Posts Tagged With: Mexico

Carrot Cake

American Dessert

CARROT CAKE

INGREDIENTS – MAINCarrotCake-

4 eggs
1⅓ cups sugar
⅔ cup light brown sugar
3 cups shredded carrots
1 cup vegetable oil
¼ teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups cake flour or flour
½ tablespoon baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans or combination
no-stick spray

INGREDIENTS – ICING

6 tablespoons butter (softened)
1 pound confectionery sugar
8 ounces cream cheese (softened)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric mixer
9″ x 13″ casserole dish
3 mixing bowls (Or are you an outstanding chef like my Grandma Anna wished us all to be and clean bowls and utensils as you cook?)
sonic obliterator

PREPARATION – MAIN

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add eggs to first large mixing bowl. Beat eggs with electric mixer until frothy. (The eggs, not you.) Gradually add sugar and light brown sugar. Blend using electric mixer set on whip until well blended. Add carrots, vegetable oil, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Blend with mixer set on whip until well blended.

Add flour and baking soda to second large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Add flour/baking soda from second mixing bowl to first mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer set on cake until blended. Add nuts and stir with spoon.

Spray casserole dish with no-stick spray. Pour eggs/sugar/spice/baking soda mixture into casserole dish. Smooth with spatula. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-to-45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Let cool on wire rack for 1 hour.

(Okay, little secret here. You can cool the cake down considerably faster by putting the casserole dish in cold water in the sink. Be sure the water is only halfway to the top of the casserole dish. If your casserole dish is too big for the sink, simply put it in the bathtub. Again, let the water go no higher than halfway up the side of the casserole dish. If someone happens to see your cake cooling in the bathtub and makes a snarky comment, zap him with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that negativity in your life.)

PREPARATION – ICING

While cake bakes, add butter, confectionery sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla extract to third mixing bowl (Note: this cookbook always employs the Oxford when providing a list of ingredients. Long live the Oxford comma! Vexation to its enemies!) Ahem, beat ingredients using electric beater set on cream until ingredients become a fluffy icing.

TIDBITS

1) The famous French Painter, Paul Cézanne believed, “A single carrot newly observed will cause a revolution.”

2) Eleven years after Cézanne died, the Russian Revolution began. People in the streets of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, had been starving. They couldn’t afford the price of a loaf of bread.

4) Desperate to maintain order, the czar and his ministers bought up food from all over the world. They purchased cabbages from Germany, eggs from Sweden, and carrots from the gardens of Cezanne’s children. The authorities even bought beans, cotija cheese, and tortillas from Mexico. Surely, the rioters would be placated by burritos. I mean, who doesn’t like a burrito?

5) Unfortunately, as in the case of many governmental programs, well intentioned though they might be, something went wrong. The newly formed Russian Ministry of Burrito Assembly put a raw carrot in every burrito.

6) The Russian rabble rebel not appreciate the taste of the raw carrot, bean, and cheese burrito. They did not like its texture either. They did not like it in the city square. They did not like in their hair. They did not like it in the air. They did not like it anywhere.

7) So the Russians did not eat these burritos. And they grew hungrier and hungrier.

8) Then an artist named Ivan Popoff came across one of the burritos lying–Oh gosh, I hope I conjugated this evil verb correctly–split open on the street. Something about the burrito’s carrot struck him. “Oh ho,” he said, “I am observing this carrot in an entirely new way.” Lenin, a passerby, heard this and immediately started the Russian Revolution.

9) Millions died during the Russian Revolution and the ensuing decades.

10) We should all pay more attention to French post-impressionist painters.

– 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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Crispy Shredded Beef Tacos

Mexican Entree

CRISPY SHREDDED BEEF TACOS

INGREDIENTSCrispyShreddedBeefTacos-

1 medium yellow onion
2 pounds rump roast
½ tablespoon chili powder
½ tablespoon cumin
½ teaspoon salt
4 garlic cloves
4 ounces diced green chiles

5 green onion stalks
4 Roma tomatoes
¼ head lettuce
2 cups vegetable oil
12 corn tortillas
2 cups Four Mexican Cheeses
1 cup crema Mexicana
1 cup salsa

SPECIAL UTENSILS

crock pot or slow cooker
9″ loaf pan
electric skillet
Lazy Susan

takes about 7 hours

PREPARATION

Slice onion into thin rings. Rub rump roast with: chili powder, cumin, and salt. Dice garlic. Add ½ of onion slices to bottom of crock pot. Add rubbed rump roast, garlic, and green chiles. Top roast with remaining ½ onion slices. Add water to cover roast. Cover crock pot. Cook on low for about 7 hours or until roast is tender enough to be easily pulled apart by a pair of forks. Shred roast with forks. (Save liquid from crock pot, it makes a great broth.)

Dice green onion and tomatoes. Shred lettuce. Add vegetable oil to skillet. Heat oil to 375 degrees. The oil is hot enough if it sizzles when a tortilla is added. Add 1 tortilla at a time. Use tongs to sauté tortilla for 15 seconds on each side. The tortilla should be crispy but still flexible enough to be folded. Fold tortilla in half and place it upright in bread pan.. Put a paper towel on each side of tortilla to drain off grease. Repeat for 11 remaining tortillas.

Place tortillas, shredded beef, green onion, tomato, cheese, lettuce, cheese, crema Mexicana, and salsa in Lazy Susan. I love tacos. I always asked for it on my birthday. when I was a kid.

TIDBITS

1) Señor Pedro Lascuráin was president of Mexico for only fifteen minutes in 1913.

2) He did not accomplish much.

3) However, nearly all of Europe went to war in 1914. World War I lasted four years, involved many nations and resulted in millions of casualties. The unsettled conditions of World War I resulted in the Communist Revolution in Russia and the Nazi seizure of power in Germany. The communists shed much blood before and during World War II.

4) Makes Lascuráin’s administration look positively great in comparison.

5) I don’t think El Presidente Lascuráin shed much blood at all during his term in office, unless he gave himself a nasty paper cut while signing his acceptance or resignation papers.

6) Mexico has remained at peace ever since the end of the Mexican Revolution. I think it’s because of the peaceful example of President Lascuráin.

7) Poway, California, my fair town, has been at peace with all its neighbors even since I moved in.

8) My presidential term of office, zero minutes, is similar in length to President Lascuráin’s.

9) El Presidente Lascuráin probably had a paper cut. I’ve had paper cuts. Gentle reader, I’m guessing you’ve a paper cut as well. They hurt, don’t they?

10) Señor Lascuràin, the Great Man of Peace, often ate Mexican food. I love Mexican food. He had a Mexican grandmother. I had a Mexican grandmother. He was subject to the Laws of Physics. So am I.

11) It’s all uncanny. If Lascuràin had lived at the same time, people would have had trouble distinguishing between the two of us.

12) I wonder. I wonder.

13) I look at his picture on the internet. I run to the bathroom and look in the mirror.

14) Whew! Lascuràin and I are not the same person.

15) But Poway is at peace with all the neighboring towns. Can a Nobel Peace Prize for me be far behind?

16) I do hope I don’t get a paper cut while signing for my prize.

– 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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Simple Tacos

Mexican Entree

SIMPLE TACOS

 INGREDIENTSsimptac-

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion
2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons Meat MagicTM spice
1 1/2 cup grated Four Mexican cheeses
6 taco shells
1 1/2 cups lettuce
1 1/2 cups salsa

PREPARATION

Mince the onion in a food processor. (My cooking life took a quantum leap when I acquired this gizmo. Get one.) Add onion, cumin and meat spice to ground meat. Mix by hand.

Cook mixture in saucepan until all of the meat is no longer pink. Shred lettuce by hand or chop into middlin’ sized pieces with a knife. Gosh, fill the taco shell with meat, lettuce, cheese, and salsa. Better yet, get a 20-inch across Lazy Susan and let your diners make their own tacos according to their tastes.

Lazy Susans are fantastic. They are round, rotating platforms, usually made of wood. Put a bowl on the Lazy Susan for each of the beef, cheese, taco shells, lettuce, and salsa. With this handy device the need to constantly pass bowls back and forth disappears. (Just try to find a Lazy Susan. Anywhere. I weep for America.)

TIDBITS

1) Tacos have always been my favorite food. I asked for tacos for all of my childhood birthday dinners.

2) My grandmother was born in Mexico. She made tortillas by hand.

3) “Tacos” is an anagram for “coast”, “coats”, “o scat”, and “o cats!”

4) Cumin goes with so many Mexican dishes.

5) Supposedly long ago, a wealthy Mexican family had a maid named Susan. She didn’t enjoy constantly moving bowls back and forth. So she invented the device that bears her name. For this, someone called the tool the “Lazy Susan.” Seems to me, it should have been named the Entrepreneurial Susan.

6) When I was growing up, my family had a superb Lazy Susan made of hardwood. It’s gone, gone. Where did it go? It’s hard to get a good Lazy Susan these days. Why? Why?

– 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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Pico de Gallo

Mexican Appetizer

PICO DE GALLO

INGREDIENTSPicoDeGallo-

4 Roma tomatoes
1 medium white onion
1 jalapeno pepper (1/2 or even 1/4 if you like it milder)
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro
4 teaspoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

Dice tomatoes, onion, and cilantro. De-seed and dice jalapeno. (Wash hands afterward. If you touch your face before washing, it will burn.) Put tomato, onion, jalapeno, cilantro, lime juice, and salt in bowl. Mix with spoon.

TIDBITS

1) You really should listen to the song “Pico de Gallo” by Trout Fishing in America. The link to the song is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kL5f0np7EU. Visit Trout Fishing in America’s website at: http://www.troutmusic.com/.

2) Pico de gallo goes well with tortilla chips.

3) Guatemala has suffered through many years of civil wars. Peasants would often take to the hills to avoid the guerrillas and the government forces. The villagers’ main source of sustenance was the humble tortilla. However, old tortillas dry out and become hard to eat. So the peasants would fry their tortillas in oil to make tortilla chips which lasted longer.

4) Humanity began its ascent in the Americas with the development of the first tortillas in 10,000 B.C.. Beer provided the upward impetus across the Atlantic Ocean. Civilizations such as the Aztecs and the Mayans flourished because of the tortillas and indeed they developed advanced art, architecture, math, astronomy, and pico de gallo. America has the world’s largest economy because of its great tortilla chip and beer industries.

5) The Spanish royalty dispatched Christopher Columbus in 1492 to find these fabled tortilla lands. In 1519 Hernando Cortez conquered the Aztecs on Central Mexico securing a Spanish tortilla monopoly. Mexican tortillas would provide the sustenance for the many and mighty armies that held together the vast and numerous of the Spanish empire..

6) In 1993 China began producing flour tortillas. China will soon have the world’s largest economy.

– 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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Spanish Rice

Mexican Entree

SPANISH RICE

INGREDIENTSSpanishRice-

1 clove garlic
1 onion
1 bell pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups brown rice
4 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon chili pepper
1 teaspoon cilantro
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground Mexican oregano
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon turmeric

PREPARATION

Mince garlic and onion. Dice bell pepper. Add olive oil, rice, garlic, onion, and bell pepper to pot. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onions soften. Stir frequently.

Stir chicken broth, chili pepper, cilantro, cumin, ground oregano, pepper, salt, and turmeric.. Bring to boil. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low. Cover pot. Simmer on low heat for 25-to-30 minutes or until rice is tender.

Remove from heat. Fluff rice with fork.

TIDBITS

1) Turmeric is a natural antivenin for King Cobra snake bites.

2) People apply turmeric paste at weddings to the face and arms of the bride and groom.

3) Young lovers would really, really, really have to be madly in love if having their first night of matrimonial passion means getting bitten by a King Cobra. Even if they’re wearing an antivenin.

4) And how many times has this happened to you? You’re sweltering outside your car because its radiated leaked. So your car stopped, your skin is getting sunburned, and you’re miserable. Then an angel from heaven gets out of her car, plugs up the leaking radiator with a tablespoon of turmeric and soothes your sunburn with more turmeric. “Marry me,” you say. “I will,” says she.

5) Oh, and turmeric combats flatulence, a definite turn off on wedding nights.

– 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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Salsa Verde

Mexican Appetizer

SALSA VERDE

INGREDIENTSSalsaVerde-

3 serrano chiles
9 cloves garlic
1 white onion
16 tomatillos
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/4 teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Remove seeds from serrano chiles if you desire a milder salsa. Put garlic, onion, tomatillos, and oil in baking dish. Stir until garlic, onion, and tomatillos are well coated with oil. Roast in oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

While roasting, dice chiles.

Dice roasted veggies. Add veggies, diced chiles, cilantro, lime juice and salt to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk or fork. Goes great with nearly everything Mexican. Food, that is.

TIDBITS

1) Salsa Verde is an anagram for Salad Serve.

2) People often serve salad for their guests.

3) Tennis players serve tennis balls.

4) The Australian tennis player Samuel Groth has the fastest serve at 163 miles per hour.

5) He used a tennis ball. He would not achieved speeds even approaching that mark if he had used a head of romaine lettuce.

6) Even though a head of iceberg lettuce is shaped more like a tennis ball than romaine, it still would not travel through the air as fast a tennis ball even when served by the best tennis players.

7) As of press time, less than a majority of professional tennis players have shown strong interest in the game of lettuce tennis.

– 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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Agua Tamarindo

Mexican Dessert

AGUA TAMARINDO

INGREDIENTSAguaTamarindo-

8 cups water
1/2 cup tamarind syrup
1/4 cup confectionary sugar

PREPARATION

Use long wooden spoon to mix all ingredients in pitcher. Stir until sugar dissolves. This goes well served over ice.

TIDBITS

1) There are no weird facts about tamarinds.

2) Not even fun facts.

3) Tamarinds came India. Sailors carried them back on rest-infested vessels.

4) The rats often were so numerous and ravenous the sailors had to throw whole handful of tamarind pods at the rats.

5) Hence the popular nautical saying and anagram, “Tamarinds, I damn rats.”

6) Not all rats were pests. Some could be trained to race each other . Bosun Arthur Beans of the HMS Kidney could amuse for his ship mates with his trained rats.

7) Other seamen of the British Royal Navy trained their rats to do tricks, such as jumping through hoops.

8) However, Arthur’s trained rats could prove the Pythagorean Theorem and to waltz. Eventually, their fame spread so much that every Christmas Eve the Admiralty would witness a palindromic performance of Art’s Star Rats.

9) Or so I’ve heard.

– 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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Sunshine Milkshake

American Dessert

SUNSHINE MILKSHAKE

INGREDIENTSSunshineMilk-

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 bananas

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

PREPARATION

Peel the bananas. Put bananas, milk, orange juice, sugar, and vanilla extract. Use “milkshake” setting. Blend until shake is sufficiently smooth for your taste.

With the time you saved making this simple recipe over a more complicated one, you can read War and Peace.

TIDBITS

1) Seasoned fishermen put vanilla extract on their hands so fish can’t smell them. How fish hundreds of feet deep in the ocean can smell human way up there in a boat is beyond me.

2) If fish have such a good sense of smell, maybe the TSA should hire them to sniff for drugs and explosives at airports.

3) Of course, the TSA would have to provide fish bowls for their aquatic brethren or the fish would die. And stink. And then no one would want to fly, except the bad guys who would be easy to arrest as they were the only ones flying.

4) Unless, of course, the TSA people eat the fish when they die. Maybe use some lemon juice.

5) It’s an interesting legal question. May a fish working for the federal government be eaten?

6) In 1519, Montezuma invited Cortez to share a chocolate drink (Xocolatl) with him. Cortez accepted the invitation. Cortez soon afterward seized Montezuma and executed him. This is more than bad manners on the part of a guest. If Cortez had not gotten into see Montezuma, he couldn’t have decapitated the leadership of the great Aztec nation. The resulting disarray in the Aztec command gave Cortez enough of an advantage to conquer Mexico.

7) The Spanish went on to conquer Central America, much of South America, and what became the southwestern part of the United States. One can only imagine how culinary history would have been changed in the Americas if this had not have happened.

8) So think about that when you invite someone over for hot chocolate.

– 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, history, humor, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Potato Epazote Soup From Mexico

Mexican Soup

POTATO EPAZOTE SOUP

INGREDIENTSPotEpazSoup-

½ pound potatoes
1 medium white onion
1 Serrano chile (2 more later)
3 tablespoons butter
4 teaspoons epazote
4 cups chicken broth
2 Serrano chiles
¼ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup toasted tortilla squares

Makes about 4 bowls.

PREPARATION

Peel potatoes. Mince potatoes and onion. Dice cilantro. Seed and dice 1 Serrano chile. (For goodness sake, wash your hands thoroughly after handling Serrano chiles.)

Combine potato, onion, 1 diced Serrano chile, butter, and epazote in pot. Sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until potato or onion starts to brown. Stir frequently. Add broth. Cook on low-medium heat for 15 minutes or until potato softens. Stir occasionally. While soup simmers, seed and dice 2 Serrano chiles. Dice cilantro. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with 2 diced Serrano chiles, tortillas squares, and cilantro.

TIDBITS

1) Respect the herb epazote.

2) Epazote is an acquired taste for many. Some people like its lemony smell. However, its detractors compare epazote’s aroma to petroleum’s.

3) Epazote is a digestive and carminative.

4) And a carminative is….Looks up carmnative….Oh crudness, it causes farts. So don’t consume vast quantities of epazote before a big date or job interview.

5) According to internet, “Often times it can be considered an evasive weed as it can be found growing voluntarily in gardens and fields.” Wow, it can evade people, people who want to pull it because it’s a weed. How does it evade people? By walking? Crawling? Flying? Regrettably the website is mute on this exciting point.

6) The “growing voluntarily” part is exciting. “Dear epazote, would you like to grow here? I won’t force you.”
“Oh yes, your garden looks most inviting.”

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

Citrus Agua Fresca from Mexico

Mexican Dessert

CITRUS AGUA FRESCA

INGREDIENTSCitrAguaFre-

2 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup lime juice
1 1/2 cups orange juice
1 1/2 cups pineapple juice
6 tablespoons confectionary sugar

PREPARATION

Use long wooden spoon to mix all ingredients in pitcher. Stir until sugar dissolves. This goes well served over ice.

TIDBITS

1) Doesn’t the list of ingredients look like a ski slope?

2) One of the most popular sports televison ever was “The Wide World of Sports.” The intro to the program shows an athlete performing a great feat to the “thrill of victory and an athlete failing to the words “the agony of defeat.

3) The victorious athlete changed quite a few times. However, the failing athlete was Vinko Bogataj. Vinko wiped out in spectacular fashion just moments after starting to ski down a steep slope. Vinko remained blissfully unaware that tens of millions of people had been watching his snow tumble every week for twenty years.

4) Success is overrated. We remember spectacular failures. We embrace them.

5) Eddie the Eagle represented Britain in the 1988 Winter Olympics. He would soar like an eagle with folded wings. Eddie’s ski jumps brought him last place in every event he entered. He might have set records for the short jumps if the Olympics had bothered track such a thing.

6) Naturally Eddie became a national hero. The world remembered his name for decades. The winners in the ski jump? Tee hee.

7) Who can name a movie about bobsled gold medals? No one. Well, practically no one. But millions have seen the movie about the Jamaican bobsled Olympians, “Cool Runnings.” They didn’t win a medal. They only achieved cinematic immortality.

8) As the song says, “We don’t need another hero.” We need another Citrus Agua Fresca.

– 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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