had beef stroganoff.

5) Eight nations met in Toronto, Canada in 1953 to sign the Ample Butter Supply Treaty (ABS.) To remove all temptation for aggression, signatory countries pledged to main large supplies of butter. America maintains its emergency butter supply in a climate controlled cave near Butte, Montana.

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

Guacamole

Posted on March 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

Mexican Appetizer

GUACAMOLE

 INGREDIENTSGuacamo-

2 avocados
1 jalapeno
1/2 onion
2 tbsp fresh cilantro
1 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup diced tomatoes

PREPARATION

Make sure avocados are ripe. They should be feel a bit squishy. (That is not the same feeling you get when you all in love. That is squooshy.) Remove stem and seeds from jalapeno. Then mince it, the onion, and the cilantro.

Put avocado in mixing bowl. Mash the avocado thoroughly with a fork. Add jalapeno, onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt, pepper, and diced tomatoes. Mix ingredients completely with fork or whisk. Add water if it gets too thick for your liking.

Assume a look of radiant virtue as you serve this to your guests who may or may not deserve it.

TIDBITS

1) Doesn’t “guacamole” look as if it should be pronounced “whack a mole?”

2) Where I grew up, our neighbors had a guacamole tree, bush, cactus, or whatever its called, that dropped its fruit onto our side.

3) We had a lemon tree that dropped its fruit onto their side. Fair is fair.

4) Authentic guacamole and salsa are always fresh.

5) Salsa, the movie, was made in 1988 and directed by Boaz Davidson.

6) The Old Testament’s Book of Ruth has Boaz marrying Ruth. The movie, Story of Ruth, was made in 1960 and starred Stuart Whitman.

7) Stuart Whitman was more well known for his movie roles as a cowboy such as in the 1961 movie, The Comancheros.

8) It’s unclear even after on-line search if Stuart Whitman liked salsa. Or even guacamole.

– 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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Pretzels

Posted on February 26, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

PRETZELS

INGREDIENTSPretzel-

3/4 cup warm water
2 cups bread flour or plain flour
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon dry active yeast

1 egg
no-stick spray
1/2 tablespoon coarse salt
(coarse salt is not a crude sailor)

makes 12 pretzels

SPECIAL UTENSIL

bread maker

PREPARATION

Put water, flour, sugar, salt, brown sugar, and yeast in bread maker. Follow instructions for dough setting. Take a nice relaxing bath for about 45 minutes before summoning courage to beat egg.

Beat egg. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. When bread maker is done, separate dough into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a 15″ log. Fold each log into a pretzel shape. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Place pretzels on cookie sheet. Brush pretzels with egg. Sprinkle pretzels with coarse salt. Bake at 450 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until pretzels are golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Pretzels were invented by Christian monks around the start of the seventeenth century. They were given to children for learning their devotions and resembled arms crossing the chest in prayer.

2) Italians, Spanish, and French have always claimed to have invented the pretzel. This disagreement grew so heated that they fought each other constantly from 1494 to 1525. The Spanish eventually prevailed, winning the right to rule Italy and claim ownership of the pretzels for 200 years. Deprived of pretzel bragging rights, the Italians lost interest in the Renaissance. Indeed, arts languished everywhere for hundreds of years until the Richard Wagner’s operas and Jim Henson’s Muppets Show. It is no coincidence that German Wagner and American Henson hail from the two greatest pretzel making countries in 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.

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Russian Dressing

Posted on January 21, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

RUSSIAN DRESSING

INGREDIENTSRussianDressing-

1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until well blended. May be stored in air-tight jars for up to two weeks. Woo hoo! This is so easy. You’ll lots of time after this to do crossword puzzles or plot worldwide domination, whichever you prefer.

TIDBITS

1) Lake Baikal is in Russia. Its depth reaches from the surface to the bottom and contains around 20% of the world’s unfrozen fresh water. You could make a lot of ice from the water in Lake Baikal. That ice could chill a lot of mugs filled with blessed, soothing root beer.

2) The Russians have always known this. This is why America and Russia faced off for decades in the Cold War. The United States in particular, worried then that the Soviets would restrict the supply of ice cubes. Indeed, Brezhnev in 1968, severely curtailed the export of ice from Lake Baikal.

5) It is no coincidence that riots broke out in one American city after another that year. Crime spiked. Did things suddenly worsen from 1967? No, but without ice from Lake Baikal, Americans could not properly ice their root beers. Problems that people shrugged off easily with the aid of ice-cold root beers, suddenly became insurmountable, maddening even.

8) The United States wasn’t the only country to face disintegration in 1968. Russia invaded Czechoslovakia to put an end to the ice riots that ravaged the country. Millions perished in China’s cultural revolution. We now know Mao launched this horrific plan to hide the even more hideous fact from his countrymen; there weren’t enough ice cubes in the country to cool all the root beer.

9) But President Johnson knew the Russia’s Achilles heel. He threatened to ban exports of root beer to Russia. The root-beerless Soviets backed down and ice flowed, not quite the right verb, to all corners of the world. Tensions between nations diminished considerably and people hugged each other everywhere. The New York Mets even won the World Series next year. And bluebirds sang.

– 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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Hot Chocolate

Posted on January 13, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

HOT CHOCOLATE

INGREDIENTSHotChocolate-

4 ounces semisweet chocolate (chips or squares)
4cups milk
1/2 cup sugar

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to saucepan. Heat with medium heat. (Whoa! Heating with heat. That’s just crazy enough to work.) Cook until chocolate has completely melted and liquid is just ready to boil. Stir frequently.

Use an electric or hand beater on hot chocolate if you wish to make it frothy. Mini marshmallows and whipped cream make excellent toppings.

TIDBITS

1) If it weren’t for chocolate, we probably wouldn’t have microwaves. Decades ago, the chocolate bar in Percy Spencer’s pocket melted when he got close to the microwaves of a magnetron. Instead of saying yuck, Percy got excited. He placed an egg next to the magnetron. The egg cooked so fast that it exploded. The synapses in Percy’s brain fired at a prodigious rate. The research on the kitchen microwave began.

2) The good feelings to your brain and body from eating chocolate last four times longer than from an amorous kiss. Indeed, pollsters in Britain found that 50% of women love chocolate more than sex. This guys, is why you give your dates a box of chocolates rather than a package of lutefisk.

3) Eating chocolate multiple times a week greatly reduces the risk of fatal heart disease.

4) Chocolate is a natural antidepressant.

5) A milk chocolate bar has ten fewer calories than a bag of potato chips.

5) So chocolate gave a boost to the advancement of science, provides for an enhanced love life, protects your health, keeps you from being sad, and is better for your figure than potato chips. What more do you want? Why can’t our government be more like chocolate?

6) It can. It can. The Bacon & Chocolate Party was formed in 2012 and is dedicated to promoting the health giving properties of chocolate and bacon and to ensure ample supplies of these wonderful foods.

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

Salsa

Posted on January 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

Mexican Appetizer

SALSA

INGREDIENTSSalsa-

3 serrano chiles
9 cloves garlic
1 white onion
8 Roma tomatoes
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/4 teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Remove seeds from serrano chiles if you desire a milder salsa. Put chiles, garlic, onion, tomatoes, and oil in baking dish. Stir until garlic, onion, and tomatoes are well coated with oil. Roast in oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Dice roasted veggies. Add veggies, cilantro, lime juice and salt to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk or fork. Goes great with everything except lutefisk.

TIDBITS

1) May, 1997, was National Salsa Month. Our officials have too much time on their hands.

2) In 2003, Texas declared tortilla chips and salsa to be the Official State Snack. The Texas government has too much time on its hands.

3) Pace Foods uses over 20 million pounds of hot peppers every year. That’s a lot of peppers or maybe just one huge pepper. Can you imagine a pepper that big? If you managed to eat it you’d need a really huge glass of milk to coat the pain receptors in your throat.

4) It would take a really big cow to give enough milk to fill that glass in tidbit 3).

5) Tomatoes and serrano chiles are not vegetables. They are fruits. So is a banana.

6) “Sometimes a banana is just a banana.” – Sigmund Freud. Freud would have been greatly interested in a dream about a twenty-million-pound serrano chile.

7) Oh, and some historians think Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean to get away from lutefisk.

– 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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Croque Monsieur

Posted on January 1, 2014 by pauldelancey

French Appetizer

CROQUE MONSIEUR

INGREDIENTSCroqueMonsieur-

6 ounces sliced Gruyère cheese
4 tablespoons butter
2 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf
8 slices white bread
6 ounces sliced ham, thin but not paper thin

2 ounces grated Gruyère cheese

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and set to broil. Slice 6 ounces of Gruyère cheese. Grate 4 ounces of Gruyère cheese.

Use medium heat to melt butter in small pot. Add 1/2 of the melted butter to pan. (Reserve half of the butter.) Add flour. Cook at low-medium heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently. Add milk, nutmeg, pepper, and bay leaf. Cook at medium heat for 8 minutes or until sauce thickens. Remove from heat. Remove bay leaf. Set aside sauce. Stir with whisk or fork until blended.

Top a bread slice with 1/4th of the ham and 1/4th of the sliced cheese. Top with second bread slice. Repeat for 3 more sandwiches. Brush each sandwich with 1/4th of the remaining melted butter. Put sandwiches in pan and fry at medium heat for 2 minutes per sandwich side or until golden brown.

Put sandwiches on baking sheet. Spoon sauce and grated cheese evenly over the 4 sandwiches. Broil at 375 degrees for 2-to-4 minutes or until cheese on top starts to brown.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe uses flour. Flower and flour are homonyms. It’s important not to get the two words mixed up. Putting flours, say white and wheat, in your sweetheart’s hair will not get you a kiss on the lips. Indeed, your sweetheart is more likely to snarl, grab a kitchen mallet, and approach you. Run.

2) And don’t use flowers in this recipe. Doing so will probably not enhance the taste of this dish nor even its texture. And my gosh, don’t even think of using the flower deadly nightshade as an ingredient. It’s poisonous. Accidental culinary deaths are bad. Deliberate culinary murders are always bad. Just say no to culinary murders.

– 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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Lime-Chili Popcorn

Posted on December 3, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

LIME-CHILI POPCORN

INGREDIENTSLimeChiliPopcorn-

1/4 cup popcorn
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon chili powder

SPECIAL UTENSIL

air popcorn popper

PREPARATION

Put popcorn in popper. Put bowl underneath popper’s opening. Keep bowl in place until all the kernels have popped. Sprinkle lime juice and chili powder into bowl with popcorn. Stir with long spoon or fork.

TIDBITS

1) There is moisture in each kernel. This liquid turns to steam as the popcorn heats up. Water cannot escape the kernel shell. Pressure builds up until the kernel explodes.

2) Popcorn dating from 3000 B.C. has been found in New Mexican caves. People were happy.

3) The first permanent income tax for the United States was established in 1913. Americans became cranky. We fought a bloody war in Germany from 1917 to 1918. We greatly expanded our navy.

4) Charles Manley developed the first good electric popcorn popper in 1925 and sold it to theaters. Americans became happy again. Our economy boomed. It was the Golden Age of Comedy.

5) The Great Depression struck in 1929. Harrowing economic hardships resulted in fascist dictatorships in Germany, Italy, and Spain. America kept its democratic form of government.

6) Why? Popcorn. Popcorn was one of the few treats millions of Americans could afford to eat while watching their beloved movies.

7) The recent and relatively peaceful break up of the Soviet Union occurred because of the easy accessibility of popcorn in contrast to its popcornless Revolution of 1917.

8) The Wampanoag tribe brought popcorn to the colonists for that famous autumnal feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The grateful settlers called the meal, “Thanksgiving.” We are still grateful.

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

Dijon Mustard

Posted on November 12, 2013 by pauldelancey

French Appetizer

DIJON MUSTARD

INGREDIENTSDijonMustard-

1/2 medium yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup mustard, dry
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

colander
airtight jar

PREPARATION

Mince the onion and garlic. Put wine, onion, garlic in pot. Cook at high heat until wine boils. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Pour mixture through colander into mixing bowl. Let liquid cool.

Add mustard to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until mixture is smooth. Add wine/garlic/mustard, honey, vegetable, and salt to pot Simmer for about 10 minutes or until liquid thickens. (Don’t look down too long at pot. The vapor will make your eyes sting.) Let cool. Pour into airtight jar. Keep refrigerated. The Dijon mustard will get slightly milder over the next 5 days.

TIDBITS

1) Ancient doctors used mustard to cure toothaches, epilepsy, and PMS, increase blood circulation, clear sinuses, and stimulate appetite. It had indifferent success in curing death as shown by the mustard found in King Tut’s tomb. Listen to the comedian Steve Martin & the Toot Uncommons sing the praises of King Tut.

2) Many cultures scatter mustard seeds around the home to repel evil spirits. Bear traps are a good way to tackle bad spirits taking on animal form. Leaving lutefisk outside your door wards off all spirits ethereal or corporal, including mimes selling aluminum siding door to door.

3) Indeed, people in medieval Paris could buy mustard by the wheelbarrow. This facts suggests lots of door-to-door mimes ran around back then. On the other hand, there is scant evidence of 13th-century Parisian homes, stone, wood, or otherwise, being adorned with aluminum siding.

4) Canada is the largest producer of mustard. There aren’t many evil spirits in Canada. See?

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

Deviled Eggs

Posted on October 23, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

DEVILED EGGS

INGREDIENTSdevdegg-

4 eggs
1/3 teaspoon paprika
1 1/3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/3 teaspoon mustard powder

PREPARATION

Place eggs in a pot. Put water in pot. Bring water to boil. Cook for twelve minutes. (Read short sentences.) Do not overcook; a green coating on the yolk would look especially horrible for this recipe. Put eggs in bowl of cold water for fast cooling. Remove shells, cracking the eggs from the bottom first.

Cut eggs in half, lengthwise. Remove the egg yolks. Release your pent-up frustrations mashing them with your handy whisk. Mix in paprika, mayonnaise, and mustard powder.

Spoon this mixture back into the holes left by the removed yolks. Sprinkle only a lit bit more paprika over each entire egg for visual effect. Serve.

This is so easy. And it’s considered a gourmet food. Wow! There’s no excuse not to look suave and sophisticated at dinners or potlucks with this recipe.

TIDBITS

1) Paprika is by far the most popular spice in Hungary. The poppy seed is almost revered in that country. Hungarians refused to join the European Community until they were guaranteed unrestricted poppy-seed production. The European Union caved.

2) The ancient Egyptians boiled goose eggs. Apparently, those eggs are indigestible otherwise. A raw goose egg? Ugh. I’ll take the word of the ancients on this one.

3) Spicy stuffed eggs were eaten in 13th century Andalusia, a region of Spain. Spain discovered the New World in the late 15th century. Coincidence? Perhaps.

4) King Louis XV ate boiled eggs every Sunday. This practice ceased with his death.

5) The culinary term “deviled” arose in the late 18th century and referred to highly seasoned or fiery dishes.

6) My wife doesn’t like using the term “devil” in anything. So if you have another name for this dish, I’d appreciate hearing it.

7) Tampa’s baseball team used to be called the Devil Rays. They are now know as the Rays. So, other people must feel the same way.

8) My brother and I had egg holders when we were children in Australia. Neither of us ever played for the Rays. Coincidence? Perhaps.

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

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