Posts Tagged With: De Lancey

Shrimp Cashew Stir Fry

Chinese Entree

SHRIMP CASHEW STIR FRY

INGREDIENTS

2 celery stalks
3 dry red chiles or Thai chiles
3 scallions or green onions
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1½ tablespoons light soy sauce or soy sauce
½ teaspoon sugar
1 pound shrimp, pealed, deveined, 31-40 count
⅔ cup roasted cashews*
¼ cup water chestnuts, sliced

* = Roast plain cashews with 2 teaspoons vegetable oil in pan or air fryer, if you can’t find roasted cashews.

Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Dice celery,. Add enough water to cover celery to small pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add celery. Boil celery for 30 seconds. Drain and set aside.

Dice chiles, and scallions. Add vegetable oil to large pot. Heat at medium-high heat until a bit of scallion starts to dance. Add scallion, light soy sauce, and sugar. Sauté at medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently.

Reduce heat to medium. Add shrimp, cashews, chile, and water chestnuts. and sauté for 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink or orange. Stir frequently. Add celery. Simmer for 2 minutes. Stir frequently.

TIDBITS

1) I wrote this recipe assuming a person would be reading it, that a person would be making this dish come to life.

2) But there’s absolutely nothing in the recipe referring to a human chef.

3) There’s even no mention of the cook needing an opposable thumbs. So, if you’re quite the clever sheep, clever enough to read recipes in English, then go for it.

4) The title could also be interpreted as telling a shrimp to stir fry a cashew.

5) Or perhaps this stir fry is meant for a chef named Shrimp Cashew and no one else.

 

– 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, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tired From Busy Day

Sorry, but there won’t a funny blog today. I spent many hours assembling Number Two Son’s university expenses. Then I spent two hours making a gourmet soup, Saoto, from Suriname. My back hurts. I’m tired. Behave yourselves while I’m recuperating.

metaphorical me

– 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: tired | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Wanda Wunder Wonders About Lye and Olives

Wander Wunder wonders “Lye is used to unclog drains. Who thought putting it on olives would make them edible? Who tested this idea?”

Wanda Wunder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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: Wanda Wunder | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Roasted Chestnuts

American Dessert

ROASTED CHESTNUTS

INGREDIENTS

1 pound chestnuts (most of the fresh ones are available in Autumn)

SPECIAL UTENSIL

baking pan

Serves 6. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven preheats, cut an “x” that covers one entire side on each chestnut. Make the cut deep enough to cut through the shell. (This makes the chestnut easy to peel. It also keeps it from exploding. This really can happen if you omit this step.)

Place chestnuts on baking pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until chestnuts become tender, the chestnut shells start to open and become easy to peel, and the edible nut that’s inside turns golden brown. Remove from heat. Cover with kitchen towel. Let cool for 5 minutes. Peel and eat immediately.

TIDBITS

1) As you can see, the left chestnut in the above photo is unpeeled. It also has an “x” cut into it by a knife. This makes it much easier to peel. The two chestnuts on the right have been peeled and are ready to eat. ☺

2) But wait! This narrative gets even more exciting. ☺☺

3) When prehistoric tribes decided to cut “x”s on chestnuts, they inadvertently developed the game Tic-Tac-Toe. The uncut chestnuts became “zero” or the letter “o.” These doughty cavemen were already two letters on the way to the present English alphabet. Go, cavemen, go! Excelsior!

4) Then one fine summer day caveman Carl La Fong invented the letter “b.” (We know about La Fong because he signed his cave paintings. They’re worth quite a bit if you can discover one.) Ancient peoples could now spell the word “box.”

5 Before you knew it, peoples everywhere had an alphabet and words for everything. Not much later, the word “box” led to actual boxes. CheeriosTM and AmazonTM became possible. And we owe it all to chestnuts and the visionary Carl La Fong. Yay.

 

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

Coffee Pudding

Romanian Dessert

COFFEE PUDDING

INGREDIENTS

1 cup strong coffee*
or 1 cup regular coffee plus 4 teaspoons instant coffee)
6 ounces bagels, bread, or dinner rolls**
1 cup milk
4 eggs
⅓ cup butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
no-stick spary

* = Or ¼ cup coffee grounds in 1 cup water
** = 2 bagels, 6 slices bread, or 4 dinner rolls

SPECIAL UTENSILS

coffee maker
blender
electric beater
6 ramekins
9″ * 13″ casserole dish

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 5 minutes.

PREPARATION

Make 1 cup strong coffee. Put bagels in 1st mixing bowl. Pour coffee over bagels. Let coffee soften bagels. Add coffee, softened bagels, and milk to blender. Puree until you get a paste.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Separate eggs .Add egg yolks, butter and sugar to 2nd mixing bowl. Combine with fork until well blended. Add this egg/butter/sugar mix to 1st mixing bowl with coffee/bagel. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add egg whites to 3rd mixing bowl. Whip egg whites with electric beater until peaks form. Fold egg whites into coffee/bagel/sugar/egg yolk mix.

Spray ramekins with no-stick spray. Pour mixture into ramekins. Put ramekins in casserole dish. Add water to casserole until water is 2/3 way up the ramekin sides. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until surface of puddings become firm to the touch and cracks in the surfaces appear. Goes well with vanilla sugar on top or with a scoop of vanilla cream on the side.

TIDBITS

1) See how, in the above picture, the ramekin filled with coffee pudding has broken down the color of the plate into its constituent colors. All culinary scientists use coffee in their spectrometers.

 

– 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

Quinoa Api

Bolivian Breakfast

QUINOA API

INGREDIENTS

1¼ cups quinoa
2¾ cups milk
2⅔ cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon honey
2½ tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

SPECIAL UTENSIL

fine-mesh colander

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Rinse quinoa in colander. Add quinoa and 2⅔ cups water to pot. Bring to boil using medium heat. Stir enough to keep quinoa from burning. Add milk. Bring to boil using medium heat. Stir constantly Reduce heat to low. Add cinnamon stick, honey, sugar, and vanilla extract. Simmer for 35 minutes or until mixture thickens and quinoa cracks open. Stir enough to keep milk and quinoa from burning. Remove cinnamon stick. Serves in bowls.

TIDBITS

1) According to Colombian culinary mythology, quinoa was given us 7,123.26 years ago by the condor god, Yclept.. Yclept also gave them the secret of planting and harvesting, thus freeing the Andean people from hunter gathering. Hunter gathering is much the same thing as driving around from one supermarket to another looking for mocha creamer for your coffee.

2) But with Ycelpt’s help, the Andeans always had quinoa, a great source of nutrition, right at home. This is like winning a refrigerator at a raffle. But there’s more. You open the fridge to see dozens of coffee mocha creamer bottles inside. You are freed, freed I tell you, from searching dispiritedly all over town for coffee mocha creamers.

3) So in gratitude, the Andeans switched from worshiping, Qi the god of hunter gathering to Yclept. Since quinoa looks like the stars, the Andeans worshiped them. This ticked off Qi, who tried to blot out the stars with milk. “Na, na, na, poo, poo,” said Yclept. “You didn’t throw enough milk. You only tossed enough to make the Milky Way.”

4) Yclept was right. We can still see the stars. Whew! We can still spot the Milky way. But we humans eventually got an immensely popular candy bar out of it. The Milky Way gave the Andeans the idea for this Quinoa Api. It just shows you how good things can come out of a god’s tantrum.

 

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fun Festivals – The International Witches Fair

 

Such fun

Is Halloween your favorite holiday of the year? Did you or your mom spend days making a truly scary costume? Do you want another such day? Each and every year?

Then go to the Witchcraft and the Trasmoz’s Curse Fair. Other towns have their own witch fairs. But do not go to them! Do not accept substitutes. The first and still the best such fair is the one in Trasmoz, Spain. This fair is the one that truly deserves to be called, The International Witches Fair.

This fair takes places every first weekend in July and is just the thing for people who prefer to watch movies about witch burning over roasting marshmallow over an open fire.

This fair is such fun. Watch reenactors capture witches and heretics. Watch the lost souls get tried. Be enthralled by their torture. Be entranced by lovingly recreated witches’s covens. Honestly, is anything near your home that can rival this? I think not.

But wait! There’s more. Listen to the excommunication of the entire town. Puts your “Damn you, (your enemy)” to shame doesn’t it?

Watch as Pope Julius II curses the entire village.

But you can’t see the reenactment of the lifting of the excommunication and cursing. They never happened. The town is still excommunicated and cursed. Can New York City, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, or Bora Bora can say that? No they can’t, only Trasmoz, Spain.

Wait! There’s more.

The festival sports an authentic medieval market place and medieval camp. There are parades, magic shows, musical shows, and medieval combat. You’ll want to go year after year just to see everything.

But wait! There’s more.

Learn about medieval plants. Perhaps you’ll want to learn how to poison someone. It’s okay, it’s okay, all medieval poisons were organic. Or maybe you’ll want to heal people with medieval medicinal plants. To each his own.

But wait! There’s still more. Absorb the town’s rather exciting history as you wander around.

The history

During the 1100s, the town of Trasmoz  clashed with the nearby Veruela Monastery over firewood and pastures. Such disputes were normally decided by lawsuits or mediation by a higher lord or church official. Such a process proved unsatisfactory to the Monastery’s abbot. He excommunicated the entire town saying that witches and covens were running amok. Excommunication was an unambiguously horrible thing to happen to you in the Middle Ages. However, while bad for the town, excommunication is now an annual economic boon for Trasmoz, a town vying with other village for the tourist Euro.

In 1511, the lord of the town and Abbot Pedro Ximénez de Urrea quarreled. Perhaps the lord would point at the abbot and say, “Look, there goes urea breath.” Who can say? But we do know that the abbott complained to the higher ups. Eventually Pope Julius II cursed the entire town.

Some think the curse came about due to counterfeiting. Local counterfeiters didn’t want visitors poking their noses into this illegal activity. So the law breakers told the abbot stories of wickedness and the rest is history.

The excommunication and curse have never been lifted. Only the pope can do that. It’s something to think about should you ever ponder settling in Trasmoz.

So enjoy the history, the torture, and the food. Go to the International Witches Fair. Make your bookings now. It’s fun for the entire family.

 

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

Good Night From Sleepy Puppies and Me

Today was such a busy day. Time to relax and go to sleep. These puppies and I wish you pleasant dreams and a restful sleep.

Goodness sakes, we’re sleepy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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: good night | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fun Festivals – Finnish Dialect Speaking Championship

You say you want to attend a contest that is conceptually easy to win? One that’s not physically demanding? Then the Finnish Dialect Speaking Championship is the event for you. It’s held in early July in Kuopio, Finland. Keep in mind, past winners tend to possess a strong command of this Nordic language.

Finnish girl (right) practices with her dog (left)

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

You Need to See Cuddling Parrots

I had a tough day today. Adulting proved more difficult than usual. I needed to see two parrots cuddling. The internet did not disappoint me. See the picture just below. I am happier. I hope you are happier too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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: love, you need to see | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

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