Posts Tagged With: garlic bread

What I Did Today

Eyes on the prize

Woke up feeling a tiny bit better than the previous three days. Not starting the day with a big headache is a definite plus. Took a nice warm bath while doing New York Times’ Thursday crossword puzzles.

Didn’t do finances as nearly all of the world’s financial markets and stuff were closed. So, I took the car out for a spin. Even though I had no particular place to go, I still managed to get lost. I almost landed on Uranus. Horrors! As contrived luck would have it, an alien* took pity on me and hurried me home. Left me tell you, the current UFO models are sleek and fast.

* = The alien asked me not to give his name.

Anyway, I spent about seven hours collecting sourdough recipes, understanding them, and making my own recipe.

Also bought sourdough  things. I’ll be receiving them late tomorrow. They are:

flour-sack towels
banneton or bread proofing basket
6-quart enameled cast iron Dutch oven
bread lame (This is basically a razor blade attached to a stick. You won’t want to meet me in a dark kitchen.)

Then I made Cuban Garlic Bread Soup for dinner. I celebrated with a piece of chocolate cake.

That’s it for today. Try not to get into mischief.

 

– 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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Tuscan Sunset Soup

Italian Soup

TUSCAN SUNSET SOUP

INGREDIENTS

FIRST BATCH

2 cups garlic bread
2 garlic cloves
½ avocado
½ green bell pepper
1 7 ounce can red beans
1 7 ounce can pork and beans
1 7 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 15 ounce can condensed tomato soup
15 ounces water
½ cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
½ cup grated Romano cheese
½ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon chopped chives
¼ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon parsley flakes
⅛ teaspoon ground mustard
⅛ teaspoon tarragon

SECOND BATCH

½ pound ground turkey
⅛ teaspoon white pepper
⅛ teaspoon rosemary
⅛ teaspoon sesame seed
2 eggs

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Large soup pot or saucepan

PREPARATION

Cut the garlic bread into 1-inch cubes. Mince the garlic cloves. Remove the skin and pit of the avocado, and cut the yummy remaining part into ½-inch cubes. Mince the green bell pepper.

Add all ingredients listed under first batch to soup pot. Cook on medium heat. Stir frequently enough to keep soup from burning on the bottom before the top gets hot.

(Take a break to consider how beer saved the world.)

Use clean hands to mix second batch of ingredients: ground turkey, white pepper, rosemary, and sesame seed. Cook on medium-high heat. Transfer to soup pot after turkey meat changes from pink to white.

Add eggs after soup gets hot. Stir thoroughly with fork so eggs blend in. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes. This soup is great.

TIDBITS

1) This was originally called “Paul’s Refrigerator Soup” as many of the ingredients came from my refrigerator, but it tastes so good that I went with Tuscan Sunset.

2) Garlic bread, in particular, was taking over the fridge and blocking the view of everything behind it.

3) The food behind the garlic would have spoiled and eventually mutated into all sorts of new life forms.

4) Who’s to say these life forms wouldn’t have evolved into ravenous carnivores?

5) So, I might have saved my family with this soup. And my goodness, it’s tasty.

6) The food of the ancient Romans was simpler. They were often called “porridge eaters” after the blandness of their cuisine.

7) In their defense, these Romans possessed no refrigerators.

 

– 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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Garlic Bread

Italian Appetizer

GARLIC BREAD

INGREDIENTS

1 loaf Italian bread or French Bread or French rolls
3 garlic cloves
½ cup butter, completely softened
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor (optional)
tin foil

Serves 4. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Slice bread diagonally every 1″. DO NOT slice bread all the way to the bottom; keep the loaf together. Mince garlic quite finely, use a food processor if desired. Add finely minced garlic, softened butter, olive oil, and Italian seasoning to mixing bowl. Blend thoroughly with whisk or fork. Use spatula to spread garlic butter between bread slices.

Wrap loaf in foil and bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until bread is slightly browned.

TIDBITS

1) Garlic bread is an anagram for Grab Da Rice. Grab Da Rice was a slogan for the hungry French rioters of 1781. It was not a particularly good slogan as incendiary slogans go. I mean, some firebrand would whip up the Parisian sans culottes to a fever pitch and then he’d say, “Grab da rice.”

2) But not many stores in the Paris of 1781 even carried rice. So many rioters dissipated their energy tramping all over looking for riceries. They developed blisters and leg cramps and never ever again heeded the call for revolution.

3) The happy few, well as happy as you can be when you’re in full riot mode, found rice stores had trouble grabbing much rice with their hands. The rice kept slipping between their fingers as they scurried all the way home. A more informative slogan would have been, “Scoop the da rice with a large spoon and but it in a sack.” But that’s too long for exciting people to riot.

4) The French revolution only really took off when its leaders targeted bread rioters with, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” Proper word choice matters, even in a revolution.

Leave a message. I’d like to hear from you.

Chef Paul

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

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