Posts Tagged With: appetizer

Misheard Lyrics of KC and the Sunshine Band

The heart-pumping lyrics of “Boogie Shoes” by KC and the Sunshine Band turns us all into dancing fiends, ready to dominate the disco floor. The song alone is an aerobic exercise.

The repetitive lyrics are simplicity itself. So, understanding the song should be easy peasy. The mood the song engenders should also be obvious.

Well, no.

Only if you hear the correct lyrics.

The true lyrics are:

“I wanna put on my, my, my boogie shoes
“Just to boogie with you, yeah”

And now the misheard lyrics which kinda change the meaning:

Misheard lyrics #18

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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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Classic Quote

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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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: observations, wise words | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Golden Berry Pico De Gallo

Fusion Appetizer

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GOLDEN BERRY PICO DE GALLO

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INGREDIENTS
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1 jalapeno chile or serrano chile
6 ounces cherry tomatoes
6 ounces golden berries
½ red onion
½ cup fresh cilantro
1½ tablespoons lime juice
¼ ounce pepper
½ ounce salt
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Serves 4. Takes 30 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Remove seeds from chile if you desire a milder salsa. Dice cherry tomatoes, cilantro, golden berries, jalapeno, and red onion. Add all ingredients to mixing bowl. Stir with fork until well blended. It should last for about 5 days if stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container. Golden berry pico de gallo goes well with tortillas chips or as a side to any Mexican dish.
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TIDBITS
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1) This recipe asks you to use a half a red onion.
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2) Sure, you could buy an entire red onion and use half of it. But can you do with the unused half?
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3) You need an entire red onion to participate in red-onion bowling leagues. So that’s out.
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4) People really don’t appreciate red-onion halves as a stocking stuffer.
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5) I suppose if you have twelve red-onion halves and your opponent has twelve white-onion halves, you could play onion checkers. But as of press time, America displays a rather striking lack of interest in such a pastime.
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6) And you know in your heart of hearts, some neighbor, perhaps just a block away, needs a red-onion half. Perhaps she needs it to make her own Golden Berry Pico de Gallo. Whatever, she needs it and would dearly love to obtain your red onion half.
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7) Wahoo! The answer’s obvious. Organize a market for such a thing. Set it up for Every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 11 am. Bring your half vegetables and swap for the half vegetables you do need. You save money. You cut on waste. And don’t have to waste time and gas needed to go to the store for just a half a head of lettuce. You’ll make America safer from a possible oil embargo.
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8) And you’ll meet new people. Perhaps a romance will bloom. How cool is that?
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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

Garlic Naan

Indian Appetizer

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GARLIC NAAN

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INGREDIENTS – NAAN
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1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons yeast (room temperature)
⅓ cup warm water
3⅓ cups flour
½ cup warm milk
¼ cup olive oil (a total of 6⅓ tablespoon more later)
½ cup plain yogurt
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (5⅓ tablespoons more later)
5⅓ tablespoons olive oil (16 times with 1 teaspoon each time)
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INGREDIENTS – GARLIC SAUCE
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2½ tablespoons ghee or butter
1½ tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
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Makes 8 naans. Takes 2 hours.
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PREPARATION – NAAN
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Add sugar, yeast, and warm water to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until sugar and yeast dissolve. Let sit for 10 minutes or until foamy. Add flour, warm milk, ¼ cup olive oil, yogurt, and salt. Mix with fork until well blended. Knead with hands until a smooth dough ball forms. Add 1 tablespoon oil. Rotate dough ball in oil until well coated. Cover and let sit for 1 hour or until dough ball doubles in size. Push down on dough.
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Add dough ball to flat surface. Divide dough ball into 8 mini-dough balls. Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour.) Roll out mini-dough balls until they are ⅛”-to-¼” thick and about 6″ wide. These are your naans. Add 1 teaspoon olive oil to pan. Warm at medium-high heat until a tiny bit of dough starts to dance. Add 1 mini-dough ball to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 1 minute or  until bubbles form on top. Carefully flip naan, add 1 teaspoon olive oil and sauté for another 1 minute.  Repeat for remaining naans. (Sauté tend to diminish with each naan.
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PREPARATION – GARLIC SAUCE
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Mince cilantro. Add ghee to small pan. Melt ghee at medium heat. Add garlic. Sauté at medium heat for 30 seconds. Stir frequently. Brush naans with equal amounts of ghee/garlic. Sprinkle with cilantro .
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TIDBITS
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1) It’s rainy outside. This makes people, like me, silly. So these tidbits will be devoted to naan sense.
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2) Q: What’s the IT’ crowd’s favorite food?
A: Naan o’ Bytes.
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3) Genghis Khan, a Haiku
Mongol Genghis Khan
Who conquered lands far and wide
Ate our Garlic Naan
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4) Naan
Nan’s Naan
Nun Nan’s Naan
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy named
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy named gnomes’ knowledge
Nun Nan’s Nantucket Naan needs nearly nervous Ned’s nerdy named gnomes’ knowledge now
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5) Q: Can a naan become an American president?
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A: Yes, if was baked in America more than 35 years ago.
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6) Q: Doesn’t a president have to be alive?
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A: That’s why naans who want to become president get frozen.
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7) Q: Doesn’t the American Constitution say anything against cryogenically frozen people?
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A: No, it does not, but neither does it specifically rule out naans.
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So probably frozen naans are okay to preside over America.
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8) Q: But won’t the frozen naan will need to thaw when it’s time to run things? I mean, once it’s thawed, it will only last a few days if left out or at most a few weeks in the fridge?
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A) Yes indeed. This is why political parties try to pick a qualified candidate for vice president.
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9) Q: Couldn’t a progressively stale naan picked a fresh naan to be vice president? Then when that naan becomes president, select another naan to follow in its footsteps? Couldn’t we have one naan president after another until the next election?
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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, international, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amchoor Chutney

Indian Appetizer

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AMCHOOR CHUTNEY

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INGREDIENTS
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½ cup jaggery* or dark brown sugar
¼ cup amchoor powder** or tamarind powder or citric acid powder
¼ chili powder
¼ teaspoon ginger powder
¾ teaspoon roasted cumin powder* or cumin powder
1 teaspoon black salt* or salt
½ cup water
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* = Available in Asian supermarkets or on line.
** = Available in Asian supermarkets or on line. Amchoor powder is powdered mango. Mango is a fruit. Fruits are important to chutney. So, please try to find amchoor, or amchur, powder.
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Makes ½ cup. Takes 20 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add all ingredients but water to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Add this mixture and water to pan. Bring to boil using medium-high heat. Stir constantly. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
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This chutney goes well with curries, cheese, lamb, and poultry. Amchoor chutney also makes a good sandwich and even is tasty just by itself. It’s quite versatile.
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TIDBITS
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1) On December 31, 2022, Ayansh “Armchair” Chandra became, by far, the richest man in the world with an estimated wealth of $1.3 trillion dollars.  He was immediately deluged with spam mail and calls from sons of Nigerian dictators and penny-stock, dessert-topping speculators.
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2) How did he get to be so rich? Simple, the International Patent and Trademark Board (IPTB) mistakenly awarded him the above sum for violations of his armchair patents and trademark on the word “armchair.” However, late on January 1, the IPTB realized its mistake and cancelled the award. A suitably chastened director, Pieter van Poffertje, commented, “Jeetje, that’s the last time we have such a big New Year’s Eve party.”
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3) To atone for such a serious gaffe, the IPTB decreed for one day to give “Armchair” Chandra all  royalties derived from all amchoor chutneys sold in Antarctica. Of course, the IPTB possesses no enforcement powers there, but Chandra appreciated the thought. And so, everything was settled.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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

Buddha’s Hand Vinaigrette

American Appetizer

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BUDDHA’S HAND VINAIGRETTE

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INGREDIENTS
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½ cup olive oil or grapeseed oil
½ tablespoon salt
¼ cup lemon juice
5 tablespoons Buddha’s hand zest *
2 garlic clove
2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon thyme
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* = It is quite possible that you’ll need to make your own zest from a Buddha’s hand citron.  Buddha’s hand citron in organic or specialty supermarkets such as SproutsTM.
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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zester, if as likely, you bought Buddha’s hand citron
Mason jar
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Makes 1 cup.  Takes 10 minutes or 25 minutes if you need to make your own zest.
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PREPARATION
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Add all ingredients to Mason jar. Shake until well blended.
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TIDBITS
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1) Buddha’s Hand is supposed look like the hand of Buddha. Apparently, Buddha had about 16 fingers on a hand. Who knew?
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2) Baseball at one time, also had strange nicknames that referred to parts of the body. The best ones are:
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Bris “The Human Eyeball” Lord. His middle name is Robotham. Really.
Nick “Tomato Face” Cullup
Walt “No Neck” Williams
Wilbur “Raw Meat” Rodgers
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Football had Lou “The Toe” Groza
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The best non-body nickname is “Death to Flying Things” and was applied to Jack Chapman, Bob Ferguson, and Franklin Gutiérrez.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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, sports | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Persimmon Pomegranate Arugula Salad

American Appetizer

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PERSIMMON POMEGRANATE ARUGULA SALAD

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INGREDIENTS
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4 Fuyu persimmons
3 cups arugula
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup pomegranate seeds*
2 tablespoons pomegranate juice.
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* = 1 pomegranate will yield sufficient amount of these ingredients.
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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mandoline (optional)
vegetable peeler (optional)
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Serves 4. Takes 15 minutes or a bit longer if you have scoop the seeds out of a pomegranate.
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PREPARATION
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Peal persimmons with peeler. Use mandoline to cut persimmons into slices ¼’ thick. Add all ingredients to large serving bowl. Toss with forks or spoons until well blended.
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TIDBITS
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1) On April 1, Farine du Ble demonstrated on her show, Talc Chef, how to make Arugula Persimmon Pomegranate Salad, or APPs for short. Viewers tried it and recommended this salad to all their friends. “If want to have this dish, check it out on APPS. Unfortunately, most human ears cannot distinguish between APPs and apps. So, most people heard “Check it out on apps.”
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2) And so they went to their apps’ store to buy Arugula Persimmon Pomegranate Salad. So many billions of people tried that they crashed the worldwide web and crashed communication everywhere. E-commerce looked ready to collapse. Decades-long depression loomed. Militaries from most countries ceased to function from lack of orders. The very few armies that didn’t rely on the internet could have conquered us all. It looked bad.
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3) Fortunately, world leaders had already decreed April 1st to be Global Nap Day. No orders for Arugula Persimmon Pomegranate Salad could have been shipped that day. Thus, the Great Interest crash couldn’t have affected commerce at all. Soldiers napped all over the Earth. So, no wars of conquest took place. Everything was okay. Still, it had been quite the close call. An emergency session of the United Nations renamed this dish to be Persimmon Pomegranate Arugula Salad, or PPAS. The threat to the internet vanished. Serenity returned to the world. Something to chew on.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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

Cranberry Sauce

Bosnian Appetizer

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CRANBERRY SAUCE

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INGREDIENTS
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1⅓ cups sugar
½ cup orange juice
¾ cup water
1 pound cranberries
Mason jars for unused sauce
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Makes 3¼ cups. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add sugar, orange juice, and water to pot. Simmer at low-medium heat for 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves completely. Stir frequently. Add cranberries. Cook at medium heat for 15 minutes or until cranberries crack open and sauce is dark and thick. Stir frequently. Remove sauce from heat. (Sauce should thicken more as it cools.) Leave in refrigerator for 1 hour or until sufficiently cooled. . Goes well on poultry, pork, beef, and fish. Store excess in Mason jars.
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TIDBITS
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1) Cranberries are good for you in all sorts of ways. I forget some of them. Apparently, cranberries don’t help the memory much.
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2) The Picts and Celts in Ancient Britain were fierce warriors. They got their energy and stamina from eating cranberries. If the these ancient fighters ate too many cranberries they got tummy aches. They also found oodles and oodles of excess energy coursing through their veins. They became too hot. The Picts and Celts had to let some of their escape or they’d collapse.
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3) So the first Britons took off all their clothes to cool off. Being nude, they painted their bodies blue for modesty’s sake. Then they charged the opposing army with a ferocity that’s never again been equaled. But they didn’t wear hats or paint their heads. The skin on their heads turned red under the hot unforgiving sun. The invading Romans thought the Britons’ skulls, crania, looked as red as the cranberry that the natives ate. So, the Romans called this red berry, the cranberry.
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4) I almost forgot, a Roman chef, Quintus Cato, looked at the cranberry sauce in his Mason jar and thought, “The Mason jar is much taller than it’s wide. Is it possible to build like that as well?” He wrote of this idea to his pal, Emperor Vespasian of Rome. The energetic Emperor immediately ordered construction of the Colosseum, so named because it’s colossal in size. Now you know.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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

Navajo Fry Bread

Navajo Appetizer

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NAVAJO FRY BREAD

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INGREDIENTS
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2 cups flour
3¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ cups milk, lukewarm
3 cups vegetable oil
¼ cup flour
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Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whish until well blended. Gradually add milk. Mix with hands after each addition. Knead for 5 minutes or until a smooth dough ball forms.
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Divide dough ball into 4 mini dough balls. Spread ¼ cup flour onto flat surface. Add mini dough balls. Flatten mini dough balls into discs ¼” thick. Let sit for 5 minutes. Make a tiny hole in the middle of the discs. (This prevents the discs from ballooning into a circle.)
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Add oil to large pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat until a bit of dough in the oil will start to dance. Gently add 1 dough disc into oil. Use spatula to press down on disc so that it is covered by oil. Fry dough disc for 0.5-to-2 minutes or until bubbles form on the top and the bottom turns golden brown. Carefully turn disc over with 1 or 2 spatulas. Fry until new bottom turns golden brown and the top bubbles.) Remove fry breads from heat and drain on paper towels. Repeat for remaining discs. Frying times might decrease with each fry bread.
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Use fry breads to make Navajo tacos or top them with honey or confectioners’ sugar to make a tasty dessert.
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TIDBITS
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1) The Navajo fry bread in the above picture is golden brown.
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2) The CL, Chef Legislature, mandates that all cooks know what Golden Brown means and how to bake and fry flour so that these dishes all come out Golden Brown.
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3) The CPD, Chef Police Department, will come for you if you don’t cook bread Golden Brown.
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4) On the other hand, if you master the art of cooking bread Golden Brown, everybody will love you. Crime in your neighborhood will fall to zero. Every financial decision will be golden. You will find gold nuggets just lying around as you take your daily walk. Anybody you fancy will desire your body, and you will be able to do the New York Times’ crossword puzzle.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dinner Rolls

American Appetizer

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DINNER ROLLS

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INGREDIENTS
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2¼ teaspoons dry active yeast
⅓ cup lukewarm water
¼ teaspoon sugar (7 teaspoons more later)
2½ tablespoons melted butter (2 tablespoons more later)
½ cup milk, lukewarm
½ teaspoon salt
7 teaspoons sugar
2¼ cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)
1½ tablespoons flour
no-stick spray
2 tablespoons melted butter
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SPECIAL UTENSILS
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electric beater
8″ round casserole dish
bench scraper/chopper or long non-serrated knife
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Makes 15 rolls. Takes 2 hours 35 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add yeast and lukewarm water to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Sprinkle ¼ teaspoon sugar on top. Let sit for 10 minutes or until bubbles. Add 2½ tablespoons melted butter, milk, salt, and 7 teaspoons sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with spatula until salt and sugar dissolve. Let cool to room temperature.
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Add yeast mixture to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Gradually add 2¼ cups flour while mixing with electric beater set on medium. Mix until a slightly sticky dough ball forms. Dust flat surface with 1½ tablespoons flour. Remove dough ball to flat surface. Knead for 5 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Spray large mixing bowl with no-stick spray. Add dough ball to large mixing bowl. Rotate dough until covered with spray. Cover bowl with towel. Let sit for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
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Push down on dough. Roll dough into a log 15″ long and 1″ wide. Use bench scraper to cut log into 15 pieces. Shape 15 pieces into smooth balls. Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add smooth dough balls to casserole dish. Cover with towel and let sit for 1 hour or until fluffy. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until tops of rolls turn golden brown. Brush tops of rolls with 2 tablespoons melted butter.
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TIDBITS
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1) Doing dishes makes the kitchen clean, which makes you happy.
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2) But, pondering the infinite brings enlightenment.
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3) What will you chose?
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4) May I suggest alternating 5-minute bursts of each activity?
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5) While achieving enlightenment, I had the following stream of consciousness.
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6) Can you have a stream of consciousness while asleep or even unconscious?
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7) Unconscious is a hard word to spell.
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8) You can see that I spelled it right.
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9) You’ll have to take my word for it that I spelled it right on the very first try. Go me.
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10) Somehow this segues into how we developed before birth.
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11) Prehistoric peoples believed we started out as very tiny version of the baby that would eventually pop out of mama.
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12) How do we know this? Go to the Courgette Library in Bordeaux, France. Find the research department and ask to see the ground breaking Greatest Texts of Prehistory by Farine du Ble.
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13) Nowadays, culinary biologists say that we began as a single, undifferentiated cell.
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14) This cell doubled into two slightly unlike* cells.
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15) * = I used my thesaurus to come up with a different word for different.
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16) This doubling process kept going until we had nearly 15 slightly dissimilar cells like in the above photo.
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17) Eventually this doubling process stops. We don’t increase twofold the day before birth.
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18) But what if this repetitive course continues after birth?
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19) Eventually, we’d get as big as Uranus.
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20) We’d also possess a staggering number of specialized cells.
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21) We’d most likely quite sport an impressive number of super-hero skills.
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22) Which we’d need if we were truly as enormous as Uranus.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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: Chatting With Chefs, cuisine, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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