Posts Tagged With: entree

Root Beer Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Posted on June 24, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

ROOT BEER PULLED PORK SANDWICHES

INGREDIENTSRootBeerPulledPork-

2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 pounds pork sirloin or tenderloin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 ounces liquid smoke
1 can or 12 ounces root beer (1 more can later)
1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce
1 can root beer
8 hamburger buns or kaiser rolls

SPECIAL UTENSIL

crock pot

PREPARATION

Dice garlic cloves and onion. Rub chili powder, pepper, and salt onto pork. Add garlic, onion, pork, liquid smoke, and 1 can root beer in a crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 6-to-8 hours or until pork shreds easily. (If after 6 hours the pork is not close to being tender or able to be shredded, turn up the heat one notch.)

Remove the pork. (Save the liquid, garlic, and onion for later. It makes a good soup.) Let pork cool. Shred pork with fork. Add shredded pork, barbecue sauce and one car root beer to crock pot Cover and cook on low for 1 hour. Serve on hamburger buns.

TIDBITS

1) August 6 is the anniversary of the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. However, this date is also National Root Beer Float Day! Atomic warfare is surely a downer,  but nothing’s better than a root beer float. Indeed the life-giving, life-soothing properties of root-beer floats have helped us all deal with the legacy of the atomic bomb, have prevented future atomic warfare forever

2. In August, 1893, Frank J. Wisner, was drinking root beer during a full-moon night. The full moon inspired Mr. Wisner to add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to root beer. The ice cream floated! He had invented the root beer float. We have been living in The Golden Age of Humanity ever since.

3) Root beer originally contained sassafras and was considered by some to be a medicinal drink. It also contained alcohol and was deemed by even more folks to be a medicinal drink. Is there anything root beer can’t make better?

– 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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Romanian Stuffed Bell Peppers

Posted on June 22, 2014 by pauldelancey

Romanian Entree

STUFFED BELL PEPPERS

INGREDIENTSStuffedBell-

5 Roma tomatoes
6 yellow or red or green bell peppers
2 onions
12 ounces ground beef
12 ounces ground pork
½ cup rice
1 tablespoon dill
2 tablespoons paprika
½ teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour
3/4 cup sour cream (1/4 cup more later)
1/4 cup sour cream

SPECIAL UTENSIL

1 or 2 8″-casserole dishes

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Puree tomatoes. Cut off tops from bell peppers. Keep tops for later. Remove seeds. Mince onions.

Add beef, pork, rice, onion, dill, paprika, pepper, salt, and HALF of the pureed tomatoes to mixing bowl. Mix by hand. Fill bell peppers with beef/pork/rice mix. Do not overstuff or they will crack open later. Top peppers with flour to prevent beef/pork/rice mix from spilling out. Put stuffed peppers in casserole dish.

Add ¾ cup sour cream and second HALF of the pureed tomatoes to mixing bowl. Mix well with whisk. Pour sour cream/pureed tomato sauce onto stuffed bell peppers. Add water to casserole dish until water is 1″ from the top. Bake at 375 for 90 minutes-to-2 hours or until bell peppers are soft. Serve with ¼ cup sour cream on top of stuffed bell peppers. Pour or spray a little water on bell peppers every 40 minutes if they look too dry. CAREFULLY take out dish when done baking. The hot water in it can slosh out if moved too quickly.

TIDBITS

1) Count Vladimir the Impaler of Transylvania killed many people with wooden stakes. You too can kill people with food, ordinary food. All you have to do is use the wrong parts, cook improperly, or eat way too much of it. The following crossword puzzle lists common foods that can kill when in the wrong hands.

2) Crossword Puzzle – POISONOUS ORDINARY FOODS WHEN USED IMPROPERLY

ACROSS
4) Highly toxic fish, must be cooked with care.
6) This nut sounds like a sneeze
8) A brawl on a baseball field
9) Use this to make French fries
10) An anagram for “rip taco”
11) First three letters of this veggie bit Cleopatra
12) Add joy after this nut to get a candy bar

DOWN
1) Can she bake a ….. pie?
2) Moms once poured this vile liquid down their sick kids’ throat to make them better (2 words)
3) Toadstool
5) Sassafras is a controversial …..
7) Legally, this fruit is a vegetable in America.
10) An ….. a day keeps the doctor away

puzzle2e

ANSWERS

Puzzle2AnswersInverted

 

 

 

– 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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Angolan Chicken Stew

Posted on June 17, 2014 by pauldelancey

Angolan Entree

CHICKEN STEW
(muamba de galinha)

INGREDIENTSChickenStew-

3 pounds boneless chicken (Probably separate parts. If you can find a farm that raises organic boneless chickens, go for it.)
1 Scotch bonnet, habañero, or red chili pepper
3 garlic cloves
3 onions
3 tomatoes
1 pound pumpkin or butternut squash
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup red palm oil or olive oil
½ pound okra (See note below for substitutes)
1 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons cornstarch (only if you don’t use okra)

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven
sonic obliterator

OKRAPHOBIA

A lot of people just can’t stand okra or will only eat fresh food, but can only find okra in cans. What to do? Relax, have an ice-cold root beer. Now that you’re refreshed, consider substitutes for okra. The top contenders are: asparagus, eggplant, green beans, and spinach. These don’t taste quite the same as okra. This might be a plus for you. However, if you want the okra taste, try adding a tablespoon of gumbo file (Oh gosh, gumbo file is another one of those hard herb/spice mixes that are just plain hard to find in supermarkets. In this case, bluff your guests. How many will know if you don’t have gumbo file in your chicken muamba? However, if they do know and they complain loudly, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of stress in your life.)

Anyway, okra thickens stews. So if you don’t use okra, you should add cornstarch as a thickening agent. However, cornstarch alters the taste somewhat from the authentic Angolan chicken muamba. (See above paragraph for resolving this problem.)

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Seed and mince chili pepper. Mince garlic cloves. Dice onions. Cut each tomato into eight pieces. Seed and peel pumpkin. Cut pumpkin into 1/2″ cubes.

Add chicken, lemon juice, chili pepper, garlic, pepper, salt to large mixing bowl. Mix by hand until chicken cubes are well coated. Marinate for 1 hour.

Add coated chicken, onion, and red palm oil to Dutch oven. Sauté using medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken cubes are browned on all sides and onion softens. Stir frequently. Add pumpkin, tomatoes, okra (or its substitute and cornstarch), and chicken broth. Bring stew to boil. Cover Dutch oven, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 25 minutes or until chicken and pumpkin are tender. Stir occasionally.

Goes well with rice or cassava. Whew.

TIDBITS

1) Do not worry about your fresh-okra finding problems as life is about to get a whole lot better as you can see in the following tidbits.

2) In 2023, Amos Keeto, will invent the Sonic Obliterator. This invention will be a godsend to be who hate being disturbed by door-to-door salesmen. People who hate plowing their way through the crowds surrounding the free-sample stations at CostcoTM or are too shy to ask people to move will also appreciate this device.

3) I mean can’t you see the shopper’s face as she pushes her cart through a suddenly vacant path on her way to pick up a large package of ribs for her family. Her family loves ribs and isn’t making families happy what’s it all about?

4) In 2019, Sarah Bellum, will invent the time machine. This will be invaluable for people with overdue library books and for those who can never file their taxes on time. Be sure to buy one, well, whenever.

5) In 2021, Barry Sax will invent the Orphan Socks Reuniter. No longer will your dryer be able to present you with orphan socks. The Reuniter will find the missing sock whether it will be sticking to the top of the dryer, vacationing in Poway, California, rafting down the Amazon River, performing against its will in a shocking sock-puppet show, or simply transported to a parallel universe. Barry Sax will win a Nobel Prize in 2023 for his service to humanity.

6) In 2017, just around the corner, Hal E. Kahn, will invent the organic TwizzlerTM by being the first to successfully graft the tasty snack onto strawberry plants.

7) In 2031, Ms. Terri Good, will markedly improve mornings for all people for all time by inventing the Coffee Humidifier. The CF, as it will soon be called, will emit coffee molecules all through the night. You will be inhaling 100% pure arabica bean while you sleep. You will not wake up tired and wanting to kill the first person who talks to you. No! You will be so awake, so full of energy that you will paint the house and make school lunches for your kids for the entire year.

8) In 2019, Mel Ifluous will invent UTeleport. This nifty invention will be able to teleport any item of any size over any distance. The Uteleport will be a life saver to all those still half-asleep souls who pour a bowl of cereal in the morning only to find they are out of milk. Life will be good.

– 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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Caesar’s Salad

Posted on June 13, 2014 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

CAESAR’S SALAD

INGREDIENTSCaesarsSalad-

1 head romaine lettuce
4 bread slices
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup olive oil (1 tablespoon more later)
2 ounces anchovies, cut in half (optional)

1 egg
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

PREPARATION

Separate romaine lettuce into leaves. Tear leaves into 1″ squares. Remove crusts from bread slices. Cut bread into ½” cubes. Cut one garlic clove into four pieces and rub them along the salad bowl. Discard. (Oh no, no, discard the garlic pieces, not the salad bowl. Goodness, careful sentence structure matters.)

Add the other garlic clove and 1/4 cup olive oil to pan. Sauté at low-medium heat for 5 minutes or 300 seconds. Discard garlic clove. (It’s a bad day to be garlic.) Add bread cubes to pan. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until bread cubes are crisp on all sides. Stir frequently. Remove crisp bread crumbs or croutons and place them on paper towels to drain.

Add romaine squares and croutons to salad bowl. (Add optional anchovies here.)

Add egg, Dijon mustard, pepper, salt, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, and red wine vinegar to blender. Use mix or middle setting to blend ingredients for 30 seconds. Pour this dressing into salad bowl. Lightly toss salad. Sprinkle salad with Parmesan cheese.

Note, pregnant women and small children should not eat raw eggs.

TIDBITS

1) Anchovies are a happening item. Italian prostitutes of the 18th century used anchovies when making their famous “spaghetti alla puttanesca” for their customers.

2) The Romans used anchovy entrails to make an aphrodisiac, to reduce ulcers, to cure dysentery, or to season their food.

3) So if you were a Roman woman and a man had you over for dinner and he served anchovy sauce, you might want to wonder about him.

4) On the other hand, we could dramatically cut the cost of health care by requiring all pizzas to come with anchovies. We wouldn’t need hospital or medical insurance, just a large anchovy with extra cheese.

5) And the aphrodisiacal–whoa spell check is okay with that–qualities of anchovy pizzas would mean we wouldn’t have to see those ViagraTM ads on T.V. anymore.

6) But PlayboyTM would sport ads about anchovies all the time.

7) The entire economy would be directed to processing anchovies.

8) Military spending would fall to zero.

9) Our anchovy-driven sexual frenzies would leave us wide open to conquest by our enemies.

10) But anchovies also contain a toxin called domoic acid whichcan drive a seagull insane if ingested in too large a quantity.

11) Which is why the United States Army has warehouses full of anchovies. Within 15 minutes of an enemy invasion, the roofs of all these warehouses retract to reveal millions of vats just brimming with anchovies.

12) America’s heroic seagulls would then gorge themselves on their favorite food, became crazy and attack the invaders, just like in Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds.

13) America cannot be conquered.

14) But then any country with sufficient anchovies and pelican couldn’t be conquered.

15) Countries would have an incentive to stockpile these items.

16) I fear an anchovy-and-pelican race between nations.

17) But if worse comes to worse, we will blast the Barney-the-Dinosaur song at our enemies until they cry uncle.

18) Let us banish this frightening scenario by sipping on a wonderful, ice cold root beer. Ah, life is good again.

19) Caesar’s salad, anyone?

– 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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Tuna Melt

Posted on June 11, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Entree

TUNA MELT

INGREDIENTSTunaMelt-

2 5-ounce cans albacore tuna
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup diced celery
2, tablespoons minced yellow, brown, or red onon
1 teaspoon dill weed
1/8,teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese
1 medium, ripe avocado (optional)
2 hamburger buns on 4 bread slices

PREPARATION

Drain water from tuna cans. Preheat broiler to 375 degrees. Toast bread for 2 minutes. While bread toasts, become a whirlwind and add tuna, mayonnaise, celery, onion, dill weed, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk.

Top the bread slices equally with tuna/mayonnaise mix. Put slices in broiler and broil at 375 for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove tuna/mayonnaise/bread slices from broiler and top equally with shredded cheese. Return slices to broiler and broil at 375 degrees for about 2 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven. Carefully combine two slices together. (You might wish to use a spatula.)

TIDBITS

1) “December 7, 1941–a date which will live in infamy…” – President Roosevelt on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

2) “December 23, 1941, a date which will live in culinary glory…” – me, today. For this is the date of the first recorded sighting of the word, “cheeseburger.” This wondrous event happened at a small restaurant in Burbank, California.

3) The first six months of the war in the Pacific went poorly for America. Some culinary historians speculate that the invention of the cheeseburger was the only thing that prevented defeatism spreading throughout America.

4) Moreover, the humble cheeseburger provided American soldiers, marines, and sailors the energy to keep up the good fight when their Japanese counterparts flagged from a want of calories. Now, Japan and America are friends, because we both eat cheeseburgers. May I suggest a Japanese cheeseburger with wasabi ketchup?

– 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 Baleadas

Posted on June 9, 2014 by pauldelancey

Honduran Entree

BALEADAS

INGREDIENTSBaleadas-

1 cup queso duro or cotija
8 8″ flour tortillas
1 15-ounce can refried beans
1/2 cup crema agria or crema Mexicana

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS

4 scrambled eggs
2 thinly sliced avocados

PREPARATION

Shred or grated the cheese, queso duro or cotija. Fry refried beans in pan using medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. While beans fry, place a tortilla in another pan. Cook on medium heat for 30-to-40 seconds or until tortilla softens completely. Repeat for all tortillas.

Spread an equal amount of refried beans over each tortilla. Sprinkle cheese equally over the refried-bean topped tortilla. (Add optional ingredients here.) Drizzle crema agria on top of refried beans. Fold tortilla in half.

TIDBITS

1) The monastic followers of Pythagoras believed our souls entered Hades, the afterworld, through the stems of bean plants. Hades was the place where our souls found their new bodies, kinda like transferring data via a memory stick to a new laptop after the old one crashes.

2) So if you ate beans or even damaged them, you could have very well denied a soul access to the very bean roots it needed to get to Hades. No trip to Hades via healthy bean roots, no new body for the soul. No more soul would have meant complete oblivion for all time.

3) Which is a bummer.

4) So, Pythagoras’ followers held it was a sin to eat beans or even walk through bean fields.

5) If these people had been able to gain control of the governments of all the Greek city states, future cuisines would have been devastated. For example, what would Mexican food, one of the world’s great cuisines, be without beans? And what would life be without Beanie WeeneesTM?

6) Fortunately, the Greeks of the Classical Age were perpetually at war with each other and never had time to seriously debate the Pythagorians’ bean-route-to-Hades belief. However, Pythagoras’ theorem is still taught to eager legions of students who can go home and reenergize themselves with Beanee Weenees. Life is good.

– 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 Jalfrezi

Posted on June 6, 2014 by pauldelancey

Pakistani Entree

CHICKEN JALFREZI

INGREDIENTSChickenJalfrezi-

2 green bell peppers
2 green chile peppers
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tomatoes
1.5 pounds boneless chicken
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 chili powder
1 tablespoon ginger
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
3 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
½ tablespoon cilantro
basmati rice (optional)
naan bread (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

deep skillet, Dutch oven, or wok
magic wand

PREPARATION – with magic wand

Wave magic wand and say, “Mumbo jumbo bumbo, make me chicken jalfrezi.” Poof! Your chicken jalfrezi will appear instantly.

PREPARATION – without magic wand

Seed bell peppers and green chile peppers. Dice bell peppers, chile peppers, garlic cloves, onion, and tomatoes. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add oil, garlic, and onion to skillet. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken, chili powder, ginger, salt, and turmeric. Cook on medium heat for 5-to-10 minutes or until chicken is golden brown. Stir frequently.

Add ghee, bell pepper, chile pepper, tomato, coriander, and cumin to skillet. Bring to boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Uncover and let simmer for another 10 minutes or until bell pepper is tender. Garnish with cilantro.

This dish goes well with basmati rice and naan bread.

TIDBITS

1) Magic wands are truly useful. You can make a million dollars, a new house or a fancy sports car appear with them.

2) Or you could use your wand to find your car keys.

3) Nervous people about to make a speech are often told to visually their audience dressed in their underwear. But what if the speaker is too shy to picture the audience so undressed. In this case, the best thing to do, the Good Samaritan thing to do, is to wave your crowd at the crowd and say, “Mumbo jumbo bumbo, let these people wear underwear only.” Poof, the audience will be in its undies. The speaker will gain courage from this and deliver a rip-roaring speech that brings the crowd to its feet and stirs it to action.

4) Since the speech is about recycling, everyone will soon be recycling. Land fills will no longer be needed. The land once set aside for landfills will now be used for farmland, new homes, and root-beer factories.

5) In fact, the audience from the speech will be filled with such fervor that it will make things just so they have more things to recycle.

6) This will be bad. Thank goodness for all those root-beer factories we built in tidbit 4). We will distribute its root beer to the teeming, frothing masses filled with recycling exuberance.

7) One sip of root beer, will calm the frenetic recycling masses. Serenity will be restored. A perfect balance between recycling and over recycling will be achieved. We will live in a new Paradise.

8) So, let these happenings be a cautionary tale to you. Use your magic wand wisely and be prepared for unforeseen consequences.

9) Well as much as you can be prepared for something that can’t be foreseen.

10) Indeed, the motto of the Boy Scouts is “Be Prepared” and they don’t even have magic wands.

11) Always buy new wands. You can never be sure how many spells are left in a used one.

12) After all, wouldn’t you be embarrassed if you tried to impress your dinner guests by summoning a tyrannosaurus rex and found you couldn’t wave it back into non-existence because you had no spells left on your wand.

13) Some of your guests would get eaten. Your surviving friends would leave your home in a huff and would most likely never speak to you again. Your dinner would be a disaster and your homeowner insurance rates would go up.

14) Of course you could have a two-ton bag of T-Rex ChowTM on hand in case this happens. But you’d only be kicking the can down the street. Eventually, the t-rex would just get hungry again. Yep, just stick to new wands or summoning only ice-cold mugs with your used magic stick, for goodness sake.

– 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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Bami Goreng From Indonesia

Posted on June 1, 2014 by pauldelancey

Indonesian Entree

BAMI GORENG

INGREDIENTSBamiGoreng-

2 chicken breasts
2 garlic cloves
12 ounces bami or medium-egg noodles
2 eggs
3 tablespoons peanut oil
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon sambal oelek (Indonesian red chili paste)
1 carrot
1 leek
1 onion
3 ounces medium peeled and deveined shrimp
4 tablespoons ketjap manis

SPECIAL UTENSIL

wok or Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cut chicken breast into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves. Dice carrot, leek and onion. Cook noodles according to instructions on package. Rinse and set aside. Beat eggs. Pour egg into pan. Cook on medium heat for 2-to-3 minutes or until egg hardens. Remove egg and cut into thin strips.

Put a drop of water in wok. When drop starts to bubble or move around, add peanut oil. Add chicken, garlic, ginger, pepper, and sambal oelek. Sauté on medium heat for 6 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Stir frequently. Add carrot, leek, and onion and sauté on medium heat for another 4 minutes. Stir frequently. Add shrimp and ketjap manis, and stir fry for another 4 minutes or until shrimp turns orangish/pink and is no longer translucent. This dish goes great with peanut sauce or a million dollars.

TIDBITS

1) Indonesia is the home of the great volcano Krakatoa. Incomprehensible amounts of ash issued from Krakatoa when it erupted in 1889. The ash in the sky darkened the world for days.

2) Today Krakatoa’s ash would be considered a health hazard. Schools would close as a health precaution. School kids everywhere would hope for volcanic eruptions. But too much ash would block sunlight to such an extent that plants couldn’t photosynthesis and so, die. Our end would come soon, delayed only the frozen burritos in our freezer. And if the only thing in our freezers was lutefisk, we’d wish the volcanic eruption would have taken us right away. So, be careful with your wishes.

– 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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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.

Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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