Always strive to be better. Let Achievement Man be your role model.
Achievement Man #2
– 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.
I feel Inigo Montoya’s pain.
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.
– 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.
– 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.
– 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.
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.
INGREDIENTS
1 medium white onion
2 large garlic cloves
6 mild Italian sausages
water enough to mostly cover sausages
1 cup olive oil
1½ tablespoons oregano
6 slices sourdough bread
Serves 6.
PREPARATION
It really is a good idea to thoroughly defrost the sausages. If not, you will have a tough time judging when they are cooked through. Frozen sausages cook quickly on the outside while still remaining cold, if not frozen, on the inside. You’ll either burn the outside before the inside is done or spend a lot of time at a low-to-medium temperature to cook it evenly. (And what if your guests are ravenous vampires? You don’t want to keep them waiting.)
Be sure to jab each sausage with a fork before cooking. Hot grease builds up inside the sausage if it doesn’t have an escape route. Jabbing a cooked sausage with a fork can result in a jet of hot grease heading toward you. Owie!
Mince onion and garlic cloves. Put sausages in a saucepan. Pour water on them until they are nearly covered. Pour in olive oil. Add garlic, minced onion, and oregano. Bring water to a boil. Reduce heat to a warm and simmer for 30 minutes.
Toast the sourdough bread while the sausages simmer. Sourdough bread goes great with Italian sausage. Put the sausage in the bread. Serve it like you would a hot dog. Spoon some of the olive oil/water mix along with some of the onion and garlic. Let the oil seep into the bread. Add a little of the liquid at a time to the toasted bread so that it doesn’t soak all the way through.
Wouldn’t buying spicy Italian sausage be easier than this? Yes, of course it would, but good cooks will want to have their blend of spices accenting the sausage rather than someone else’s. Also, pre-spiced sausages can never taste better than those with fresh onion marinated in olive oil.
TIDBITS
1) Sausages and legislation are the two things you should never see being made, only the final product. The Swedes like to mix in potatoes with meat to make their sausages. The Swedish word for sausage is korv.
2) I’ve never seen a sausage explode, but I’d bet it would be spectacular, if not dangerous. A frozen sausage makes a better hand-to-hand weapon than a defrosted one.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup water
2½ tablespoons vegetable oil
¾ teaspoon sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
2½ teaspoons active dry yeast
no-stick cooking spray
UTENSILS
bread maker
16-inch pizza pan
PREPARATION
Measure out the flour and set aside. Pour the water into the bread maker. If you measure the water before the flour, the flour will stick to the sides of the measuring cup. Not the end of the world, of course, but a minor disruption in The Force, nevertheless.
Add flour, water, oil, sugar, salt, and yeast to the bread maker. Do not put the yeast directly on top of the salt. Salt is bad for yeast and yeast makes the dough rise. (“Ask not what your yeast can do for you. Ask what you can do for your yeast.”)
Set the timer or the menu on the bread maker to “Dough.” Wait the required time, probably a bit more than an hour. In the meantime preheat the oven to 400 degrees and liberally spray the pizza pan with no-stick spray. This will prevent the crust from forming a glue-like bond with the pan. Use this time to chop up any ingredients you’d like to add as toppings.
Take the dough out of the bread maker and roll it out until the dough covers the pizza pan. If you do not possess a rolling pin, any food can will do as long as it is at least 6 inches tall. It is best to spray the can or coat it with a thin layer of flour before spreading the dough.
After rolling, let the dough sit and rise for 30-to-60 minutes.
Add toppings as desired to the top of the dough. Place in the oven. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Ovens vary wildly in cooking times, so be sure to check after about 15 minutes and every few minutes after that. The cheese on top, a most likely ingredient for pizza, will go from golden brown to burnt in a few minutes.
TIDBITS
1) Egyptians used yeast more than 5,000 years ago.
2) Yeast is a tiny microorganism. My apologies to anyone named Yeast.
3) There are three types of yeast: baker’s, brewer’s, and nutritional.
4) The bread slicer was invented in 1912.
5) It’s getting quite difficult to buy bread that doesn’t have the evil high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient.
6) During General Grant’s siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863, the city’s supplies got so low that bread was made out of peas. It got moldy quickly and was universally considered to be gross.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
SAUTE
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
¼ teaspoon sea salt
BURGER MIX
1½ pounds ground beef
2 eggs
1½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ tablespoon basil
½ teaspoon oregano
no-stick cooking spray
8 hamburger buns or 16 slices of bread
8 slices of mozzarella
8 leaves of lettuce
PREPARATION
Dice garlic cloves and onion. Melt butter in frying pan. Add olive and peanut oils. Put thyme, black pepper, meat sauce, and sea salt in pan. Sauté these ingredients on medium heat for about 5 to 10 minutes or until onion is soft. Set aside.
(You can dice garlic, but there are no garlic dice.)
Combine ground beef, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, basil, and oregano in mixing bowl. Add sautéed ingredients. Mix again.
Form 8 patties. Put them in frying pan coated with no-stick spray. Fry patties on medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, flipping them over with care and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more. Put mozzarella slices on top of each patty. Fry for 1 more minute. Heat patties more if they are not yet cooked to your satisfaction.
Toast 8 buns. Assemble buns, patties, and lettuce.
TIDBITS
1) Marco Polo traveled in China from 1275 to 1292. He brought back pasta to Italy, which was eagerly eaten by the peasantry but not by the nobility. (Goodness! That last sentence wasn’t clear, was it? I meant to convey the peasants ate pasta. They did not eat Italy.)
2) Marco Polo did not bring back hamburgers as the Great Khan of China was apparently too busy trying to subjugate the world to develop this wondrous culinary treat.
3) Cosimo de’ Medici gained power in Florence. His great financial and political skills brought prosperity to Florence, but, alas, no hamburgers.
4) Lorenzo de’ Medici took sole power in Florence. His rule brought Florence to its height of prestige. The arts flourished. Michelangelo produced magnificent works of art. No one produced a hamburger.
5) Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492. Did the original Americans possess the knowledge of the hamburger? (See Tidbit 7.)
6) In 1494, Naples, angered by Florentine politics, called in the French king Charles VIII to fight Piero de’ Medici and the Florentines. Hundreds of thousands of Italians presumably hoped Charles VIII would bring the hamburger to Italy.
7) The French, already showing antipathy to American cooking, discovered only two years before, not only refused to bring the hamburger to Italy, but suppressed all knowledge of it coming from the New World.
8) In 1495, Milan, Venice, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, and Aragon seething over the suppression of the hamburger formed an alliance to drive the French out of Italy.
9) From 1495 to 1866, various Italian states and the Spanish, French, and Austrians waged nearly constant war up and down the Italian peninsula. This naturally delayed the development of the Italian hamburger. In fact, this blessed culinary treat would occur in the relatively tranquil America of 1826.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
6 pairs of sourdough muffins top and bottom
6 slices provolone cheese
½ cup pasta sauce
6 eggs
¼ teaspoon basil
¼ teaspoon parsley
½ teaspoon garlic salt
no-stick cooking spray.
PREPARATION
Mix eggs, basil, parsley, and garlic salt in small bowl. Spray saucepan with no-stick cooking spray in hopeful attempt to prevent any egg bits sticking to the pan.
Scramble eggs and spices in pan. Add pasta sauce and scramble some more. Cook until eggs are done. This is a matter of taste.
Toast sourdough muffins. (To your health, sourdough muffin.) Adorn bottom muffin with scrambled eggs. Top with a slice of provolone. Complete sandwich with top muffin half. Mange bene.
TIDBITS
1) The sourdough biscuits are in honor of the hardy Italian restaurateurs who came to San Francisco during the Gold Rush to feed the hungry 49ers.
2) Tidbit 1 is quite possibly true.
3) Provolone cheese did not originate in Provo, Utah.
4) This dish symbolizes the major theme of this cookbook, “Cooking With What’s Handy.”
5) A “theme” was also a major administrative district of the Byzantine Empire.
6) “Parsley” is easy to misspell. Thank goodness, it was never on a spelling test.
7) Garlic is thought to ward off vampires. As far I can tell, it works. We have lots of garlic cloves and garlic salt, and vampires never bother our home.
8) Vampires might like basil, but how would we know? We’ve already frightened them off.
9) Basil Rathbone was famous for his movie portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.
10) Eggs sure can stick to pans, can’t they?
– 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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