Posts Tagged With: mason jar

Ketchup

Posted on May 31, 2025 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

­

KETCHUP

­
INGREDIENTS
­
3 garlic cloves
1 small onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 teaspoons tomato paste
1 28 ounce-can peeled tomatoes, whole or diced
5 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons white vinegar
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
­
SPECIAL UTENSILS
­
food processor or electric blender
4-cup Mason jar
­
Makes 3 cups. Takes 30 minutes
­
PREPARATION
­
Mince garlic and onion. Add onion and olive oil to large pot or Dutch oven. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Add garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes at medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Add tomato paste. Cook for 2 minutes at medium heat or until it turns to burnt orange.
­
Add remaining ingredients. Cook at medium-high heat until it starts to boil. Stir frequently enough to prevent burning. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 40 minutes it thickens.. Stir enough to prevent burning.
­
Transfer liquid from pot to food processor or electric blender. Puree liquid until it reaches your desired thickness. Let cool to room temperature. Add ketchup to Mason jar. Should keep in refrigerator for up to 1 month.
­
TIDBITS
­
1) According to Quite Possibly True Almanac, 2019:
The largest outdoor skating rink made from frozen ketchup is in Pois, Quebec.
Michaelangelo used ketchup instead of red pigment when painting his masterpieces.
The largest ketchup lake formed in Pumice, Kentucky when a tidal wave of hot ketchup from a bottling factory filled an abandoned strip mine.
­In 2013, NASA quietly sent out a cylinder filled with 21,200 tons of ketchup as a goodwill gesture to any civilizations existing outside our Solar System, because who doesn’t like ketchup?
­

– 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, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bastani Sonnati (Saffron Ice Cream)

Posted on October 1, 2024 by pauldelancey

Persian Dessert

­

BASTANI SONNATI

(Saffron Ice Cream)

­

INGREDIENTS
­
¼ teaspoon saffron threads
1 egg yolk
1¾ cups heavy cream
⅔ cup sugar
1⅓ cups whole milk
2½ tablespoons rosewater
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup chopped pistachios – raw, unsalted
­
SPECIAL UTENSILS
­
Dutch oven
1 4-cup Mason jar
­
Makes 3½ cups. Takes 30 minutes plus 8 hours in the freezer.
­
PREPARATION
­­
Add saffron threads to medium mixing bowl. Crush saffron threads with fingers. Add egg yolk to small mixing bowl. Beat yolk with fork or whisk until well blended. Add heavy cream, sugar, whole milk, and crushed saffron to Dutch oven. Cook for 4 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Stir constantly.
­
Slowly add hot saffron/heavy cream mixture to mixing bowl with blended egg yolk, whisking constantly. Add saffron/heavy cream/egg yolk mixture to Dutch oven. Cook for 7 minutes or until mixture thickens and coats a spatula.
­
Remove from heat. Add rosewater and vanilla extract. Blend with fork or whisk until you get a well blended ice cream. Hold both handles of Dutch oven and carefully pour ice cream to Mason jar. Mix with whisk until well blended and saffron are evenly distributed. Tightly close Mason jar. Vigorously shake Mason jar. (You really want the saffron bits to be evenly spaced. Shake again if saffron bits have settled to bottom of jar.)
­
Chill in freezer or until ice cream sets completely. Top ice cream with pistachio bits before serving.
­
TIDBITS
­
1) Beethoven wrote sonatas. I’ve created a sonnati. The score is tied: Beethoven – 1, Me – 1.
­
2) Beethoven composed symphonies. As of press time, I have not. Beethoven wins 2 to 1.
­­
­

– 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

Mason Jar Chocolate Ice Cream

Posted on August 21, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

MASON JAR CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups heavy whipping cream
5 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor or blender
3 cup Mason jar

Makes 2½ cups. Takes 20 minutes to make and 4 hours to firm in freezer.

PREPARATION

Add chocolate chips to pan. Melt using low-medium heat. Stir constantly. Add melted chocolate chips and all other ingredients to 3 cup Mason jar. Make sure that the lid to Mason jar is screwed on tightly. Shake jar vigorously for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens to the consistency of batter. Put jar in freezer. Let sit for 4 hours or until firm.

TIDBITS

1) Family dinners can often be quite contentious.

2) Why?

3) There’s always someone who doesn’t like some dish that you made for the gathering on the clan.

4) And you spent up to two days making your feast.

5) And someone always brings up politics, which always gets people riled.

6) But this argument gets forgotten when someone offers to help and puts your grandmother’s cast-iron skillet in the washer. 30 minutes your angel of a daughter, Sally, looks up at you with soulful eyes. Tears drip down as she quavers, “Mommy, you were going to give that skillet one day.” Her distress punches you in the feels as you review the ingratitude and argument of the dining room. You wish, you really wish that just once serenity could prevail while eating with those oafs.

7) With this recipe your wish is granted. Everybody, absolutely everyone loves chocolate ice cream. Eating this dessert makes everyone so happy that they become strangely pleasant. Furthermore, this dish takes almost no effort to make and is so easy to clean. What more could you want?

 

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

Strawberry Freezer Jam

Posted on July 14, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Breakfast

STRAWBERRY FREEZER JAM

INGREDIENTS

2 cups fresh, crushed strawberries (about 1 pound whole)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4¼ cups sugar
¾ cup water
6 tablespoons (1 1.75 oz box) fruit pectin powder

SPECIAL UTENSILS

potato masher or food processor
6 * 1-cup hot, sterilized* Mason jars (They really must be hot and newly sterilized.)

Makes 5-to-6 cups. Takes 1 hour plus maybe 3 hours to set.

PREPARATION

Remove green stems from strawberries. Cut each strawberry into 8 bits. Smash strawberry bits with potato masher until thoroughly crushed. (Or bits add to food processor. Pulse processor until thoroughly crushed, but not yet pureed.) Some strawberry bits should remain.

Add strawberries and lemon juice to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Add sugar. Mix with fork or whisk until sugar dissolves completely. (Sugar that doesn’t dissolve make the jam grainy.)

Add water and pectin to pan. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir constantly. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Pour boiling water over strawberry/sugar mix. Stir constantly for 3 minutes. The mixture should start to jell and thicken.

Pour strawberry mixture into Mason jars. Leave ½” gap at the top. Stir until strawberry bits, gel, and juice blend. Cover and let stand until set, but not longer than 24 hours. If desired, serve some immediately. Store the rest in the refrigerator for 3 weeks or in the freezer for up to 1 year.

TIDBITS

1) Mason jars are round.

2) Not everything is round. Sometimes pizzas are rectangular. Flower pots can be square. Refrigerators are never round. No, not ever.

3) However, Mason jars must be round. It would be impossible to screw on or off a square lid.

 

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, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mason Jar Strawberry Ice Cream

Posted on February 11, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

MASON JAR STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS

2 cups heavy whipping cream
5½ tablespoons sugar
2¼ teaspoons vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon salt
2 cups whole strawberries, fresh or frozen

Makes 3 cups. Takes 15 minutes to make and 3 hours to firm in freezer.).

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor or blender
3 cup Mason jar or other airtight container

PREPARATION

Puree strawberries. Add all ingredients to Mason jar. Make sure that the lid to Mason jar is screwed on tightly. Shake jar for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens to the consistency of batter. Put jar in freezer. Let sit for 3 hours or until firm.

TIDBITS

1) Mason Jar Strawberry is fantastic. It’s so yummy. Only people who hate: whipping cream, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and strawberries will dislike this dessert. That means billions and billions of people love it. People have adored this dessert for millennia. Lands without strawberries conquered surrounding peoples in a never ending quest to find wild strawberries. This is how the Roman Empire and the Mongol Empire, among others, grew to be so big.

2) Alas, the Romans and the Mongols despite their mighty armies never did manage to find, much less conquer, a land with strawberries. Their subjects grew sullen and defiant. Finally, their peoples rose up and overthrew their non-strawberry-providing rulers. (Okay, with a little help from invading foreign armies.)

3) Rulers then sent expeditions to find strawberries. This is really how Columbus sold Queen Isabella on finding the Americas. The idea that the Spanish went exploring to find gold was just a cover. The conquistadors wanted the real wealth, strawberries, just to themselves. Seeing the Spaniards’ success, other nations sent our their explorers to find their own La Fresado, The Land of Strawberries. Pretty darn quick, the entire globe got explored. International trade boomed between the old countries and the new strawberry-growing lands. We owe it all to the yummy strawberry.

 

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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cranberry Sauce

Posted on November 25, 2021 by pauldelancey

Bosnian Appetizer

CRANBERRY SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

1⅓ cups sugar
¾ cup water
½ cup orange juice
1 pound cranberries

Makes 3¼ cups. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add sugar, orange juice, and water to pot. Simmer at low-medium heat for 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves completely. Stir frequently. Add cranberries. Cook at medium heat for 15 minutes or until cranberries crack open and sauce is dark and thick. Remove sauce from heat.(Sauce should thicken more as it cools.) Cool in refrigerator for 1 hour or until ready. Goes well on poultry, pork, beef, and fish.

TIDBITS

1) Cranberries are good for you in all sorts of ways. I forget some of them. Apparently, cranberries don’t help the memory much.

2) The Picts and Celts in Ancient Britain were fierce warriors. They got their energy and stamina from eating cranberries. If the these ancient fighters ate too many cranberries they got tummy aches. They also found oodles and oodles of excess energy coursing through their veins. They became too hot. The Picts and Celts had to let some of their escape or they’d collapse.

3) So the first Britons took off all their clothes to cool off. Being nude, they painted their bodies blue for modesty’s sake. Then they charged the opposing army with a ferocity that’s never again been equaled.

4) But they didn’t wear hats or paint their heads. The skin on their heads turned red under the hot unforgiving sun. The invading Romans their skulls, crania, looked as red as the cranberry that the natives ate. So, the Romans called this red berry, the cranberry.

5) I almost forgot, a Roman chef, Quintus Cato, looked at the cranberry sauce in his mason jar and thought, “The mason jar is much taller than it’s wide. Is it possible to build like that as well?” He wrote of this idea to his pal, Emperor Vespasian of Rome. The energetic Emperor immediately ordered construction of the Colosseum, so named because it’s colossal in size. Now you know

 

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.