Posts Tagged With: cookbook

The New Global Threat

Posted on May 28, 2014 by pauldelancey

The stability of the entire world is threatened by an emerging superpower, Papua New Guinea.PapuaNewGuinea1

Hah, you say. Where is Papua New Guinea? North of Australia. What does it produce? Rain, mud, and documentaries about newly discovered stone-age tribes within its borders.

What could such a country do? Buy a lot of SPAM or … conquer the Pacific Ocean.

How? I’m glad you asked. Everyone knows the best mud for beauty care comes from Papua New Guinea, or PNG. The demand for this mud in American and European spas grows fantastically every year. Soon, PNG will be awash with the world’s money. PNG can then allocate its new billions to buy used aircraft carriers, fighter planes, bombers, tanks, and landing craft listed irresponsibly on eBay.

This is where the nightmare starts PNG has a population of 4,600,000. (I counted them twice.) Even if it puts just 10% of its people in the military, it will have a striking force of 460,000. Who has the population, the might to stop them? Not neighboring Nauru with its tiny population of 11,000 and maybe soldiers.

Emboldened by this easy conquest, Tuvalu, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Tonga, with their combined population of 260,000 will fall like leaves in a Wisconsin autumn. This disaster will have worldwide ramifications. Does anyone doubt the Palauan contingent keeping the peace in South Ruritania will remain under such dire circumstances? No, they will go home to fight a war of liberation. The whole idea of UN peace-keeping forces will unravel. Minor skirmishes will become full fledged regional wars. So it goes.

Soon, Micronesia and Vanuatu will topple. I don’t know much about them so let’s move onto the Solomon Islands and Fiji–biggish but still smaller than PNG. We cannot let these two nations fall. We cannot let PNG monopolize the best snorkeling sites in the world. Have you snorkeled at Key Largo? Well, let me tell you, the snorkeling at Fiji is much better. And by the way, conquest of these countries would enable PNG to block all airborne and seaborne trade across the Pacific. The snorkeling industry and the world economy would collapse.

What can Americans do? Simple. Cut off the funds for PNG’s drive for conquest. Whenever getting a mud treatment at your local spa, be sure to ask for good ol’ American mud. It’s good for your face. It’s good for world peace.

– Correspondent Paul

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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Grilled Saffron Chicken (Joojeh kabab)

Posted on May 27, 2014 by pauldelancey

Persian Entree

GRILLED SAFFRON CHICKEN
(Joojeh Kabab)

INGREDIENTSGrilledSaffronChicken-

1 onion
1/2 tablespoon lime juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 gram (1/28 ounce) teaspoon saffron threads
1/4 teaspoon salt

4 chicken breasts (2 pounds)
3 medium tomatoes

basmati rice (optional)
naan bread (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSIL

metal skewers
outdoor grill

PREPARATION

Grate or dice onion. Add onion, lime juice, olive oil, pepper, red pepper powder, saffron, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix well with whisk to make marinade. Cut chicken breasts into 1 ½” cubes. Add chicken cubes to mixing bowl. Turn chicken cubes until they are completely coated with marinade. Cover with lid or plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for about 8 hours.

Take long nap or have a nice sleep. Dream about being a pirate, becoming a monarch, or being the first person to set foot on Mars.

Wake up. Thread chicken cubes onto metal skewers. Coat tomatoes with marinade. Thread tomatoes onto its own skewer. Preheat grill to on high. Barbecue chicken for 5-to-10 minutes. Turn chicken skewers over and barbecue for another 5-to-10 minutes. (Don’t overcook as chicken will become dry. Grill times vary wildly between grill. Check constantly). Grill tomatoes for 5 minutes then make a 1/4th turn with its skewer. Repeat 3 more times for a total of 20 minutes or until skin cracks on all sides. (Again, monitor this carefully.)

Serve with basmati rice or naan bread.

TIDBITS

1) During President Johnson’s administration, the war in Vietnam escalated dramatically, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia, the Civil Rights Act passed, and riots erupted in many American cities. President Johnson needed time to get away from the daily stress of his office and so added barbecues to the White House roof.

2) Decades later, anti-aircraft missiles would be added to the roof of the White House to protect its barbecues.

3) America has the world’s largest number of barbecues.

4) It also has the world’s most powerful military.

5) It has to. The world wants America’s barbecues.

6) It’s not an entirely stable situation.

7) That’s why in 2003, America embarked on a barbecue-treaty signing spree with nations around the world. The first such treaty, Oil for Barbecue, with Saudi Arabia was instant success and provided the blueprint for future Barbecue Diplomacy.

8) There is a lot of sand in Saudi Arabia. However, there are a quite a lot of dinosaurs fossils in America.

9) No one knows for sure if dinosaurs had barbecues. There are no fossil records to support or deny such a hypothesis.

10) Sauropods certainly never held barbecues. They had no opposable thumbs, essential to holding metal spatulas. Indeed, these dinosaurs possessed no hands at all, opting to involve with four feet instead. Sauropods rarely got invited to block-party barbecues as their extremely size, limited agility, and low-level intelligences meant they often stomped on the grills, ruining the festivities.

11) Oh, and sauropods were vegetarians. They wouldn’t eat the barbecued ribs their hosts prepared for them. Their carnivore hosts often took this culinary reticence for rudeness and killed the sauropods. Which provided more meat for the barbecues. The barbecue brachiosaurus ribs were to die to for. Which they did.

12) Faced with extinction from barbecue loving meat eaters such as the allosaurus, the sauropods evolve into bigger and bigger dinosaurs such as the diplodocus and the seismosaurus, so that they would become to big to fit on the existing Jurassic grills.

13) However, the succeeding Cretaceous period saw the rise of the giganotosaurus and the tyrannosaurus rex. These fierce predators loved sushi, preferring to eat their properly prepared and spice prey raw.

14) Barbecue use dwindled. Then a meteor hit the Earth 64 million years ago, extinguishing the dinosaurs and what little culinary expertise they possessed. But now, finally, barbecues are back. We live in a new, golden age.

– 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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Tex Mex T Rex

Posted on May 23, 2014 by pauldelancey

Cretaceous Entree

TEX MEX T REX

INGREDIENTSTRex-

1 medium tyrannosaurus rex
300 garlic cloves
1,500 medium yellow onions
2,999 jars (18 ounces) barbecue sauce
1 15 ounce bottle organic ketchup
200 pounds chili powder
100 pounds cumin
25 pounds thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
40 gallons lemon juice
120 gallons Worcestershire sauce
12,000 hamburger buns

Note: Getting the amounts exact is critical. If your sums are off you just have to recount.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

1 time machine
1 sonic obliterator (not sold in Oregon as of publication)
1 culinary chainsaw (I recommend the Bushnell 303TM model)
1,500 crock pots
1 multi-story mixing bowl
1 24,000-hole toaster
1 deluxe surge protector

PREPARATION

Set time machine to Wednesday, June 3rd, 3 p.m., 65,403,002 B.C.. (For goodness sake, don’t push things and try to get yourself a T-Rex minutes before that giant meteorite slams into the Earth killing nearly everything. If you die in this cataclysm and don’t come back, your guests will never talk to you. You don’t need this social awkwardness.)

But it does remind me, to make Tex Mex T Rex you really need to kill a T Rex. For this job, you’ll want to get a premium sonic obliterator. One with a T-Rex rating. Don’t expect to waltz into a WalMartTM and buy the first sonic obliterator you see. You’ll be sorry. Indeed, you’ll be dead when the feeble sonic vibration from your off-the-shelves obliterator merely angers the T Rex into charging you. Always, always buy quality kitchen utensils.

Do not forget to kill the T-Rex. Be sure to slice up the T Rex into the various cuts of meat at the site and the time of the killing. This takes a long time and culinary chainsaws are noisy. You don’t want to annoy your current time, human neighbors. But in the Cretaceous period the chainsaw noise will scare off all those pesky predators who’d want to eat you. Take all your T-Rex cuts back with you. Don’t drop any. No one likes a litterbug.

Mince garlic cloves and onions. This should take no time at all as you have a time machine. Put T-Rex bits in crock pots. Add garlic, onion, barbecue sauce, organic ketchup, chili powder, cumin, salt, thyme, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce.

Set crock pots to high and cover them. Cook for 6 hours or until meat is tender. Remove T-Rex meat. Shred meat and return meat to crock pots for 30 minutes. Toast buns. Serve meat on buns. Note, this is a big meal. May I suggest serving it picnic style with plastic utensils and cardboard plates?

TIDBITS

1) Until the invention of the time machine, Cretaceous cuisine was impossible,

2) We have, of course, always had Cretan cuisine. However, food from the island of Crete is usually considered to be indistinguishable from the rest of Greek cuisine.

3) However, things would change dramatically if a Cretan restaurateur were to successfully transport T-Rex meat back to the current time. Crowds would certainly flock to Kronos’ Cretan Cretaceous Crudités.

4) This development would certainly provide a challenge to the Tex Mex T Rex cuisine of southwest Texas.

5) As of press time, 43% of all Tex Mex T Rex sandwiches are served in El Paso, Texas.

6) There are lots of non-culinary things to do in El Paso, Texas.

7) Be sure to take in the town’s T-Rex processing plant. Tours cost $20 person if you book now. However, the cost conscious can always go back in time, deposit a dollar in the bank, and gather enough interest to pay for the tour.

8) For an alternative experience, go to Hueco Tanks State Park and scale its huge boulders.

9) Those in your group who survive this experience will want to take in the Museum of Art and see American and Mexican colonial art.

10) Stargazing is quite popular here, especially at night.

11) So is sleeping.

12) Pleasant dreams.

– 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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Juicy Lucy (stuffed cheeseburger)

Posted on May 19, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

JUICY LUCY
(stuffed cheeseburger)

INGREDIENTSJuicyLucy-

1 onion
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves
1 ½ pounds lean ground beef
4 slices American cheese (other cheeses will seep out the sides of the patty)
1/4 teaspoon ground mustard
½ teaspoon ground four peppercorn blend (or pepper)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 ½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
4 lettuce leaves
4 hamburger buns

PREPARATION

Cut onion into ½” slices. Add oil and onion slices to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 2 ½ minutes for each side or until onion softens. Mince garlic. Add garlic, beef, ground mustard, peppercorn blend, salt, and Worcestershire sauce to mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Divide meat into 8 round balls. Flatten them until they are 1/4″ thick. Fold a slice of American cheese in half, then fold in half the other way. Press folded cheese into the center of a patty. Top with second patty. Pinch sides of patties to seal in the cheese. (This really needs to be a tight seal. Don’t make the patties too thick or the cheese might not melt.) Repeat for 3 more patties

Add tightly sealed patties to frying pan. Fry patties on medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Flip patties. It is essential at this point to prick the patties several times to let steam from the cheese to escape. (If you do not, you risk the heated cheese forcing its way out of the patties.) Fry for another 5 minutes or until meat is browned to your liking. (Cheese becomes more molten with longer cooking. This is also a matter of preference.) Put patties on buns and top with grilled onion slices and lettuce and upper bun. Wait 1 minute before eating as the cheese inside can be like lava.

TIDBITS

1) There is a fierce partisan debate about which Minneapolis eatery first served this wondrous entree. Many claim Matt’s Bar invented it, while others maintain it was first served at the 5-8 Club (5-8 = – 3) where it is known as the Jucy Lucy.

2). Matt Dillon was the marshal of Dodge City during the Old West. He liked to eat beef. He probably would have loved a Juicy Lucy. Although, he’d have to use a time machine to eat a modern day Juicy Lucy. As a peacekeeper, he’d probably never say which place he preferred, Matt’s Bar or the 5-8 club. But if he did, who would dare to gainsay the quick drawing marshal of Minneapolis?

– 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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Spring Rolls (Cha Gio)

Posted on May 16, 2014 by pauldelancey

Vietnamese Entree

SPRING ROLLS
(cha gio)

SpringRoll-

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

1/4 teaspoon Thai chili or red pepper flakes or minced serrano
1/4 cup fish sauce or Hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/4 cup sugar
½ cup water

INGREDIENTS – ROLL

1 ½ ounces cellophane noodles or rice vermicelli
½ pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
½ pound pork
1 carrot
4 green onion stalks
2 garlic cloves
1 egg
2 teaspoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons Hoisin sauce
1 teaspoon ginger
20 rice wrappers or egg roll wrappers
1 ½ tablespoons sesame oil
2 cups peanut oil as necessary
2 lettuce leaves

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric skillet

PREPARATION

Combine Thai chili, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, and water in mixing bowl. Stir with fork until sugar dissolves. Set aside. This is the dipping sauce.

Put noodles in mixing bowl. Add enough water to cover. Let sit for 10 minutes or until noodles become soft and bendable. While noodles are sitting, cut shrimp into eighths and mince pork. Shred or grate carrot. Mince green onion and garlic cloves. Drain water from noodles. Beat egg in small bowl.

Add sesame oil, carrot, garlic, pork, shrimp, fish sauce, and Hoisin sauce to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until shrimp turns orangish-pink and is no longer translucent. Stir frequently. Add noodles, green onion, and ginger. Cook at medium heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently. Let cool.

If rice wrapper is hard, quickly run warm water over until it is pliable. (IMPORTANT! Run water over only ONE WRAPPER at a time. If you run water over multiple wrappers at a time or leave the wrappers for any length over time you will get a gelatinous mass that can’t be separated for love or money.) Place rice wrapper on board. Brush edges of rice wrapper with egg. Add 1/4 cup of pork/shrimp/veggie/noodle mix to center, bottom third of rice wrapper. Fold in sides to form 3″ long roll. Roll up rice wrapper from bottom. Brush remaining corner with egg. Repeat until you run out of rice wrappers or pork/shrimp/veggie/noodle mix.

Set electric skillet to 375 degrees. Put a drop of water in skillet. When drop starts to bubble or move around, add up to 2 cups of peanut oil as necessary. Carefully add 8 egg rolls to skillet at a time using tongs. Fry egg rolls for 2-to-3 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Turn egg rolls. Once. Remove and place on paper towels to drain grease. Repeat until all egg rolls are fried.

TIDBITS

1) Vietnam is an anagram for Mite Van.

2) Most mites are way too small to drive a van safely.

3) Or even pedal a bicycle.

4) Vietnamese policemen are banned from wearing dark sunglasses while on duty. This is because you really need to see well to see a mite driving a van illegally. A drunken mite would make for a particularly poor driver.

5) If you are a mite and you want to hit the hard stuff, consider drinking ruou ran (snake wine.) This wine comes with a pickled snake inside the bottle. It is supposed to be able to cure any illness.

6) Giving snake wine to all the sick people of the nation would be a unique national health program. The National Health Care Dispensaries, formerly known as bars and liquor stores, would sell the wine direct to the public.

7) This plan would require no tax dollars from the government. Households would be freed from spending 14% of their income on health care.

8) The Federal Government could use all the money it saves to pay down the debt, invest in infrastructure, and conduct energy research. People would spend their windfall on college education for their kids, provide for their retirement, and buy bacon.

9) With people’s retirement completely assured, we wouldn’t need to contribute to social security. Indeed, the government could then distribute all the money we having coming to us. We’d buy cars, homes, and doughnuts. The surging demand would force businesses to hire every worker they could find and at a high wage. Higher take home pay would mean more spending. To meet this spiraling demand, businesses would want to investment massively for the future. Massive future investment means full employment forever. I see a Nobel Prize in Economics coming for me very soon.

– 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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Peanut Sauce (pinda saus)

Posted on May 15, 2014 by pauldelancey

Dutch appetizer

PEANUT SAUCE
(pinda saus)

INGREDIENTSPeanutSauce-

1 garlic clove
½ teaspoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon lemongrass
¾ cup milk
¾ cup smooth peanut butter
4 tablespoons soy sauce
¼ teaspoon brown sugar
¼ teaspoon sambal oelek (omit if you can’t find it or desire a less spicy sauce)

PREPARATION

Mince garlic clove. Add garlic, lemon juice, and lemongrass to pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for about 3 minutes or until garlic softens. Stir frequently. Add milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, brown sugar, and sambal oelek. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until it just starts to boil. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes until mixture thickens. Stir frequently.

Goes well with: sticky rice, satays, bami goreng, egg rolls, and loempias.

TIDBITS

1) The Netherlands supplies 70% of the world’s bacon. Yay!

2) The Spanish Inquistion sentenced everyone in the Netherlands to death in 1568 . Tough love, you bet.

3) The Netherlands supplies 70% of the world’s bacon. Woot!

4) Amsterdam is home to the greatest number of museums in any one city, including ones dedicated to sex museums. Honey, I’m just going to the museum to improve my mind.

5) The Netherlands supplies 70% of the world’s bacon. Thank you, Netherlands.

7) Amsterdam’s coffee shops can sell you up to 5 grams of cannabis. And then you’ll be hungry for … bacon!

8) The Netherlands supplies 70% of the world’s bacon. Satisfy your bacon munchies here.

9) When not producing bacon, the Dutch are known to indulge in engineering marvels and the arts.

– 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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Chocolate Egg Cream

Posted on May 13, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

CHOCOLATE EGG CREAM

INGREDIENTS??????????

1 1/3 tablespoons Fox’s u-bet® original chocolate flavor syrup
2 tablespoons whole milk
9 tablespoons seltzer water (needs to be cold, needs to have all its fizz, preferably from an unopened bottle.)

PREPARATION

Pour chocolate flavor syrup into tall glass. (Connoisseurs agree that Fox’s u-bet® is the best.) Add whole milk, then seltzer. This should all be done quickly to preserve the fizz. Stir briskly with fork. This is an excellent refreshing drink for those hot summer days.

TIDBITS

1) This tidbit is scrunched by the picture. A picture of a round dish would not have gone so far down the page. So I would have had more space to write longer and more numerous tidbits.

2) However, every silver cloud has a lining or something like that.

3)Hey, aren’t the bags in vacuum cleaners called linings? Are there such things are silver vacuum-cleaner bags? They’d be quite expensive. Only the super rich could afford them. Maybe bags like these would become status symbols. We might even have to worry about our landfills getting clogged with expensive non-biodegradable silver vacuum bags.

4) Oh wait. Silver is so expensive. People would scour the landscape for silver vacuum-cleaner bags, picking them off the sidewalks if need be. These precious-metal bags would probably never even make to the landfills. Our neighborhoods would become cleaner. Our landfills would have more space for millions and millions of HuggiesTM that we dispose of every day. Everyone wins.

5) Hey, why don’t we use cement and HuggiesTM to make storm walls for all those low-lying sea towns. These coastal dwellers would be safe from storm surges and rising sea levels. Best of all, the sea wall wouldn’t cost anything as the savings from not filling our landfills with HuggiesTM would pay for the sea wall. I have just saved Florida. Yay.

– 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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Author Paul R. De Lancey, My Writing Progress – Blog Tour

Posted on May 12, 2014 by pauldelancey

Author Paul R. De Lancey

My Writing Process – Blog Tour

May 12, 2014

My name is Paul R. De Lancey. It has been that way since birth. Today is my day to participate in the continuing series, My Writing Process Blog Tour. My writing friend and running mate for the presidency in 2016, Candace C. Bowen, posted for the tour last week. Please visit her site at http://www.knightseries.com. She’s a great writer and a really nice person.

What am I working on?

I’m promoting my third novel which just came out. It’s called Beneficial Murders and tells the story of a modest spreadsheet analyst who makes the world better by killing annoying people. In the works is my second cookbook, Have Another Bite. (Could you tell that period was italicized?) This cookbook is chock full of tasty recipes from around the world. This book can be read as usual for its delicious recipes or simply for the delightfully funny tidbits and trivia at the end of each section. I also have a fourth novel in the wings called Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms? where Debbie Devil, Satan’s wife and supermarket checker, tries to enslave a local hottie by making him eat evil mushrooms.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’ve written in multiple genres: foreign adventure, Western, end of the world, and culinary. I have always tried to infuse them with humor. They are designed to be read with a chuckle over and over again. However, if you buy my books just to place them under a table leg and so make the whole table level, I’m okay with that as well.

Why do I write what I do?

I need to make people laugh. I like to take adventures in my mind, ones that are just not possible in real life.

How does my writing process work?

I have a writing process? Woo hoo! Okay, I have general idea of a slighty off-kilter universe. I populate them with cheerfully eccentric characters. I usually have an idea of the ending before I star, but rarely use it as I cheerfully embrace exciting changes in story direction.

Thank you gentle reader for learning about me. Please visit my mostly cooking blog: pauldelancey.com. You can find my Author Page on Facebook and I am on Twitter @PaulDeLancey. If you wish to find out more about my books, please look at my website: www.lordsoffun.com.

The next author on this blog tour is Donna Cavanagh . Here is her bio.

Donna Cavanagh is founder of HumorOutcasts.com (HO) and HumorOutcasts Press/Shorehouse Books.  Cavanagh is a former journalist who made an unscheduled stop into humor more than 20 years ago. Her syndicated columns helped her gain a national audience and her work landed in the pages of First Magazine, USA Today and other national media.  She is a faculty member of the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop and The Philadelphia Writer’s Conference. A USA Books Contest finalist (Life On The Off Ramp), Cavanagh’s latest book, A Canine’s Guide to the Good Life, was penned with her dogs, which as you might imagine was no small feat (or should we say “paws”?).  She is host of BlogTalk’s HumorOutcasts Radio.

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Pralines

Posted on May 9, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

PRALINES

INGREDIENTSPralines-

1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup butter
2 cups pecan halves
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

SPECIAL UTENSILS

candy thermometer
cookie sheet
waxed paper

Makes 23 squares. It should make more but the family keeps nibbling before I can get them all wrapped in waxed-paper squares.  (The squares, not the family. Goodness sake, you didn’t think you were going to get an exciting admission, did you?)

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to large pot. Cook on medium heat until temperature of syrup reaches 234-to-240 degrees or until a drop of syrup forms a soft ball that can be flattened when dropped in cold water. Watch carefully and stir constantly.

As soon as syrup is ready, use large spoon to quickly and carefully drop syrup onto cookie sheet. Try to make praline patties about 2″ across and ½” high. (Be careful, hot praline syrup will burn like molten lava if it gets on you.) Let syrup cool. While dessert cools, cut waxed paper into 6″ squares. Wrap each praline patty in waxed-paper squares. Tie at top with rubber band.

Makes a great gift. Great for yourself as well.

TIDBITS

1) Pecans help a man’s sex life. Pecans have a lot of zinc. Zinc helps men produce more testostone.

2) Chocolates make women feel slightly more romantic.

3) Chocolate-covered pecans make for a night of whoopie.

4) The pecan tree is the state tree of Texas. There are a lot of Texans. Need I say more?

– 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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Qorma Laward (Afghan chicken stew)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by pauldelancey

Afghan Entree

QORMA LAWAND
(chicken stew)

INGREDIENTSQorbaLawand-

4 chicken breasts or 2 pounds chicken
3 garlic cloves
2 onions
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons peanut oil or ghee (clarified butter)
½ teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ cup water
1 ½ cups whole yogurt

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Put chicken, ginger, lime juice, pepper, and salt into large mixing bowl. Turn the chicken cubes until they are well coated. Place bowl in refrigerator for 1-to-2 hours.

Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil or ghee to large skillet or Dutch oven Add onion and garlic. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add cardamom, chili powder, cinnamon, coriander, and turmeric (Goodness, there are a lot of spices starting with “c.”) Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 2-to-3 minutes.

Add yogurt, coated chicken cubes, and water. Stir with whisk or spoon until blended. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to warm, to avoid curdling the yogurt, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add water as necessary to keep the qorba lawand from drying out. Stir occasionally. Goes well with naan bread or rice.

TIDBITS

1) Naan is a palindrome. So is Anna. So is Anna’s Naan. A Santa Anna’s naan at NASA is an even more ambitious palindrome.

2) Sha Na Na is a famous American rock and roll band. It is also an anagram for Has Naan. Coincidence, perhaps?

3) A big maze stands between you and naan. Oh no, can you find the way?

You

maze

naan

– 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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