Posts Tagged With: entree

Teriyaki Chicken With Rice

Posted on November 25, 2012 by pauldelancey

Japanese Entree

TERIYAKI CHICKEN WITH RICE

INGREDIENTS

2 garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons water (3 cups more later)
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice
3 chicken breasts

1 1/2 cups brown rice
3 cups water
2 yellow bell peppers
2 stalks green onion

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mince garlic cloves. Cut chicken breasts into fourths. Dice yellow peppers and green onion.

Add garlic, water, cornstarch, sugar, soy sauce, cider vinegar, ginger, and poultry spice. Stir frequently while cooking on medium-high heat until sauce thickens and bubbles. Do not boil.

Pour sauce into baking dish, size 8-inches by 8-inches or greater. Put chicken into pan. Turn the chicken pieces around in the sauce until all sides are coated. Bake the chicken for about an hour or until done.

While chicken is baking, cook rice as directed on the bag of rice, use rice, or cook until rice is tender. Add minced bell peppers and green onion to top of rice.

Put rice mixture in bowl. Add teriyaki chicken and sauce.

TIDBITS

1) Don’t spill cornstarch. That white stuff gets everywhere.

2) “Teri” is Japanese for “luster” coming from the sauce and “yaki” means “grill.”

3) The “Why did the chicken cross the road?” joke came from vaudeville about a hundred years ago.

4) The most prestigious act out of ten vaudeville acts was the ninth.

5) I looked up “Fun facts about soy sauce” on GoogleTM and was given “Fun facts about strippers” as the second entry. I don’t believe I want to know the connection between soy sauce and strippers.

6) Often Chinese greet each other with “Have you had your rice today?” instead of “How are you?” Much nicer than “How’s it hanging?” don’t you think?

– 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 | Tags: chicken, China, Chinese, cookbook, entree, garlic, Google, Japan, Japanese, Poultry Magic, rice, soy sauce, strippers, teriyaki | Leave a comment

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Posted on November 24, 2012 by pauldelancey

French Entree

CHICKEN CORDON BLEU

INGREDIENTS

6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
6 slices cooked ham
4 slices Swiss cheese
1/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon Poultry MagicTM poultry spice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 cup sour cream
1 10.5 ounce can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 teaspoon lime juice

UTENSILS

meat mallet
toothpicks
kitchen scissors

PREPARATION OF CHICKEN ROLLS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. (191 degrees Celsius, 464 Kelvin.) Use this time to attack the chicken breasts. Cut the chicken breasts in half lengthwise.

(This is an easy task if you have kitchen scissors. They sound just like scissors do when you cut hair. Indeed, given the nature of your cutting, you might find yourself thinking of yourself as Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber. I’d recommend, however, keeping such thoughts to yourself, particularly when dining with your boss or a financee.)

Now you must flatten those chicken halves. Put each half under a plastic sheet and pound. Flatten the chicken breast halves until they are 1/8-inch thick. Use gusto. This job is immeasurably easier with a meat mallet. I heartily recommend buying just for this dish.

(If however, you wish to be contrary, there are few alternatives: the hammer, the brick, and a big can of beans. BUT it will take longer and cause any in the room to doubt your sanity for all time.)

Meanwhile back at the kitchen, cut the Swiss cheese slices in two, lengthwise. Put them on the chicken breasts. Put a ham slice, which should be no larger than the breast half, on top of that. Roll up each chicken breast from the bottom and fasten with toothpicks.

(Fret not if you don’t have toothpicks. Simply, while no one else is looking, snip off the flammable tips of the longest matchsticks you can find. Dispose carefully of the flammable and keep quiet about the whole affair. Remember, your guests have already seen you with a mallet, a hammer, and kitchen scissors. Oh and it should go without saying, never serve this to a vegetarian.)

Put rolled up chicken in a baking dish. Melt butter in pan on medium high heat. Pour butter over rolled up chicken. Sprinkle poultry spice, nutmeg, pepper, and thyme over chicken.

Put in oven for about 40 minutes or chicken is golden brown and juices on pan are clear.

PREPARATION OF SAUCE

Combine in saucepan condensed chicken soup, sour cream, and lime juice. (If a French tut tuts over you using condensed soup, look him in the eye and say, “But of course, it is gourmet condensed chicken soup. Sacré bleu.”) Cook on low heat, stirring occasionally. Serve over hot chicken rolls.

This dish is so wonderful. Be sure to give lots of credit and thanks to anyone who helps clean up.

TIDBITS

1) Between 1796 and 1815, British seamen drank 1.6 million gallons of lime juice to combat scurvy.

2) They were fighting my great, great, great grandfather Napoleon.

3) While I deplore Napoleon’s twenty years of nearly continuous warfare, I do applaud how he revolutionized humanity’s view of the healing properties of citrus.

4) The Spanish conquerors brought death by the hundreds of thousands through war and disease to the New World.

5) However, they also brought the lime with them as well. And the lime is indeed high in vitamin C. Vitamin C promotes health.

6) So the next time you’re tempted to put down some bloodthirsty conqueror, pause a bit and inquire if he didn’t perchance also bring something healthful to the conquered regions.

7) I mean we all have our bad points and good points, don’t we?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: British, chicken, chicken cordon bleu, citrus, conquistadors, cookbook, entree, France, French, Kelvin, mallet, Napoleon, New World, nutmeg, Poultry Magic, scurvy, seamen, Spanish, Sweeney Todd, Swiss, The Demon Barber, vitamin C | Leave a comment

Hawaiian Pineapple Roll

Posted on November 23, 2012 by pauldelancey

Hawaiian Dessert

HAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE ROLL

INGREDIENTS

3 cups pineapple pieces
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons peanut butter
1 teaspoon butter
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar (1/3 cup more later)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

4 egg whites
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 flour (sifted is preferred)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

confectionary sugar
whipped cream

PREPARATION

MAKE SURE all the juice is drained away from the pineapple. All! If you put juice in this recipe, your Hawaiian log will be a Hawaiian crumble.

Cover baking pan with pineapple pieces. Sprinkle brown sugar over pineapple. Spread peanut butter as evenly as you can over sugar and pineapple. Crumble the butter into bits and scatter them over the top.

Separate egg yolks from egg whites. You can do this by partially cracking the egg shell and letting the white drain out or let the entire inside come out and gently fish out the yolk with a spoon. Don’t even think about removing the yolk with a fork.

Beat the egg yolks with whisk until they thicken. Mix in vanilla and 1/4 cup sugar

Beat egg whites until surface gets lumpy. Mix in 1/3 cup sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt until thoroughly blended

Add the egg-yolk mixture to the egg-white blend and stir, stir, stir. Your wrist should be getting quite a workout at this point. Spread this combination over the pineapple and brown sugar in the baking pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. Loosen edges and turn over baking pan over large plate liberally sprinkled with confectionary sugar. Let stand for at least 5 minutes before rolling. After that, let it stand for an additional 10 minutes or until cool. Place pineapple roll on plate

Alternatively, if you are fortunate enough to possess a towel do the following instead of the instructions in the above paragraph. Sprinkle tea towel with confectionary sugar. Turn the baking pan upside down of the towel and let the cooked pineapple mixture fall onto the towel. Roll up the pineapple mixture as you roll up the towel. Let sit for 10 minutes or until cool. Unroll towel. Place resulting pineapple roll on plate.

Cover with whipped cream. This step is critical. It makes your dish taste better. The layer of whipped cream over the roll hides any mistakes in the Hawaiian roll. Did your carefully crafted roll fall apart when transferring it to the serving dish? Don’t worry, with enough whipped cream no one will ever know.

TIDBITS

1) Vanilla has alcohol in it. People craving alcohol bought lots of vanilla for “cooking.”

2) Captain Cook discovered Hawaii in 1778. He named them the “Sandwich” Islands. I love that name.

3) The Hawaiians killed Cook on his third Pacific voyage in 1779. It remains doubtful that he ever even tasted a Hawaiian pineapple roll before his death.

4) The British flag is part of the Hawaiian flag.

5) The Japanese precipitated America’s entry into World War II with their surprise attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Honolulu. Their attack was provoked, in part, by America’s embargo of oil and metals to Japan. It is believed that Hawaiian Pineapple Rolls were not part of the embargo.

6) On the other hand, you need a sifter to sift flour. Sifting flour has been out of fashion for decades. If you don’t have a sifter, use your food processor and “chop” or “mince” it.

7) A food processor does wonderful work crushing and crumbling solidified brown-sugar blocks. Just be prepared for a brown-sugar cloud near the processor. If our weather reports could only be, “sunny with patches of brown-sugar clouds.”

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: alcohol, American Pacific Fleet, British, Captain Cook, confectionary sugar, cookbook, entree, Hawaii, Hawaiian, Honolulu, Japanese, pineapple, pineapple roll, Sandwich Islands, vanilla, World War II | Leave a comment

Beef Enchiladas

Posted on November 21, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

BEEF ENCHILADAS

SAUCE INGREDIENTS

1 fresh green chile
2 teaspoons fresh cilantro (4 tablespoons more later)
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil (1/2 tablespoon more later)
1 16 ounce can enchilada sauce-red
1 14.5 ounce can Mexican-style diced tomatoes.
4 tablespoons parsley
1/2 tablespoon basil

FILLINGS INGREDIENTS

1 jalapeno pepper
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
4 tablespoons fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 pound ground beef
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
5 ounces Cotija cheese
1 1/4 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese

OTHER INGREDIENTS

12 corn tortillas (You might want more in case some fall apart)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
no-stick cooking spray

You might need two baking dishes

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use no-stick cooking spray on baking dish.

PREPARATION OF SAUCE

Remove seeds from green chile. Dice green chile and 2 teaspoons cilantro. Add green chile and vegetable oil to saucepan. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until green chile is soft. Add red enchilada sauce, diced tomatoes, cilantro, parsley, and basil. Simmer on warm heat and stir for 5 minutes. Set aside.

PREPARATION OF FILLING

Remove seeds from jalapeno. Dice jalapeno pepper, onion garlic cloves, and 4 tablespoons cilantro. Combine jalapeno, onion, garlic, and cilantro by hand with ground beef, and cumin. Cook and stir pepper/onion/beef mixture on medium-to-high heat until beef turns color. Add Cotija and Monterey Jack cheese. Cook until cheeses melt.

PREPARATION OF TORTILLAS

Heat the tortillas for about 20 seconds in a microwave to make them easier to roll. Pour enough oil to cover just the bottom of the saucepan. Put the pan on the BACK BURNER. USING TONGS, dip one tortilla at a time quickly in the hot oil. If the tortilla spends too much time in the oil or if you take too long to put it on a plate, the oil-dripping tortilla will fall apart; have extras until you get the hang of it.

(Try to keep up with the cleaning as you prepare the food lest your guests call the bomb squad upon arrival. Being a suspected terrorist is a true resume stain.)

FINAL PREPARATION

Add about 1/12 of the fillings’ ingredients. Roll each tortilla and put it against the side of the baking dish or as close to another rolled tortilla as possible.

Pour the sauce evenly over the tortillas. Sprinkle any remaining ingredients on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until any cheese on top bubbles.

TIDBITS

1) I have been assuming that people’s stoves measure temperature in Fahrenheit. If your stove’s temperature dial is in Kelvin, then please use the following conversion. K = (5/9)*F + 256, where K is temperature in Kelvin and F is in Fahrenheit.

2) Some people assume that enchiladas only have cheese in them. So it’s a good idea to tell people this dish has meat in it, particularly if you think they might be vegetarian.

3) Mexican cuisine is quite friendly to vegetarians.

4) A distant relative of mine, Emperor Napoleon III of France, tried to conquer Mexico in the 1860s. I had nothing to do with this venture. I wasn’t even born.

5) The price of tortillas is regulated in Mexico. The price of bread is regulated in France. The French authorities still greatly fear riots and revolutions arising from rapid increases in the price of bread. Presumably, the Mexican government feels the same way and if it ever asks me to the Presidential Palace for dinner, I will ask about this.

6) If the Mexican president ever asks me over for dinner, I shall return the favor and ask him over to my home in Poway for some really good eats.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: beef, beef enchiladas.Mexico, cilantro, cookbook, Cotika, cumin, enchiladas, entree, Fahrenheit, France, French, jalapeno, Kelvin, Mexican, Monterey, Monterey Jack, Napoleon III, Poway, Presidential Palace, tortillas, vegetarian | Leave a comment

Buttermilk Pancakes

Posted on November 19, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Entree

BUTTERMILK PANCAKES

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cultured buttermilk blend
4 cups water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1/2 cup butter

SPECIALTY UTENSILS

electric mixer

PREPARATION

Use “batter” setting on electric mixer, or beater, to combine buttermilk blend, water, eggs, and melted butter (You can, of course, buy buttermilk of using buttermilk blend, but your buttermilk will go bad if you don’t use it right away.)

Combine in a second large mixing bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Melt butter.(Use a mere fraction of an ostrich egg if chicken eggs aren’t available)

Pour the contents of the second bowl into the first mixing bowl. Mix together with fork until just blended.

Fire up the griddle to 350 degrees. Use a 4-ounce or 1/4 cup ladle to pour your batter onto the griddle. Cook for 1 3/4 minutes on the first side and for 1 1/2 minutes on the second side or until brown on both sides.

Makes 22 6-inch diameter pancakes, enough for those neighbors next door so they’ll invite you over for one of their sauna parties.

TIDBITS

1) Buttermilk was originally the non-fat liquid left over after churning milk into butter.

2) Today, buttermilk is made by adding lactic-acid-producing bacteria, usually Streptococtus lactus . . . Oh gosh, I can’t go on. I googled “fun facts about buttermilk” and this is what showed up!

3) People drink buttermilk to soothe their stomachs.

4) But not before reading the expiration date on the carton.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, recipes | Tags: America, American, buttermilk, buttermilk pancakes, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, pancakes, recipes, sauna parties, streptococtus lactus | Leave a comment

French Hamburger

Posted on November 16, 2012 by pauldelancey

French Entree

FRENCH HAMBURGER

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 medium red onion
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Grey PouponTM
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 packet onion soup mix

8 French rolls
romaine lettuce

PREPARATION

Mince the onion. Mix all top ingredients by hand. (Yes, it’s mushy.) Form 8 elongated patties. Fry patties on medium-high heat until juice coming from patties is no longer red or meat is no longer pink. Don’t turn patties over as frequently as you would for an American hamburger. There is plenty of moisture in these patties. You don’t have to worry as much about them drying out and early turning might cause them to crumble.

Toast French rolls. Put patty and lettuce on roll. This is a French hamburger. Any mustard must be Grey PouponTM. Sacré bleu.

TIDBITS

1) I was last in France in 1993. At that time, there were dozens of McDonald’sTM. The best one was in Nice. Most restaurants in France are only open during meal times. McDonald’sTM remains open throughout the day.

2) A McDonald’s in Budapest, Hungary, charged for ketchup.

3) I am a fifth-generation direct descendant of the great French Emperor Napoleon. He died on the fifth hour of the fifth day of the fifth month. I was born at that same time. Different years, of course. He also conquered a few more countries than I.

4) I bicycled across France in 1983. At that time, my French was on the level of a distracted third grader.

5) I had a burger in France. It came in a French roll.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: Budapest, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, France, French, Grey Poupon, hamburger, Hungary, McDonald's, Napoleon, Nice, onion soup, recipes | Leave a comment

Greek Wraps

Posted on November 12, 2012 by pauldelancey

Greek Entree

GREEK WRAPS

INGREDIENTS

1 head lettuce
1 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground beef
1 1/2 teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
1 1/2 teaspoon coriander
Greek cucumber sauce or tzatziki sauce from previous recipe

PREPARATION

This dish works best with the outer, larger leaves of lettuce. Be sure to wash the lettuce and remove any leaves with brown spots.

Mix pork, beef, meat spice, and coriander. Cook meat until browned. Tear off one or two leaves of lettuce. Put about 3 or 4 spoonfuls meat on the leaves, but not so much that you cannot roll up the leaves.

Put about two spoonfuls cucumber sauce on top. Roll up the lettuce leaves so no meat shows. Hold at one end to keep the sauce from dripping out. Eat at the other end.

This is a tasty and healthy variation on gyros.

TIDBITS

1) Lettuce grew as a weed long before anyone ate it.

2) But if lettuce flourished as a weed, then why is it so hard to grow deliberately?

3) I think the definition of a weed is something that grows without help.

4) Food is something that is difficult to grow.

5) There is a town in northern California called Weed.

6) Columbus brought lettuce to the Americas.

7) Spanish explorers brought potatoes back from the Americas. Fair trade, you think?

8) There is no eighth tidbit. My computer decided to update my software at this point.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international | Tags: America, beef, California, Columbus, cookbook, entree, fair trade, Greek, lettuce, pork, Spanish, tzatziki | Leave a comment

Jamaican Pepper Pot

Posted on November 6, 2012 by pauldelancey

Jamaican Entree

PEPPER POT

INGREDIENTS

1 chicken breast
2 garlic cloves
1 medium yellow onion
1 tablespoon olive oil (1/2 tablespoon more later)

1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 large fresh red tomato
1 small sweet potato
2 ounces kale (about 2/3 of a bunch at my supermarket)

2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon scotch bonnet sauce
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 bay leave
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 tablespoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 8 ounce can kidney beans, drained

UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Chop chicken into 1/2-inch cubes. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Dice tomatoes. Peel and dice sweet potato. Remove leaves from kale’s stem and cut them into small pieces. (Sorry, your food processor does a poor job on kale leaves.)

Put 1 tablespoon olive oil in Dutch oven. Cook chicken cubes, garlic, and onion at medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until chicken begins to brown and has changed color on the inside. Remove chicken/garlic/onion and set aside.

Put 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in Dutch oven. Add tomatoes, potato, and kale. Cook on medium-high for about 5 minutes. Add chicken broth, scotch bonnet sauce, coconut milk, allspice, bay leaves, black pepper, brown sugar, celery seed, chili powder, cilantro, coriander, ginger, sea salt, thyme, and kidney beans.

Add chicken/garlic/onion to Dutch oven. Bring to boil at high heat, stirring frequently. Lower temperature to low-warm and simmer for 30 minutes. Cover and stir occasionally. (You will need to, of course, remove the lid to stir the contents of the Dutch oven. If you don’t need to take off the lid to stir, please let me know. A Nobel Prize in Physics would look very nice on my mantlepiece.)

TIDBITS

1) Scotch bonnet peppers are about 40 times hotter than the esteemed jalapeño pepper.

2) That’s important information to know if you’ve been dared to eat the scotch bonnet pepper at a party. You’ve got to ask your taste buds, “Do you feel lucky today?”

3) And if you eat the fiery pepper without the aid of milk to coat the pain receptors in your mouth, the knowledge that these peppers possess a deeply inverted rounded apex won’t help you at all.

4) However, as you stagger around the party, sweat streaming down your burning face, other parts of your body are benefitting from the helpful fruit. You see, the mighty scotch bonnet pumps goodly amounts of vitamins B and C, iron, niacin, thiamine, magnesium, and riboflavin.

5) These vitamins help bobsledding athletes excel.

6) Jamaican athletes eat scotch bonnet peppers while British athletes never eat them. Jamaica has a better bobsledding team.

7) So eat your scotch bonnets if you wish to enter the Winter Olympics.

8) You might want to eat the fiery peppers as part of a meal such as this one.

9) If you do enter the Winter Olympics because you ate this recipe, please let me know. I’ll be sure to watch and cheer for you.

10) My wife recently won the challenge at Orochon Ramen Restaurant in Los Angeles by eating a huge bowl of their spiciest ramen in 30 minutes; a feat accomplished by only fifty-four others. I am proud to say her picture now hangs on the restaurant’s Wall of Bravery. You can find out more about this dish by watching an episode from the show, Man v. Food.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor | Tags: bobsledding, British, coconut, cookbook, De Lancey, Dutch, Eat Me, entree, Jamaica, Jamaican, kale, Los Angeles, Man v. Food, Nobel Prize, Orochon Ramen, pepper pot, ramen, recipes, riboflavin, scotch bonnet, vitamins, vitamins B an C, Winter Olympics | Leave a comment

Chimole Recipe

Posted on November 5, 2012 by pauldelancey

Belizean Entree

CHIMOLE

INGREDIENTS

1 small pumpkin squash or acorn squash
1 small white potato
1/2 medium white onion
1/2 chayote
2 large, ripe red tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
2 medium whole cloves
1/2 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon red recado
1/2 tablespoon black recado (Recado spices are available online.)
1 vegetable bouillon cube
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 tablespoon allspice
1/2 tablespoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon cumin
3/4 teaspoon red pepper
3 cups water
1 chicken breast
8 hard-boiled egg
4 or more flour tortillas (Use half as many if you have burrito-sized tortillas)

UTENSIL

spice or coffee grinder

Makes 6-to-8 bowls.

PREPARATION

Peel squash, onion, and white potato. Remove seeds from squash. Dice squash, potato, onion, chayote, and tomatoes. Mince garlic cloves. (Just in off the internet news. Five people stole 9.5 tons of garlic. They were caught by the Hungarian border police who noticed a strong garlic smell coming from the five cars.) Put squash, potato, onion, chayoite, tomatoes, and garlic cloves in large soup pot.

Put whole cloves and black peppercorns in spice grinder. Grind until you get a powdery substance. Crumble red recado, black recado, and bouillon cubes into soup pot. Add salt, allspice, oregano, cumin and red pepper. Pour in water and cook on low-to-medium heat with lid on for about 40 minutes or until all veggies are soft.

While the vegetables and spice are cooking, chop up chicken breasts into 1/2-inch cubes. Also, boil eggs for about 12 minutes and let them cool. Add chicken cubes to soup pot.

Ladle soup into bowls. Peel eggs and slice each three times. Put an equal number of egg slices on top of the soup in each bowl. Serve with at least two flour tortillas and one plate per person. The tortillas may be used for dipping or for making burritos from the soup.

TIDBITS

1) January is National Soup Month. What does this mean? I don’t know. Have you ever celebrated National Soup Month? Me either.

2) Soup is an anagram for opus. Opus means an artistic work such as an opera.

3) Soup is also an anagram for puos. Puos is the plural form of puo.

4) Soup lovers in America eat about ten billion bowls of soup a year.

5) Soup haters consume considerably fewer.

6) Nebraskan bar owners may not sell beer unless they are cooking soup. That and possessing a liquor license.

7) Andy Warhol ate tomato soup every day for lunch for over twenty years. He became a famous pop artist. However, hundreds of millions of people have devoured rivers of tomato soup without achieving the slightest bit of fame. So, who can say?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food | Tags: acorn squash, allspice, America, Andy Warhol, Belize, Belizean, black recado, chimole, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, National Soup Month, Nebraska, Nebraskan, recado, recipes, red recado, tortilla | Leave a comment

Spinach Ravioli

Posted on November 3, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

SPINACH RAVIOLI

INGREDIENTS

PASTA

3 cups or more of flour (1/4 cup more later in FINAL STAGE)
2 eggs
3/4 cup water or more
1 tablespoon olive oil (1 tablespoon more used later)
1 teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)

FILLING

2 garlic cloves
1/2 pound fresh spinach
1 1/2 teaspoons parsley
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)

MARINARA SAUCE

6 Roma tomatoes
1/2 large white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons basil
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 6 ounce can tomato sauce

UTENSILS

rolling pin
cutting board

FINAL STAGE

water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (1 tablespoon more used earlier)
1/4 cup flour (3 cups more earlier in PASTA)

Makes about 40 ravioli.

PREPARATION OF PASTA

Combine flour, eggs, and cup water. Mix with hands. Make a ball of the mixture. It should just be able to come off your hand. If some of the ball sticks to your hand, then add a bit more flour, mix again, and try the new flour. If the flour ball is powdery, it is too dry. Add a bit more water, mix again, until the consistency of the next ball is just right.

Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on your cutting board and rolling pin. Roll flour ball out until it is NO THICKER than 1/4-inch. Frequently sprinkle the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Let rolled-out flour sit for AT LEAST 4 hours. It should be nearly dry.

PREPARATION OF FILLING

While rolled out flour dries, peel and mince 2 garlic cloves. Dice spinach. Put garlic, spinach, parsley, Parmesan cheese, and salt in frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Put contents of frying pan into bowl. Mix and put spinach filling in fridge.

PREPARATION OF MARINARA SAUCE

Mince Roma tomatoes. Peel and mince 1/2 onion (Wouldn’t it be nice if you could buy a 1/2 onion at the store?) and 2 garlic cloves. Add tomato, onion, garlic, basil, marjoram, oregano, salt, thyme, and tomato sauce to sauce pot. Cook ingredients on medium-high heat until it boils, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes with the lid on. Stir occasionally.

FINAL PREPARATION

Dust cutting board with flour. Use knife to make 1 1/2-inch wide strips in the flour. Cut these strips into rectangles every 3 inches. Dust strips with flour. Put a 1/2 teaspoon or so of the filling on the right side of the 1 1/2-inch by 3-inch flour rectangle. (Did you know there is cutting board that has all sorts of measurements and angles on it if you want to make an exact 1 1/2-inch square ravioli? You can order it on line.) Fold the left side over the filling. Push down on the open sides with the tines of the fork to seal the spinach ravioli.

Fill pot with enough water to cover ravioli. Add salt and olive oil. Boil water. Add ravioli and cook for 20 to 30 minutes. Ravioli should float to the top and the dough should be completely soft.

While your ravioli boils itself to perfection, cook pasta sauce in pot on medium heat until it is warm. Put ravioli in bowl and add pasta sauce.

TIDBITS

1) There are a lot of Italians in Italy.

2) There are a lot outside Italy as well. This is why Italian cuisine is so easy to find.

3) But Caesar’s salad isn’t Italian. This salad is often considered to be American though it was actually first made at Caesar’s Hotel in Tijuana, Mexico.

4) I recently went to a dentist in Tijuana for my teeth. Dentist’s in Mexico are much cheaper than in America. Caesar’s Hotel was only a block away.

5) The savings from seeing the Mexican dentist vastly outweighed the cost of the meal.

6) Indeed, there are “surgery” cruises and vacation packages to Mexico. People enjoy the cruise ship, the sights of the Mexican ports, and have a surgery for less than the cost of the same surgery in the United States.

7) There are a lot of ordinary American tourists in Mexico as well.

8) And there are certainly a lot of Mexicans in Mexico.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor | Tags: America, Americans, Caesar, Caesar's Hotel, Caesar's salad, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, Italian, Italians, Italy, Mexicans, Mexico, Parmesan, ravioli, recipes, Roma, Roma tomatoes, spinach ravioli, Tijuana | Leave a comment

Posts Tagged With: entree

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