Posts Tagged With: cumin

Toasted Rice-and-Bean Burrito

Posted on April 22, 2023 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

TOASTED RICE-AND-BEAN BURRITO

INGREDIENTS

¼ medium onion
½ red bell pepper
1 avocado
¾ cup rice
1½ cups water
1 15-ounce cans pinto beans with jalapeno peppers
1 7-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 ounces Cotija cheese
¼ cup sour cream
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon onion powder
½ cup grated Four Mexican Cheeses
8 medium flour tortillas
8 teaspoons Parmesan cheese
4 slices Swiss cheese

 

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Dice onion and bell pepper. Peel avocado, remove pit, and slice the good part into thin slices. Cut each Swiss cheese slice into 3 strips.

Cook the rice according to instructions shown on bag. (Unless, of course the instructions are in a foreign language. In this horrible case, take the appropriate intensive three-minute foreign language course.) If you are fortunate to own a rice maker, follow its instructions. (If you don’t own a rice maker, ask for one for Christmas. Make gentle hints as well for a gun to protect the first gift from increasingly desperate gangs of rice-maker thieves.)

While rice is cooking, drain water from pinto beans and diced tomatoes. Add onion, bell pepper, pinto beans, diced tomatoes, Mexican cheeses, Cotija cheese, sour cream, cumin, and onion powder to large frying pan. Cook on low-to-medium heat. Stir occasionally. (Unless, of course you are a hibernating polar bear, then just chill.)

When rice is ready, add it to frying pan. Stir. Put about 4 tablespoons of frying-pan mixture in lower-center part of tortilla. Fold edges in and roll up from the bottom. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Put burrito on cookie sheet with folded side down. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of burrito.

Put cookie sheet with burritos on it in pre-heated oven. Bake for 10 minutes, or until tortilla or most of the Parmesan cheese is turning golden brown.

Remove cookie sheet from oven and cover the top of each burrito with thin avocado slices. Add a half slice of Swiss cheese on top of each burrito. Bake for 2 minutes or until the Swiss cheese turns brown or begins to melt.

TIDBITS

1) Avocado comes from a Native American word meaning “testicle.” Apparently, they thought avocados looked liked that. My Gosh, these early Americans must really have bulged in their loincloths.

2) Rocky Mountain Oysters are beef testicles. Yuck. Who would eat them? Deliberately?

3) Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company is, not surprisingly, famous for its chocolate.

4) Chocolate has been confirmed to have a slight–-slight means slight, guys-–effect on women. This is why, over the decades, men have given women chocolate when going on dates.

5) And if the woman refuses the chocolate, it wasn’t meant to be and the man has something to eat.

6) But, at least, the man has much higher chance of success with his date if he offers chocolate instead of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

 

– 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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Southwest Stuffed Bell Peppers

Posted on April 14, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Entree

SOUTHWEST STUFFED BELL PEPPERS

INGREDIENTS

1 green chile
5 green bell peppers
½ red onion
2 garlic cloves
1 cup pepper jack cheese
2 ounces Cotija cheese
1 pound ground turkey
1 7-ounce can diced tomatoes (1 can more later)
4 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 cup water
4 tablespoons sour cream
2 stalks green onion
1 7-ounce can diced tomatoes
¾ cup water

Serves 5. Takes 55 minutes.

PREPARATION

Remove seeds from green chile. Cut bell peppers in half lengthwise. Remove stem, white innards, and seed from green bell peppers. Dice green chile, red onion, garlic cloves, and green onion. Grate or shred pepper jack cheese and Cotija cheese.

In a large frying pan or skillet, cook the turkey, green chile, red onion, and garlic over medium-high heat until meat is no longer pink. Stir occasionally.

Add 7-ounce can diced tomatoes, chili powder, corn starch, cumin, oregano, cayenne, green onion, and 3/4 cup water. Bring to boil then reduce heat. Simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes. (No, this does not mean to get angry and cook in the nude. Sauces can splatter.)

Place bell-pepper halves in a microwavable dish. (You’ll need a 3-to-4 quart dish if you want to use just one.) Add 3/4 cup water to dish. Cover and microwave on high for 7 to 8 minutes. (Microwaves vary in strength, so in general it’s best to heat for a short time, check the food and, if necessary, microwave some more.)

Pour any water out of the bell peppers. Fill each bell-pepper half to the top with ground-beef mixture. Put an equal amount of sour cream, 7-ounce can diced tomatoes, and cheese on the bell peppers.

Serve to adoring guests.

TIDBITS

1) Bell peppers have recessive genes that prevent them from having capsaicin, the stuff that makes other peppers hot.

2) Red bell peppers are important in Portuguese cuisine.

3) In 1801 my great-great-great-grandfather Napoleon I directed an invasion of Portugal by French and Spanish troops.

4) In 1808, Napoleon I invaded Portugal again. Say what you will about his megalomania and the countless deaths he caused, he did possess an admirable work ethic.

5) Oh, and he invaded Spain as well in 1808, unleashing more bloody, unrestrained guerrilla warfare.

6) Strange to say, most Napoleonic historians fail utterly to mention how six years of conflict in that region affected red-bell-pepper production in Portugal.

7) It seems likely, though, that red-pepper planting and harvesting fell precipitously in previously culinarily happy Portugal.

8) One’s mind recoils at the thought of wary-weary Portuguese reduced to eating beef-and-red pepper sandwiches without red peppers.

9) Bad French emperor, no éclaire.

 

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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Slow Cooker Refried Beans

Posted on February 24, 2016 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

SLOW COOKER REFRIED BEANS

INGREDIENTSRefriedBeans-

2 cups or 14 ounces dry pinto beans
1 onion
1 jalapeno or serrano pepper
3 garlic cloves
5½ cups water
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon crema Mexicana or sour cream

SPECIAL UTENSILS

slow cooker or crock pot
colander
potato masher

Makes 2½ cups. Takes 8 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Rinse beans. Cut onion into four pieces. Seed and dice jalapeno pepper. Mince garlic. Add beans, onion fourths, jalapeno, water, cumin, pepper, and salt to slow cooker. Stir once. Cook on high overnight or for 8 hours.

Remove onion fourths. Drain using colander in bowl. (Save drained water, in case your beans are too dry or use a bean broth.) Mash beans with potato masher. Add crema Mexicana. Stir with spoon. There you go. Serve hot.

TIDBITS

1) This dish takes 8-and-a-half hours. Think of all the lunar eclipses you could see in that time.

2) Depending where you are and if you want to see the whole thing or just the totality phase, you’re thinking anywhere from 2 to 120 eclipses.

3) Of course, the Moon goes its merry way after giving us an eclipse of itself. Why? It just does. So if you want to see sequential total lunar eclipses, you’ll need to take the Moon out of its orbit.

4) Repeatedly. Won’t this wreak havoc upon the Earth? Yes, it will. At the very least, displacing the moon again and again, will cause thousands of mile high tsunamis. Coastal cities will be obliterated. Humongous, terrifying earthquakes will finish off all remaining people, which makes this entree the ideal end-of-the-Earth meal.

– 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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Honduran Nacatamales

Posted on May 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

Honduran Entree

NACATAMALES

INGREDIENTS – DOUGHNacatamales-

6 cups masa harina or corn flour
1 cup lard, shortening, or butter
1 teaspoon salt (1 more teaspoon later)
3 tablespoons orange juice
5 tablespoons lime juice
4 cups chicken stock

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

⅔ cup rice
2½ pounds pork
3 large potatoes
3 garlic cloves
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
1 sweet green chile pepper
1 medium tomato
3 tablespoons cilantro
1½ tablespoons cumin
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon achiote paste (or ½ teaspoon paprika plus ½ teaspoon vinegar)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Makes 18 nacatamales. Takes at least 3 hours.

INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY

12 10″-x-10″ banana-leaf squares*
A roll of aluminum foil
Multiple big pots (4½ or larger. Extra pots enables you to cook more nacatamales at once.)
Good restorative drink to keep you going.

* = Banana leaves can be found in Mexican or Asian grocery stores. If they can’t be found, just use the tin foil without them. Oh, banana leaves are curved, not square at all. Bastards.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
cooking twine or butcher’s twine

PREPARATION – INITIAL

Soak banana leaves in large pot. You really need to make the banana leaves flexible.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

Add masa harina, lard, and 1 teaspoon salt to first, large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on low. With electric still set on low, slowly add orange juice, lime juice, and chicken stock. Mix until it has the consistency of mashed potatoes. Rev up electric beater to high setting or until it starts to become fluffy. Cover dough and let sit for 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While dough is sitting, cook rice according to instructions on package. Cut pork into ½” cubes. Peel potatoes. Slice potatoes into ½” cubes. Dice garlic cloves, green bell pepper, onion, sweet green chile pepper, and tomato. Add pork cubes, cilantro, cumin, pepper, salt, and achiote paste to second, large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until pork cubes are well coated with spices.

Add vegetable oil, coated pork cubes, and potato cubes to pan. Sauté on medium heat for 20 minutes or until potatoes soften. Stir frequently. Add garlic cloves, green bell pepper, onion, sweet green chile pepper, and tomato. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

Remove banana leaves soaking in pot. Heat water on high heat until it is scalding hot. Add banana-leaf square to pot. Keep leaf in pot until it becomes flexible. Remove banana leaf. Place ⅓ cup of dough in the middle of the banana leaf. Smooth dough with wet hands until it is about 2″ from the edges of the banana leaf.

Add equal amounts of pork cubes (about ⅓ cup), over the middle of the dough, followed by cooked rice (about 2 tablespoons) and potato cubes (about 1½ tablespoons). Add another ⅓ cup of dough over potato cubes. Smooth top layer of dough gently with wet hands. Fold bottom edge of banana leaf over filling until it reaches the top half of the leaf Gently fold in edges to make a square. Gently–Don’t break the banana leaf–tie kitchen twine around filled banana-leaf square.

Place the filled banana-leaf square over the center of an aluminum-foil square. (The aluminum-foil square large enough to wrap the banana square. Tightly fold bottom edge of foil over filled banana-leaf square. Tightly fold sides of aluminum foil over banana square, then the top side. Tie the aluminum-foil covered square like a parcel with kitchen twine. Repeat process for each banana leaf. There should be a banana leaf softening in the pot while constructing each nacatamale.

Put metal rack in bottom of each pot. Add water to each pot until level is ½” above the racks. (Aluminum cookie cutters work quite well as a substitute for wire racks.) Bring to boil using high heat. Cover and reduce heat to low. Add a single layer of nacatamales to rack. Simmer for 45 minutes. Add water as necessary to keep level ½” above the rack. Remove nacatamales from pots. Repeat for each batch of nacatamales. Remove all twine and tin foil and serve to adoring guests.

If your sweetheart makes this for you, propose marriage immediately.
TIDBITS

1) Nacatamales were invented by Señor Naca Tamale, chef to the royal governor in 1689. They were delicious, so much so that Governor Alfonso Bondigas knew he would win a million pieces of gold if he could send just one nacatamale to the Spanish king, Charles II.

2) So, in 1690, Governor Bondigas sent 100 nacatamales with the annual fleet carrying gold to Spain. They got eaten by the crews.

3) In 1691, Governor Bondigas sent 200 nacatamales with the fleet. 100 got eaten by the crews. The rest got eaten by gourmet rats.

4) In 1692, Governor Bondigas sent 400 nacatamales. The sailors devoured 100, the gourmet rats another 100, and the rest spontaneously combusted. No one saw that one coming.

5) Pirates captured the annual Nacatamale fleet in 1693, tamales having by that time become more valuable than gold.

6) In 1694, the Honduran governor sent 1,600 nacatamales with the nacatamale fleet. Unfortunately, First Mate Pedro Migas placed the nacatamales in the same room where he dried the crew’s socks. When half of the socks fled to a parallel dimension–a journey they continue to this day–they took all the nacatamales with them. By the way, culinary quantum physicists say trans-dimensional aliens took a great liking to nacatamales and can often be found at nacatamale stand through out Central America. You have to look closely for them; their disguises are excellent.

7) In 1695, Governor Bondigas tried catapulting the nacatamales to Spain. They only made it two miles out to sea where they utterly destroyed a pirate fleet. Karma, you bet.

8) In 1696, Señor Bondigas noticed a little boy skipping rocks all the way across a small stream. Could this work with nacatamales? No.

9) Spurred by the efforts of 1697, nacatamale skipping became the premier event of the Spanish-American games. All Honduras went sports mad. Every young man in that land spent every spare moment practicing to win the gold medal in nacatamale skipping. This naturally left no nacatamales left to be shipped to Spain.

10) The banana bug wiped out the banana crop in 1698. No banana leaves, no nacatamales.

11) In 1699, banana growers all used their leaves to make beer. Banana-leaf beer was enormously popular that year. You can only find this beer in a few Honduran villages. The brand is El Banano.

12) In 1700, the Nacatamale Fleet finally made it to Spain with fifty million nacatamales. But Charles II had died two weeks before. His successor, Philip of Anjou, grandsom of Louis XIV exported them all to Britain as a good-will gesture. The British loved the nacatamale. Lasting global peace seemed likely. But the British gobbled the nacatamales up in just one week, got sick of them, and in revenge declared war on France. Wars would rage across Europe for another 245 years. The new Spanish King blamed Governor Bondigas who died broken hearted. However, the legacy of the good man lives on in the millions upon millions of postal packages wrapped in the manner of the nacatamale.

– Chef Paul

4novels

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World,  and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

As an e-book on Nook

or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com

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Crispy Shredded Beef Tacos

Posted on August 11, 2014 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

CRISPY SHREDDED BEEF TACOS

INGREDIENTSCrispyShreddedBeefTacos-

1 medium yellow onion
2 pounds rump roast
½ tablespoon chili powder
½ tablespoon cumin
½ teaspoon salt
4 garlic cloves
4 ounces diced green chiles

5 green onion stalks
4 Roma tomatoes
¼ head lettuce
2 cups vegetable oil
12 corn tortillas
2 cups Four Mexican Cheeses
1 cup crema Mexicana
1 cup salsa

SPECIAL UTENSILS

crock pot or slow cooker
9″ loaf pan
electric skillet
Lazy Susan

takes about 7 hours

PREPARATION

Slice onion into thin rings. Rub rump roast with: chili powder, cumin, and salt. Dice garlic. Add ½ of onion slices to bottom of crock pot. Add rubbed rump roast, garlic, and green chiles. Top roast with remaining ½ onion slices. Add water to cover roast. Cover crock pot. Cook on low for about 7 hours or until roast is tender enough to be easily pulled apart by a pair of forks. Shred roast with forks. (Save liquid from crock pot, it makes a great broth.)

Dice green onion and tomatoes. Shred lettuce. Add vegetable oil to skillet. Heat oil to 375 degrees. The oil is hot enough if it sizzles when a tortilla is added. Add 1 tortilla at a time. Use tongs to sauté tortilla for 15 seconds on each side. The tortilla should be crispy but still flexible enough to be folded. Fold tortilla in half and place it upright in bread pan.. Put a paper towel on each side of tortilla to drain off grease. Repeat for 11 remaining tortillas.

Place tortillas, shredded beef, green onion, tomato, cheese, lettuce, cheese, crema Mexicana, and salsa in Lazy Susan. I love tacos. I always asked for it on my birthday. when I was a kid.

TIDBITS

1) Señor Pedro Lascuráin was president of Mexico for only fifteen minutes in 1913.

2) He did not accomplish much.

3) However, nearly all of Europe went to war in 1914. World War I lasted four years, involved many nations and resulted in millions of casualties. The unsettled conditions of World War I resulted in the Communist Revolution in Russia and the Nazi seizure of power in Germany. The communists shed much blood before and during World War II.

4) Makes Lascuráin’s administration look positively great in comparison.

5) I don’t think El Presidente Lascuráin shed much blood at all during his term in office, unless he gave himself a nasty paper cut while signing his acceptance or resignation papers.

6) Mexico has remained at peace ever since the end of the Mexican Revolution. I think it’s because of the peaceful example of President Lascuráin.

7) Poway, California, my fair town, has been at peace with all its neighbors even since I moved in.

8) My presidential term of office, zero minutes, is similar in length to President Lascuráin’s.

9) El Presidente Lascuráin probably had a paper cut. I’ve had paper cuts. Gentle reader, I’m guessing you’ve a paper cut as well. They hurt, don’t they?

10) Señor Lascuràin, the Great Man of Peace, often ate Mexican food. I love Mexican food. He had a Mexican grandmother. I had a Mexican grandmother. He was subject to the Laws of Physics. So am I.

11) It’s all uncanny. If Lascuràin had lived at the same time, people would have had trouble distinguishing between the two of us.

12) I wonder. I wonder.

13) I look at his picture on the internet. I run to the bathroom and look in the mirror.

14) Whew! Lascuràin and I are not the same person.

15) But Poway is at peace with all the neighboring towns. Can a Nobel Peace Prize for me be far behind?

16) I do hope I don’t get a paper cut while signing for my prize.

– 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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Macarena Macaroni

Posted on November 1, 2013 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

MACARENA MACARONI

INGREDIENTSMacarMa-

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.

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Simple Tacos

Posted on October 28, 2013 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

SIMPLE TACOS

 INGREDIENTSsimptac-

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion
2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons Meat MagicTM spice
1 1/2 cup grated Four Mexican cheeses
6 taco shells
1 1/2 cups lettuce
1 1/2 cups salsa

PREPARATION

Mince the onion in a food processor. (My cooking life took a quantum leap when I acquired this gizmo. Get one.) Add onion, cumin and meat spice to ground meat. Mix by hand.

Cook mixture in saucepan until all of the meat is no longer pink. Shred lettuce by hand or chop into middlin’ sized pieces with a knife. Gosh, fill the taco shell with meat, lettuce, cheese, and salsa. Better yet, get a 20-inch across Lazy Susan and let your diners make their own tacos according to their tastes.

Lazy Susans are fantastic. They are round, rotating platforms, usually made of wood. Put a bowl on the Lazy Susan for each of the beef, cheese, taco shells, lettuce, and salsa. With this handy device the need to constantly pass bowls back and forth disappears. (Just try to find a Lazy Susan. Anywhere. I weep for America.)

TIDBITS

1) Tacos have always been my favorite food. I asked for tacos for all of my childhood birthday dinners.

2) My grandmother was born in Mexico. She made tortillas by hand.

3) “Tacos” is an anagram for “coast”, “coats”, “o scat”, and “o cats!”

4) Cumin goes with so many Mexican dishes.

5) Supposedly long ago, a wealthy Mexican family had a maid named Susan. She didn’t enjoy constantly moving bowls back and forth. So she invented the device that bears her name. For this, someone called the tool the “Lazy Susan.” Seems to me, it should have been named the Entrepreneurial Susan.

6) When I was growing up, my family had a superb Lazy Susan made of hardwood. It’s gone, gone. Where did it go? It’s hard to get a good Lazy Susan these days. Why? Why?

– 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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Omani Mezroota

Posted on September 23, 2013 by pauldelancey

Omani Entree

MEZROOTA

INGREDIENTSMezroota-

1 medium onion
2 tablespoons salt
2 5 ounce cans white tuna
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup lemon juice (or lime juice)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1 gram saffron (let me know if you can afford a lot of saffron and I’ll come over and cook for you. Saffron’s expensive.)
1/2 cup rice
1 cup water

PREPARATION

Peel and thinly slice onion. Put onion and salt in mixing bowl. Mix with spoon. Place bowl in direct sunlight for 1-to-2 hours.

30 minutes prior to retrieving the bowl of onion slices, starting cooking rice according to instructions on bag. Bring in bowl and wash onions. Drain bowl. Repeat two more times. Melt butter. Drain tuna and separate the pieces. Add tuna, butter, lemon juice, cayenne, cumin, oregano, and saffron. Serve tuna/onion/lemon mixture over hot rice.

This dish has a strong flavor and is an acquired taste. Make it for yourself first before serving it to your boss when you’re due for a raise.

TIDBITS

1) Oman is home to around twenty percent of the world’s recent meteorite finds.

2) Many scientists believe a giant meteorite caused the demise of the dinosaurs. Some believe a severe global warming killed them. It’s quite possible the dinosaurs weren’t physically able to adapt.

3) So far as I know, none of the dinosaurs had opposable thumbs and even if they did, they possessed sharp claws and talons. All surfers know you can’t apply even the lowest SPF sun-block lotions with claws. You can’t hold a tube of sun screen without opposable thumbs. I mean, have you ever seen a dinosaur surf? Enough said. No sun screen, no protection from the relentless Cretacean sun. The dinosaurs died. Bummer.

“All over Laurasia, and the blue Tethys Sea, every dino’s gone surfing, surfing Gondwanaland.”

– 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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Spanish Rice

Posted on August 28, 2013 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

SPANISH RICE

INGREDIENTSSpanishRice-

1 clove garlic
1 onion
1 bell pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups brown rice
4 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon chili pepper
1 teaspoon cilantro
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground Mexican oregano
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric

PREPARATION

Mince garlic and onion. Dice bell pepper. Add olive oil, rice, garlic, onion, and bell pepper to pot. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onions soften. Stir frequently.

Stir chicken broth, chili pepper, cilantro, cumin, ground oregano, pepper, salt, and turmeric.. Bring to boil. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low. Cover pot. Simmer on low heat for 25-to-30 minutes or until rice is tender.

Remove from heat. Fluff rice with fork.

TIDBITS

1) Turmeric is a natural antivenin for King Cobra snake bites.

2) People apply turmeric paste at weddings to the face and arms of the bride and groom.

3) Young lovers would really, really, really have to be madly in love if having their first night of matrimonial passion means getting bitten by a King Cobra. Even if they’re wearing an antivenin.

4) And how many times has this happened to you? You’re sweltering outside your car because its radiated leaked. So your car stopped, your skin is getting sunburned, and you’re miserable. Then an angel from heaven gets out of her car, plugs up the leaking radiator with a tablespoon of turmeric and soothes your sunburn with more turmeric. “Marry me,” you say. “I will,” says she.

5) Oh, and turmeric combats flatulence, a definite turn off on wedding nights.

– 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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Chicken Pulique

Posted on August 2, 2013 by pauldelancey

Guatemalan Entree

CHICKEN PULIQUE

INGREDIENTSChickenPuli-

3 chicken breasts
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 brown potatoes
4 fresh tomatillos
2 dried guajillo peppers
1 medium onion
4 Roma tomatoes
2 cups chicken broth

2 cloves
3 peppercorns
2 teaspoons annatto seed
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
3 tablespoons epazote

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder
Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1/2″ cubes. Coat chicken with olive oil. Add to Dutch oven and sauté on medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Stir. occasionally.

While chicken sautés, cut potatoes into 1/2″ cubes. Add chicken stock and potato to soup pot. Cook on medium heat for 20 minutes or until potato is tender.

While chicken bakes and potato cooks, remove husks from tomatillos, and seed guajillo peppers. Mince tomatillo, garlic, guajillo peppers, onion, and tomatoes. Grind cloves and peppercorns. (Whew, work fast! Have a Roy Rogers drink to give you the necessary caffeine. ☺)

Pour potato/chicken broth over chicken cubes in Dutch oven. Add tomatillo, garlic, guajillo peppers, onion, tomatoes, cloves, peppercorn, annatto, cinnamon, cumin, and epazote to Dutch oven. Cook at medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) Oh crudness, my internet connection is out. I can’t look up fun facts about pulique. I’m jump starting my brain. Okay, here goes.

2) Pulique is quite popular in Guatemala.

3) It is not as popular where there is zero gravity such as the International Space Station.

4) Cooking involves much mincing of garlic. On Earth, garlic mincing means little garlic bits scatter millimeters into the air and fall all over the cutting board.

5) Only in zero gravity, those garlic bits keep rising in the air and fly all over the place until they hit the ceiling and the walls where they bounce and bounce up and down the corridors.

6) If the chef on the Space Station is mincing up a heap of garlic, pretty soon a cloud of garlic bits fills every corridor, floating and bouncing away for a long time.

7) Everything on the station soon reeks of garlic, even the billion-dollar experiments.

8) On the other hand, vampires hate garlic. The Space Station would be guaranteed to be vampire free.

9) Even if the vampires somehow built a rocket to propel them into outer space..

10) And as of going to press, vampires have shown no such technological skill.

11) Nor do they enough money to pursue such a monumental undertaking.

12) Nor do vampires have any real access to the global capital market.

13) Bankers everywhere no longer loan to vampires. Not for any project.

14) These financiers once lent to vampires, but the loans came back to bite them in the ass.

– 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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