Is there anything more heartwarming and beautiful than the miracle of birth?
Particularly so, when it happens in the wild.
Here then is the rarely seen birth of a red bell pepper.
Just one more push
– 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.
Brazilian Entree
INGREDIENTS
1¾ pounds rump steak
2 garlic cloves
¼ teaspoon cayenne
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
1 yellow onion
½ pound bacon
1 yellow bell pepper
10 ounces plum tomatoes
SPECIAL UTENSIL
barbecue grill
PREPARATION
Cut steak into 1½” cubes. Mince garlic. Add steak cubes, garlic, cayenne, cumin, paprika, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Toss steak cubes until they are well coated with spices. Add lemon juice and oil. Gently toss steak cubes. Put mixing bowl in refrigerator for 2 hours to marinate.
While steak cubes marinate, cut onion into 1½” cubes. (Well, make the best cubes you can out of a round onion. This recipes yearns for a cubic, organic onion) Cut bacon in 1½” long rectangles. Remove seeds from bell pepper and cut into 1½” squares. Thread steak cubes, onion cubes, bacon, bell-pepper squares, and plum tomatoes onto skewers. Heat grill to 450 degrees..Grill kebabs for 1-to-2 minutes Rotates kebabs ¼ turn and grill for another 1-to-2 minutes. Keep rotating and grilling kebabs until meat is done to your liking.
TIDBITS
1) Brazilian bus drivers once trained beetles to retrieve coins from the fare boxes. Police arrested all humans and beetles from this daring criminal ring. I wonder if the charges against the beetles were dropped. How do you read rights to a beetle? Or do beetles have no legal rights in Brazil?
2) The prospect of insect crime keeps me up at night. Sure, I can lock my doors, even deadbolt them. But is my home truly secure when any robber can get his trained termites to eat a large hole in my front door? The best defense against this is an army of ants. Ants hate termites. Just make sure your ants have enough to do. Bored ants tend to wander to the bed where they inhibit whoopee.
– 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.
Cameroonian Soup
PEANUT SOUP
INGREDIENTS
1 red chile pepper
1 yellow onion
2 tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
1 green bell pepper
⅓ cup unsalted peanuts
2 tablespoons peanut oil
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup baby spinach
SPECIAL UTENSIL
spice grinder
PREPARATION
Remove seeds from red chile pepper. Dice onion and tomatoes. Mince garlic cloves, green bell pepper, and red chile pepper. Grind peanuts in spice grinder.
Add peanut oil, garlic, onion, green bell pepper, and red chile pepper to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add vegetable broth, peanut butter, tomato, pepper, and salt. Stir until peanut butter dissolves into soup. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add spinach. Simmer on low for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Ladle soup into bowls. Top soup with ground peanuts.
TIDBITS
1) In 1472, Portuguese explorers named one of Cameroon’s rivers Rio dos Camarões after all the shrimp in it. This is how the country, Cameroon, gets it name. Way cool. I wish where I lived could be renamed Taco. I love tacos.
2)In 1931, Cameroon sent $3.77 to America’s starving. Or they could have sent shrimp.
3) The world’s biggest specie of frog lives in Cameroon. One of them is called Jeremiah.
4)The yellow stripe in Cameroon’s flag represents sunshine. Antarctica, if it ever becomes a country, should have a white stripe representing snow and a beaker in honor of all the scientists living there.
– 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.
Mexican Entree
MACARENA MACARONI
INGREDIENTS
12 ounces uncooked three-colored macaroni
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium white onion
1 red bell pepper
2 stalks green onion
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon tarragon
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon Vegetable MagicTM spice
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1/2 teaspoon salt
16 ounce ground beef
8 ounces grated Four Mexican Cheeses
3 ounces Cotija cheese
PREPARATION
Follow instructions shown on bag to cook multicolored macaroni. (Wouldn’t it be neat if your clothes washer had a setting for boil? Then you could use it to make quite a lot of macaroni.) Look for macaroni with the Mexican colors of: red, white or plain, and green. Drain water when done. Keep macaroni in pot. (Because once it gets out, the macaroni will never return. Wanderlust and all that.)
While macaroni is cooking, dice white onion, bell pepper, and green onion. Crumble Cotija cheese. Add olive oil, white onion, green onion, bell pepper, cumin, tarragon, chili powder, vegetable spice, garlic salt, onion salt, and salt to pan. Sauté for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Mix in ground beef. Cook on medium heat until meat changes color. Stir occasionally.
Blend beef mixture in pot with macaroni. Crumble Cotija cheese. Sprinkle with Cotija cheese and Four Mexican Cheeses.
TIDBITS
1) Beef is a major ingredient of this dish. Beef comes from cattle. There is no singular form for cattle.
2) Pig is the singular form of pigs.
3) American foreign policy suffered a reverse at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.
4) Cubans like pork. Why didn’t we send them pork instead?
5) But beef was preferred in the Old West.
6) That is why they had cattle drives back then.
7) As depicted in the television show Rawhide.
8) In Rawhide, Clint Eastwood referred to their cattle as beeves.
9) The singular form of beeves is beef.
10) Apparently, the English language was much stronger back then.
– 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.
American entree
PHILLY CHEESE STEAK
INGREDIENTS
1 pound rib-eye steak
5 ounces provolone cheese
1 green bell pepper
1 large yellow onion
4 cloves garlic (2 teaspoons)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 hoagie rolls (or Italian rolls or Kaiser rolls or baguettes)
2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
PREPARATION
Slice steak, provolone, bell pepper, and onion as thinly as you can. Mince garlic. Put vegetable oil in skillet. Heat oil using medium-high heat. It’ll be hot enough when a bit of onion causes the oil to sizzle. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, and salt to skillet. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onion becomes tender. Stir frequently.
Add steak slices and cook on medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until meat browns. Place provolone slices over steak mixture. Heat until provolone melts. Spoon cheesy/steak mixture into hoagie rolls.
TIDBITS
1) Many believe Pat and Harry Olivieri invented the Philly steak sandwich in the early ‘30s. Their original sandwich consisted of chopped steak on hoagie rolls. Joe “Cocky Joe” Lorenza, one of their managers, later added cheese.
2) John Kerry ran for president in 2004. He might have won but for a widely publicized gaffe where he tried to order a Philly cheese steak with Swiss cheese instead of the traditional provolone, American cheese, or Cheez WhizTM.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “In Philadelphia, that’s an alternative lifestyle”
3) And so George W. Bush won a second term. Barack Obama was elected in 2008 in what could have been Kerry’s second term. And in that time we’ve had a major global recession, terrorist bombings, nuclear weapons programs by Iran and North Korea, global warming, the proliferation of high-fructose corn syrup, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4) So careful when ordering your Philly cheese steak. The fate of the world depends on it.
– 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.
American Entree
INGREDIENTS
1 onion
1 tomato
1 green bell pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
8 hot dogs
8 bacon slices
1 jalapeno pepper
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
8 buns
no-stick spray
PREPARATION
Dice onion, tomato, bell pepper, and jalapeno pepper. Put vegetable oil, onion, bell pepper, and jalapeno in skillet. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Set aside.
Wrap a bacon slice around each hot dog. Tuck in the ends of the bacon slices so they don’t unwrap. (Or use toothpicks.) Spray new skillet. Add bacon-wrapped hot dogs to skillet. Fry on medium-high heat for 5-to-10 minutes or until bacon is crispy and hot dogs are done. Turn bacon-wrapped hot dogs frequently to ensure even cooking.
While hot dogs are frying, toast the buns. Spread ketchup, mayonnaise, and mustard on buns.. Sprinkle buns with diced tomatoes. Add bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Close and eat. Yum!
TIDBITS
1) A chipotle is a ripe, smoked jalapeno. A salmon that has been smoked is a smoked salmon.
2) A jalapeno pepper went to outer space in 1982. I have never been to outer space. I have been bested by a jalapeno pepper. It’s quite humbling.
3) However, as far as I know smoked salmon has never been to the moon or on the Space Shuttle. Please don’t tell me if it has; I don’t think my ego could handle it.
4 ) Don’t drink water after eating jalapenos. The water merely spreads the heat around. Drink milk. Milk blocks the pain receptors in your mouth. Got milk?
5) Jalapeno-salmon burgers are a popular entree. Someday, you will be able to order them in space. Be sure to have a lid for your milk. Milk gets everywhere in zero-gravity.
– Chef Paul
– 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.
Italian Entree
MEATBALL PIZZA
INGREDIENTS
1/2 onion
1 red bell pepper
flour
pizza crust (bought or from below recipe)
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup pasta sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic
1/2 pound ground beef
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
no-stick spray
SPECIAL UTENSIL
pizza pan
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Slice onion and bell pepper into thin rings. Cut rings in half. Dust pizza pan with flour and spray with no-stick spray. Put pizza crust on pizza pan. Spread diced tomatoes and its juice evenly over the pizza crust. Spread pasta sauce evenly over the crust.
In small mixing bowl, smoosh garlic and ground beef together. Use hands to form meatballs 1/2″ inch cross. Sprinkle meatballs, Italian seasoning, and mozzarella evenly over pizza. Put pizza in oven and bake at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese or crust is golden brown.
TIDBITS
1) Favorite pizza toppings around the world:
America: bacon, ground beef, bell pepper, extra cheese, mushrooms (ugh. Sorry, I don’t like them), onion, pepperoni, sausage, tomatoes
Australia: shrimp, pineapple, barbecue sauce
Brazil: green peas, hard-boil eggs
China: thousand island dressing, eel sushi
Costa Rica: coconut, pineapple
France: flambée (bacon, onion, fresh cream)
Germany: egg, asparagus
India: pickled ginger, lamb, chicken tikka
Japan: ketchup, eel, squid, and Mayo Jaga (mayonnaise, potato, bacon)
Korea: sweet potato, shrimp
Netherlands: double meat, double cheese, double onion
Pakistan: curry
Russia: mockba (a combination of sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon, and onions), red herring
Venezuela: corn, goat cheese
2) But if you really want to visit the cutting edge of pizza making you must go to Sweden where the following smorgasbord of toppings are popular: allspice, artichoke, banana, bacon, beets, bell pepper, Bearnaise sauce, cabbage, caper, carrot, chicken, chocolate, crab, curry, duck, eggplant, filet mignon, French fries, fruit cocktail, gorgonzola, guacamole, ham, hard-boiled eggs, honey. kebab meat. leeks, mashed potato, mayonnaise, onion, peanut, pepperoni, pickles, pineapple, raisin, salami, sausage, shallot, shrimp, white sauce, taco spices, tuna, and zucchini.
3) I really can’t explain Sweden’s unbridled culinary wildness. Swedish cuisine was much blander when I visited the country some years ago. Was there a mass poisoning of chefs by rotten lutefisk at a culinary convention? It’s quite possible; how can you detect bad lutefisk?
4) There are more pizza toppings in Sweden than are dreamed of in your philosophy.
– 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.
Tunisian Appetizer
INGREDIENTS
2 eggs
5 Roma tomatoes
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons parsley
1 baguette
PREPARATION
Boil eggs in water. (6 minutes for soft-boiled or 12 minutes for hard-boiled.) While eggs are boiling, also boil tomato, green bell pepper, and red bell pepper on high heat for 1 minute. Remove tomato, green bell pepper, and red-bell pepper and put in cold water. Their skins should peel off easily. (The skin of the tomato is the easiest to peel, then the red bell pepper, while the hardest to peel is the green bell pepper.
Dice boiled eggs. Cut tomatoes, green bell pepper, and red bell pepper into small bits. Mince garlic. Combine all ingredients except baguette in large mixing bowl with fork or whisk. Cut baguette into 1″ wide slices.
Top baguette slices with tomatp/bell pepper/spice mixture from mixing bowl. Also spoon liquid from mixing bowl onto baguette slices. Enjoy while you can. They go fast.
TIDBITS
1) About 1920 the French banned bakers from working before 4am. This didn’t give the bakers enough time to make loaves for the breakfast crowd. So they made the thinner baguettes which baked quicker.
2) In 2009, a bird dropped a piece of baguette into the Large Hadron Collider at Cern in Switzerland, causing a shut-down of the system. The NASDAQ stock exchange was twice shut down by squirrels chewing through cable insulation.
3) “Baguette” is derived from the Latin word “baculum,” meaning wand or staff. Baculum is also the name for a mammal’s penis bone.
4) Baguettes are sometimes used as swords in slapstick scenes in American movies. The French don’t appreciate this. But come on, I bet they have baguette sword fights on the sly.
5) In Baguette sword fights, you win if you stab your opponent with your baguette or you break your opponent’s baguette. Baguettes costs money and a shattered one sprays small crumbs all over the floor, making this game somewhat unpopular with mothers everywhere.
6) You can use the baguette as an old-fashioned fountain pen. Simply dip one end of the baguette in chocolate syrup. Again, permission from mother is recommended.
– 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.
Tanzanian Entree
INGREDIENTS
3 large brown potatoes
3 large carrots
1 green bell pepper
1/2 ground beef
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 or more tablespoons vegetable oil.
makes 12 flatcakes
SPECIALTY UTENSILS
food processor
electric skillet
PREPARATION
Peel and mince potatoes. (A food processor helps immensely. Remember this when your loved one gives you that appliance for your anniversary.) Peel and mince carrots. Remove seeds and mince bell pepper.
Combine all ingredients except vegetable oil in large mixing bowl. The best way to mix this is with your hands. Sorry. (But there is an upside to having messy hands. When your sweetheart asks you to answer the door or the telephone you can say, “Sorry, messy hands.”)
Make patties that are 1/2 cup big. Put 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in the electric skillet. Set the skillet to 350 degrees. Put as many patties as will fit into the skillet. Flatten them slightly with spatula. Cook with lid on for 5 minutes or until the patty browns. Remove lid. (Oil splatters, may I suggest wearing an apron?) Flip patties over and fry for another 5 minutes. Remove batch and start another. Add oil as needed.
And “tasty” in Swahili is “kitamu.”
TIDBITS
1) The carrot is one happening biennal plant of the umbel family.
2) Eating too many carrots will make your skin turn yellowish orange, especially on the palms or soles of the feet. This is called carotenemia. This goes away completely once you stop eating them.
3) Ancient Greeks and Romans ate carrots. No nation or tribe could stand up to Rome’s scary orange soldiers. That’s the Roman Empire grew so big and lasted so long.
4) Ancient Greeks believed eating carrots made men and women more amorous. “Hey, would like to have dinner at the Carrot Auctioneer?”
5) Seems silly, no? But rabbits love carrots and we all know how fast bunnies reproduce.
6) Hippocrates thought women could prevent pregnancy by eating carrot seeds.
7) Current scientific studies suggest this might be true after all.. Eating carrot seeds after intercourse might prevent the egg from implanting.
8) Whoa.
9) The orange carrot was invented by cross breeding yellow and red carrots. I wonder if you can turn yellow by eating too many yellow carrots. Don’t rob a bank after doing this. The police find with yellow palms easy to find.
10) Yay, carrots!
– 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.
Barbadian Entree
INGREDIENTS
4 Roma tomatoes
1 orange bell pepper
2/3 cups spinach
1/2 white onion
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
3 large eggs
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 tablespoon banana ketchup
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
4 tablespoons Bajan seasoning
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon parsley
SPECIAL UTENSIL
8″ casserole dish
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mince tomatoes, bell pepper, spinach, and onion. Add onion to butter and sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onions are soft.
Combine spinach, onion, tomato, bell pepper, ground beef, eggs, cheese, bread crumbs, banana ketchup, mustard, Bajan seasoning, cayenne, celery salt, cumin, and parsley. You really need to use your hands to do a good job here.
(Better yet, get your ten-year old to mix this up. Oh heck, he’s at a friend’s house.)
Transfer the meat mix to this dish. Smooth the meat and bake for 50 minutes. Let cool for 5 – 10 minutes. Oh, don’t forget to wash your hands.
TIDBITS
1) It is so difficult to find fun facts about meatloaf. The rock-music star Meatloaf so enamors all the fun-fact website producers that there are no fun-fact sides for the meatloaf showcased in this recipe.
2) But I own one of Meatloaf’s albums. In homage to him let me give him a tidbit. He once worked as a valet at a concert hall or arena. One of the cast members for the musical, Hair, quit. Meatloaf was pressed into action and the rest is non-culinary history.
3) Now back to Barbados. That sounds like a Caribbean John Wayne movie doesn’t it?
4) Mongooses were brought to Barbados from India to kill the rats in the sugar cane fields. Unfortunately, the nocturnal mongooses never came into contact with the rats who scurried about during the day. The mongooses did however, decimate the island’s herds of snakes that actually ate rats.
5) I know snakes don’t travel in herds, but I do love the image. “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.”
6) In 1976 Captain and Tennille had a huge hit with the song “Muskrat Love.” It could just as easily been called “Mongoose Love.”
7) They didn’t, of course, due in part to the bad rep the mongooses got from their activities in Barbados.
8) This is a cautionary tales for all mammals.
– 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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 