Posts Tagged With: NASA

Bad Advice Friday, 3-31-17

Posted on March 31, 2017 by pauldelancey

Today is once more Bad-Advice Friday. I shall be dispensing bad advice to all comers. The advice will stupendously bad.

RO asks: Why do I need a trip to Hawaii?

Dear RO: Your life is stressful. Destressify your life or you’ll flip out and murder someone. Although a good lawyer should be able to get you off with manslaughter, you’ll do serious time in jail, which will cost the tax payers a lot. The state will have divert funds from hiring teachers at their universities in order to lock you up and feed your for ten-to-twenty years. The state doesn’t want to do that, you don’t want to rot in jail, and the victim doesn’t want to die. There is an opportunity for a deal. Simply walk into the governor’s and ask money for a calming trip to Hawaii if she doesn’t want to be offed. I guarantee you that within seconds she and her staff will be discussing your request with the utmost seriousness.

*********************************

RSD asks:

What is your recipe for greatest sleep ever? What tricks of the sleep trade do you have to share?

Dear RSD:

No matter hard you try, getting a good night’s sleep the first night is impossible. To heck with that noise, go for a good night’s rest the second night. To ensure a solid slumber on the second night, you simply must be completely wired with caffeine the first night. Go early to your neighborhood café or coffeehouse and chain drink coffee. Ask for a ThermosTM full of espresso. Take a walk with the Thermos until its empty. Come back for a refill. Go for another walk. Repeat, you’ll be amazed how much exercise your legs and your heart will be getting. And your mind, my gosh, it will be active all night long reviewing your life. When the next night finally comes, you’ll be so exhausted that you will sleep the sleep of the just. Happy dreams!

**************************************************************

DH asks: How do I keep my dog from eating butter? I go to make cookies and it’s gone.

Dear DH: The dog keeps eating your butter because it tastes good. However, being the dog whisperer that I am, I know that no dog will eat anything that turns its mouth into the fiery inferno of Hell and pooping into a burning river of lava. So, I suggest buying habañero flavored butter. If you can’t find that at your supermarket, you’ll need to inject pureed habañero into the butter. (Be sure to wash your hands before touching your genitals, though.) Then leave the butter out. If the dogs senses something’s amiss, allay its fear by eating the butter first. The dog will follow your lead. Now, the two of you will scream, or bark, at the top of your lungs to be released from life. Of course, the dog will never eat butter again and you will never leave the butter out again. But you will have bonded forever with your pet. All ends well.
***********

JAS aks: If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh why can’t I?

Dear JAS: Bluebirds can’t fly beyond the rainbow. The leprechauns won’t allow it. They have an anti-happy-little-bluebird force field deployed. The leprechauns don’t want to share their pots-o-gold with gold-bricking bluebirds. The only way for a blue bird to penetrate the force field is to be shot out of a cannon with the same force that NASA uses to launch rockets. It’s astounding that the wee birds go through unscathed through the force field using that method. One would think they’d be annihilated. NASA and the Pentagon are thinking the same thing. They’d be very grateful if you could discover the blue birds’ secret technology. So, buy yourself a cannon put yourself in it and fire away. Good luck! Don’t forget to let NASA and the Pentagon know about technological breakthroughs should you should survive.
**********************

KM How do I get my cat to watch television? She does a lot of other cute things, so why not that, too?

Dear KM: Buy a can of tuna. Buy catnip. Smear tuna and catnip all over your TV screen. Your cat will be sitting in front of the TV forever.

********************

JR asks: What’s the best starter for a charcoal grill: gasoline or diesel?

Dear JR: Those charcoal briquets are absolutely flame proof. Rural firemen stack them to form impenetrable firewalls out there in the hills. But you want to use charcoal anyway, so the challenge is to use them this one time while curing you of the desire to ever use them again. Put the inert charcoal briquets in the grill. Add gelignite to the grill. Gelignite is safe; I’m reasonably sure it doesn’t go off accidently. Activate gelignite; hitting it with a hammer or pointing a flame thrower at it ought to do the trick. The resulting explosion will scatter your briquets for miles and miles in every direction making it impossible to find them. Oh, you’ll likely to be flung for quite a distance as well. Be sure to have your cell phone with you. It’s doubtful you’ll be able to walk and you’ll be wanting a friend to drive you the ER. However, you’ll never want to go through the frustration of trying ignite charcoal again. I mean, who needs that?

********************************

ABG asks: Red wine or white wine with breakfast? asking for a friend.

Dear ABG: Red wine goes with red food such as ham. White wine goes with white food such as egg whites. If you have something like bacon, however, with its white and red stripes, you’ll have to have a glass of white wine for each white, fatty stripe and a glass of red white for each red stripe. Why? Something in red wine overpowers something bad in red foods and similarly for white wine. (I read something to this effect on a bulletin board in the Med School library in college some decades ago.) So drink up. It’s possible you’ll get too drunk to drive. This is all to the good. It’s not safe to drive anymore. They’re all animals out there. Omg, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say what wine to drink with bacon that’s been in the fridge so long that it’s turning grey. Grey bacon should, of course, be paired with a good Grey Riesling.

******************************************************

JCA asks: If I see a chicken crossing the road, should I follow?

Dear JCA: First check to see if the road is actually a Mobius strip. If so, following the chicken will simply get you to your starting point. (Of course, you’ll be upside down on the strip. You will fall on your head if you’re not wearing anti-grav boots. Is the chicken wearing anti-grav boots? If not, you’re probably safe from the perils of a Mobius strip.)

Is the chicken heavily armed? If so, it’s probably going into combat. Are you heavily armed as well? If you are, it’s okay to follow. Be sure to bring anti-septic lotions with you though, as chickens can walk under barbed-wire fences while you can’t. It’s this attention to detail that gets us through life.

– 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: bad advice | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shrimp Creole

Posted on February 7, 2017 by pauldelancey

Cajun Entree

SHRIMP CREOLE

INGREDIENTSshrimpcreole

⅔ cup rice
1½ pounds shrimp will shells on
1⅓ cups water
1 stalk celery
2 garlic cloves
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
3 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon basil
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon thyme
1 14-ounce can diced, undrained tomatoes

Serves 4. Takes 50 minutes.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, shell and devein shrimp. KEEP SHELLS. Add shrimp shells and water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to warm and simmer until needed.

Mince celery, garlic, green bell pepper, and onion. Add minced veggies and butter to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until ingredients soften. Stir frequently. Add basil, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, pepper, salt, and thyme. Stir.

Remove and discard shrimp shells from pot. Add ¼ cup of the shrimp-shell flavored water to Dutch oven. (Keep the rest of this flavored water.) Reduce heat to Dutch oven to medium. Cook for 5 minutes on medium heat. Stir frequently enough to keep mixture from burning on bottom. Add diced tomatoes with its liquid and the remaining shrimp-shell flavored water. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes or until liquid thickens. Stir frequently enough to keep mixture from burning on bottom. Remove bay leaf. Add shrimp. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes or until the shrimp turn pink or orange. Stir frequently. Serve over rice.

TIDBITS

1) The shrimp in the above photo are on the plate because they are subject to the laws of gravity.

2) When they want to be.

3) Shrimp have the ability to turn off gravity by clicking their dozen little red shoes together and saying, “There’s no place like Mars. There’s no place like Mars.”

4) And whoosh, off they float to Mars.

5) Whenever you see a meteorite streaking away from Earth, that’s really a shrimp going home to Mars. They’re not burning up, rather they are traveling so fast they give off a red shift.

6) NASA would dearly love to know how shrimp can negate gravity and float across space at near light speed.

7) NASA has determined that the shrimp’s shell is impervious to friction-generated heat, so that the little crustaceans can zip back and forth through the Earth’s atmosphere with impunity.

8) OK, NASA also wants to build a spaceship as durable as shrimp shells.

9) This is why the NASA cafeteria serves shrimp creole every single meal. Every single day. They are saving the shrimp shells for structural analysis. They also hope to gather enough shrimp shells to make a space shuttle.

10) Unfortunately, shrimp creole tastes better if you boil the shrimp shells. So, they go into the shrimp creole. This is bad, while shrimp shells resist the heat of speeding through the atmosphere and they stand up to the wetness of water, become too pliable when boiled in water. As we know, flimsy shrimps shells are useless for the rigors of intergalactic travel. Thus, the scientists can never get enough shrimp shells.

11) Now you know why shrimp are so worried about global warming. Global warming means hotter oceans. Hotter oceans cause flimsier shells. Softer shells will make it easier for sharks to eat them. Sharks particularly love jumbo shrimp.

12) It takes time for sharks to crunch their way through shrimp shells; submarine fleets around the world are studying these study shells. While the sharks attempt their futile munching, the shrimp say, “There’s no place like Mars. There’s no place like Mars.”

13) And whoosh, the shark is taken along at near-light speeds through the atmosphere. Where they die. This is why there are not more sharks in the oceans. It’s always why aquariums occasionally misplace a shark.

14) But all this will change when the oceans get too hot for the shrimp shells. So, the shrimp have been migrating back to Mars.

15) Those canals you see on Mars have all been built by shrimp. They need places to swim.

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

Posted on January 15, 2017 by pauldelancey

Taiwanese Soup

BEEF NOODLE SOUP

INGREDIENTSbeefnoodlesoup

5 garlic cloves
1 inch ginger root
6 scallions (white part of green onions)
1 Roma tomato
2 Thai chiles or red chiles
8 cups water (or enough to cover short ribs)
1⅓ cups Chinese rice wine or sherry
¾ cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Sichuan chili bean sauce
(doubanchiang), Korean gochujang. or bean sauce
4 whole star anise pods
3 pounds beef short ribs
1 cup chicken stock
1¼ pounds Asian wheat noodles or linguine
¼ cup mustard greens or spinach
¼ cup baby bok choy, bok choy, or Napa cabbage
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro

SPECIAL UTENSILS

8 quart pot
tongs

Makes 8 bowls. Takes 4 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves. Peel and grate ginger root. Cut scallions into ¼” slices. Dice tomato and Thai chiles. Add garlic, ginger, scallion, tomato, water, rice wine, soy sauce, brown sugar, chili bean sauce, and star anise into pot. Bring to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Add short ribs. Cover and simmer on low heat for 2½ hours or until meat is tender to the fork, but is still on the ribs. Turn off heat, remove lid, and let sit for 1 hour. Remove meat from pot with tongs and place on flat surface. Push bones out of short ribs. Shred beef with fork.. Return shredded beef to pot. Add chicken stock. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

While soup simmers, cook noodles according to instructions on package. Dice mustard greens, baby bok choy, and cilantro. Add noodles to bowls. Add mustard greens and bok choy to bowls. Ladle soup over mustard greens and baby bok choy. Garnish with cilantro.

TIDBITS

1) Not too many years ago, Susan Chang of Poway, California, posted the following question on FacebookTM, “If we took all the cooked noodles in the world and tied them together, would they reach all the way to Mars?” No response. Susan asked the same question, but added a picture of two kittens playing with noodles.

2) The post went viral. Suddenly, billions of people had to know. Purchases of noodles went up a thousand fold. The entire economies of thirteen smallish countries switched over to making noodles. Greenland built sixty million hot houses to raise wheat. Ten million babies were named after noodles, “Noodlo if they were boys or “Noodla” if they were girls.

3) Soon the world had billions of miles of noodles, enough to cover every road in the world. This naturally made traveling anywhere difficult, unless, of course, you had a JeepTM equipped with noodle tires. But we didn’t have many of those vehicles. Most factories still churned out noodles.

4) Time to cook those noodles. On May 5, all seven billion people cooked noodles. The steam from all that water boiling formed a thick cloud over the entire Earth. The cloud lasted an year. No sunlight got through at all; dinosaurs that somehow survived the meteor from 65 million years ago, died up for good. People tied noodle after noodle together. Soon a string billions of miles long circled the globe countless times. We know it was countless because no one tried counting it.

5) Sally was chose for the honor of stretching the string to Mars. Being five foot seven and standing on her tippy toes and extending her hand to sky, she managed to lift the noodle end seven feet to Mars. This was short of the Red Planet as all could see. So, Sally stood on her boyfriend Bob’s shoulders. Still short of Mars. A troupe of Chinese acrobats came over. Although they stood seventeen people tall, a GuinnessTM record for noodle standing they were still not all the way to Mars.

6) Bushnell AviationTM lent a helicopter. One person, Dwayne, held onto the helicopter and then another person held on to him, and so on. However, even though Wayne was a weight lifter, even he couldn’t hold up 15,000 pounds of people for long. He let go. Fortunately every fill into the community swimming pool, establishing Guinness records for the largest number of people to successfully perform a cannonball into a community pool and for the largest tidal wave in Wyoming.

7) Then NASA and the European Space Agency, seeing people actually performing scientific experiments got into the act. A space shuttle spooled out the noodle string as it traveled Mars. The string measured 135 billion miles, enough to get to that planet when it was closest to Earth.

12) Unfortunately, Mars was farther away than that. The phlegmatic population, there being a global cold, shrugged and built a noodle string three time longer than the first, which is still whipping around the Earth. NASA tried again. It worked! It did. It did. All the way to Mars. Sally clipped the string in two. ESA carried the second string all the way as well. The noodle strings stayed in place as the extremely cold temperatures of space froze them into super strong poles.

13) Then Amos Keeto, at Bushnell ConstructionTM said, “We have extra noodle, enough to make rungs between the noodle poles. The people of Earth, did just that. Now, if you have space suit and have enough supplies, you can climb to Mars. Way cool.

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Kulu’wa (Beef tomato stew)

Posted on October 14, 2016 by pauldelancey

Eritrean Entree

KULU’WA
(Beef tomato stew)

INGREDIENTSkuluwa

1 pound lamb or beef stew meat
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
3 tomatoes
2½ tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon berbere spice
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut meat into ½” cubes. Dice garlic, onion, and tomatoes. Add butter, garlic, and onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add tomato, berbere spice, pepper, and salt. Stir until well blended. Add meat cubes. Sauté at medium-high for 15 minutes or until meat is tender. Goes well with injera, Eritrean or Ethiopian flatbread.

TIDBITS

1) When objects recede from you at a very fast rate, say 43.7 miles per second, they will look redder than they really are. Astronomers call this display a “red shift.”

2) The entire universe is expanding. This is why some marriages fail. The partners are literally getting farther apart from each other every second. And that brown freckle? The expanding universe makes it looks redder as well. The freckle now looks like a hickey to your already suspicious spouse. Harsh words get said, words that can’t be taken back and soon you’re on your way to divorce court when a cop pulls you over for going 43.7 miles per second, which is way more than you thought your Honda FitTM could do even with high-octane gas. You try to tell the lawman that your speed comes from the expanding universe. He shakes his head. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

3) This is also why many people haven’t eaten this recipe’s red entree. Kulu’wa. The redness means it is moving away from you at 43.7 miles per second. You really have to be a speedy eater to get even one delicious spoonful in your mouth. Why, in just one minute your kulu’wa has made across the country. Most of my red soups end up at my brother’s kitchen table. He says, “Thank you.”

4) One of my tomato soups ended up at Cape Canaveral. NASA quickly bolted it down and is currently investigating its possibilities in powering intergalactic space travel.

Chef Paul

 

– 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, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fake News Sites

Posted on April 3, 2016 by pauldelancey

“Obama and Trump Have Seen Satellite Photos of Uranus”Uranus3

“Governor Albondigas Legalizes Open Carry For Dogs”

“Governor Burger Cuts Funding For Accordion Classes”

Hot, even incendiary headlines you betcha. Ones that make you angry, make you forward the post to your friends who forward them to their friends. But are they real?

No, they’re from fake news sites. Some of them are clearly satirical sites such at The Onion. Others are what as know as “clickbait” sites. Every time you click on them, information is gathered about you. This information is then sold to advertisers. Unsettling stuff indeed. Here is a list of fake news sites. Some are clearly labelled as fake or satirical, others are not.

Call The Cops
Empire Herald                                                                                    NASA is showing Uranus to the world
Empire News
Empire Sports
Free Wood Post
Global Associated News (MediaFetcher.com)
Huzlers
MediaMass
Naha Daily
National Report
NewsBuzzDaily
News Examiner
Newswatch28 (now Newswatch33)
Now8News
Satira Tribune
Stuppid
The Borowitz Report
The Daily Currant
The Lapine
The Onion
The Racket Report
The Reporterz
The Spoof
The Stately Harold
Weekly World News
World News Daily Report

Any site that appears to be a legitimate American news site, but with .com added to the end. An example could be, ABCnew.com.co. However, sites that end with co.uk are from Britain.

The first title is made up, but President Obama and Mr. Trump probably have seen satellite photos of Uranus.

– 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: humor, politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yellow Pea Soup With Pork (Ärter med fläsk)

Posted on November 30, 2015 by pauldelancey

Swedish Soup

YELLOW PEA SOUP WITH PORK
(Ärter med fläsk)

INGREDIENTSYellowPeaSoup-

1¼ pounds yellow split peas
6½ cups water
8 ounces salt pork
1 carrot
1 large yellow onion
¾ teaspoon fresh ginger (about ⅔”)
3 cloves
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon marjoram
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon white pepper

Makes 8 bowls. Takes 3 hours in addition to the time spent soaking peas overnight.

PREPARATION

Rinse peas in colander to remove grit. Add peas to large pot. Add enough water to cover with 1″ to spare. Let peas soak overnight.

Drain and rinse peas. Add peas and 6½ cups water back to large pot. Add pork to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Let boil for 2 minutes. Stir occasionally, enough to keep peas from sticking to bottom of pot. Reduce heat to warm, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. Stir gently and occasionally. Skim off any form and pea skins.

While peas and pork simmer, dice carrot. Mince ginger. Divide onion in three. Stick cloves into each onion third. Add carrot, onion, ginger, bay leaf, and cloves. Let soup simmer for another 1 hour. Stir occasionally. Add bay leaf, marjoram, salt, thyme, and white pepper. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes more or until peas are completely soft. Stir occasionally.

Remove pork and onion from pot using slotted spoon. Dice about ¼th of the pork. Cut remaining pork into slices ¼” thick. Remove cloves from onion. Mince onion. Return diced pork and minced onion back to pot.. Stir with whisk until well blended. Remove bay leaf.

Add ⅛th of the pork slices to each serving bowl. Ladle soup from pot into serving bowls. This soup goes well with potatoes and Swedish mustard.

TIDBITS

1) The light emitted from stars appears to be red. That means they are moving away from us. Scientists used this knowledge to formulate the Big Bang Theory.

2) The Big Bang Theory holds that everything in the universe started from a teeny, tiny point, then pow! it exploded like an egg in the microwave.

3) Or like popping popular popcorn in a popcorn popper without the popcorn popper’s lid on.

4) I did that experiment in my college dorm. While I found that the kernels did indeed pop outward, they did not travel far and certainly not fast enough to exhibit a red shift.

5) Which would have been cool, although I wonder about the damage to the dorm walls caused by popcorn traveling at 100,000 miles per second. Probably would have gotten me kicked out of college.

6) On the other hand, NASA certainly would have contacted me. I mean they spend billions and billions on launch rockets that can only achieve about 7 miles per second.

7) Of course, sending a manned space station to the outer reaches of our galaxy at such a terrifying speed would require a really big popcorn popper.

8) But America is a land of ingenuity, and a relentless dedication to innovation. If we want to build a popcorn popper that can fling a space station into outer space at 100,000 miles, we will do so. After all, we have invented sliced peanut butter.

9) Sweden, however, is certainly way ahead of America in the race to invent the near-light speed popcorn popper.

10) Look at the title of this recipe. Look at the above picture. The Swedes like yellow split peas. This means they prefer this color of split peas over green ones. Or . . .

11) Swedish have discovered a way to hurl their split peas at such a prodigious rate that the light emanating from their legumes appears yellow. That’s not quite as impressive as a red shift sure, but it’s some million times faster than the speediest military jet.

12) Sweden has not been at war for 200 years, even though two world wars raged all around it in the twentieth century. Why?

13) Sure Germany and Russia built impressive tanks, fighter planes and bombers. But no country’s military stands a chance against a nation that can fling hot, nearly molten split-pea soup toward it at over 100,000 miles an second.

14) Or even 50,000 miles a second. And Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hitler, and Stalin knew it. So they left it alone, even though that happy Nordic land has such wonderful pastries.

15) You can order this tasty soup when visiting Sweden, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Soup that travels that fast is impossible to eat. Best try making yellow pea soup from this recipe. Just be sure to buy yellow split peas that are stationary. Doing so isn’t always obvious. You might have to read the packaging for the peas.

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

Veldt Bread From Namibia

Posted on November 9, 2014 by pauldelancey

Namibian Appetizer

VELDT BREAD

INGREDIENTSVeldtBread-

3½ cups wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3½ tablespoons brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup butter (additional 2 tablespoons later)
⅔ cup low-fat milk
1 egg
½ teaspoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter

SPECIAL UTENSIL

loaf pan

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Add flour, baking powder, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, ground cloves, and salt to large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork. Add butter, milk, egg, and vegetable oil. Knead bread for at least 5 minutes or until dough becomes smooth.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter. Coat loaf pan with melted butter. Add dough to loaf pan. Smooth surface of dough. Bake at 360 degrees for 35-to-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the loaf comes out clean or the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Butter goes fantastic with this bread, particularly so if the bread is still warm.

TIDBITS

1) There is a lot of sand in Namibia.

2) The sand there is usually on the ground and not in the air.

3) Sand lies on the ground in other countries as well. This is because sand is heavier than air.

4) Mostly. There’s little sand in Greenland. We can only conclude that Greenlandic sand weighs less than Namibian sand. That or Greenlandic sand has achieved consciousness and has learned how to fly.

5) NASA is quite interested in Greenland’s flying sand. They might go to Mars using it.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sesame and Honey Sticks and a Crossword Puzzle

Posted on May 7, 2014 by pauldelancey

Malian Dessert

MENI MENIYONG
(sesame and honey sticks)

INGREDIENTSMeniMeniyong-

1 3/4 cups sesame seeds
1 1/4 cups honey
4 tablespoons butter, unsalted
no-stick spray

makes about 40 sticks

SPECIAL UTENSIL

cookie sheet

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Evenly spread sesame seeds on cookie sheet. Toast seeds in oven at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Remove seeds and let cool.

Add honey and butter to pan. Simmer on low-medium heat for 5 minutes or until mixture bubbles all over, darkens, and thickens slightly. Stir constantly. Add the toasted sesame seeds to the honey/butter mixture. Stir with spoon until sesame seeds are evenly distributed.

Pour honey/butter/sesame mixture into bowl. Stir again with spoon. Put this bowl in sink filled with enough water to reach half-way up bowl. Let cool until mixture has mostly hardened. Scoop the gooey mass onto the cookie sheet. Spread it out until it is uniformly 1/4″ thick.. Cut mixture into finger-sized sticks. Let cool completely and give finger to everyone. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

TIDBITS

1) Toasting sesame seeds is much easier on a cookie sheet than on a grill.

2) Toasting sesame seeds is quite difficult in outer space where they are weightless.

3) Toasting an elephant in outer space is as difficult as toasting sesame seeds, if not more so.

4) You’d have to find an oven big enough to hold an elephant. Then you’d have to find a cookie sheet large enough for your hapless pachyderm.

5) As of now, NASA has no such ovens and cookie sheets

6) It’s doubtful they’ll be getting them soon. They’re not even in their current budget.

7) MENI MENIYONG CROSSWORD PUZZLE

(Nearly all answers are found in this recipe)

CrosswordPuzzle

ACROSS
2) An anagram for votes
7) Use this contact the Great Beyond
10) Always use the freshest…
11) Open …
13) Give speech while raising glass
14) “… down”
15) Not a dog, but a …”

DOWN
1) A pet name for your sweetheart
3) Healthier than margarine
4) Belongs to the great cook, Julia
5) Always cook until food is… (2 words)
6) The … Monster
8) This cuisine
9) Stressed spelled backwards
12) White as a …

– 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: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Qorma Laward (Afghan chicken stew)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by pauldelancey

Afghan Entree

QORMA LAWAND
(chicken stew)

INGREDIENTSQorbaLawand-

4 chicken breasts or 2 pounds chicken
3 garlic cloves
2 onions
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons peanut oil or ghee (clarified butter)
½ teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ cup water
1 ½ cups whole yogurt

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Put chicken, ginger, lime juice, pepper, and salt into large mixing bowl. Turn the chicken cubes until they are well coated. Place bowl in refrigerator for 1-to-2 hours.

Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil or ghee to large skillet or Dutch oven Add onion and garlic. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add cardamom, chili powder, cinnamon, coriander, and turmeric (Goodness, there are a lot of spices starting with “c.”) Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 2-to-3 minutes.

Add yogurt, coated chicken cubes, and water. Stir with whisk or spoon until blended. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to warm, to avoid curdling the yogurt, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add water as necessary to keep the qorba lawand from drying out. Stir occasionally. Goes well with naan bread or rice.

TIDBITS

1) Naan is a palindrome. So is Anna. So is Anna’s Naan. A Santa Anna’s naan at NASA is an even more ambitious palindrome.

2) Sha Na Na is a famous American rock and roll band. It is also an anagram for Has Naan. Coincidence, perhaps?

3) A big maze stands between you and naan. Oh no, can you find the way?

You

maze

naan

– 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: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Coq au Vin

Posted on June 28, 2013 by pauldelancey

French Entree

COQ AU VIN

INGREDIENTSCoqAuVin-

4 chicken breasts
1/2 pound sliced bacon
18 pearl onions
4 garlic cloves
2 carrots
1/2 teaspoon mignonette pepper (or black pepper)
2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups red wine
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves

egg noodles (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Cut bacon widthwise into 1″ slices. Put bacon in pot. Add enough water to cover bacon with 2 extra inches of water. Bring water to boil. Simmer on low heat for 5 minutes. Drain. Rinse in cold water. Pat dry with paper towels.

While bacon is simmering, peel pearl onions. Dice garlic cloves and carrots. Cut each chicken breast into two pieces. Put bacon in Dutch oven. Cook bacon using medium heat for 10 minutes or until bacon starts to brown. Set aside bacon but leave bacon grease in Dutch oven.

Add chicken, onions, and mignonette pepper to Dutch oven. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes until chicken pieces are browned on all sides. Turn chicken pieces and stir occasionally.

This dish goes well with noodles. If noodles are desired, cook them as instructed on package.

Add bacon, chicken broth, wine, carrot, bay leaves, marjoram, parsley flakes, and thyme. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Stir occasionally. Remove chicken and onions. Remove and discard bay leaves. (Goodness, if this isn’t one of the removingest recipes around.)

Add butter and flour to Dutch oven. Turn heat to high and bring to boil. Cook for 10 minutes or until about 3/4 of the liquid boils off and sauce thickens. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low. Put bacon and onions back in Dutch oven. Stir until chicken is thoroughly coated with sauce. Garnish with fresh parsley leaves and serve on top of noodles if desired.

TIDBITS

1) Not only does this taste great but you can impress guests with its fancy French name.

2) The American Constitution is an impressive, living document. The Constitution’s 55 framers were impressive drinkers. For their good deed they threw a party where they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of port, 8 bottles of hard cider, 12 beers and seven bowls of alcohol punch large enough that “ducks could swim in them.”

3) In the 17th century people filled their thermometers with brandy instead of mercury. Honestly dear, this glass is only the leftover from filling the thermometer. “You did want the thermometer filled, didn’t you?”

3)The highest recorded champagne cork flight was 177 feet and 9 inches, while soaring four feet off the ground. I wonder if this inspired NASA.

4) Before even brandy thermometers were used, brewers would dip their thumbs into their liquid to see if temperature was right for adding yeast. Hence the phrase “rule of thumb.”

5) Dowries in ancient Babylon included a month of fermented honey beverage. “Honey month” transformed over the years to “honeymoon.”

6) Well, that’s what I’ve read. I don’t think Babylonians used English words such as “honey month.” They probably used something, well, Babylonian. Perhaps they called it, “Mashka tohw” which through the centuries became “mosquito.”

7) Tidbit 6) could be true. I know people whose blood is like honey to mosquitoes.

– 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, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.