Awesome entry #8
– 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
4 chicken breasts, boneless & skinless, 5-to-6 ounces each
½ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
¾ teaspoon onion powder
1¼ teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley (1 teaspoon more later)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (ip to 3 tablespoons more, if necessary)
up to 3 tablespoons more, if necessary
1 lemon
1 teaspoon parsley
SPECIAL UTENSILS
plastic wrap
kitchen mallet
Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Remove chicken breasts from refrigerator and pat dry with paper towels. Cover with plastic wrap. Pound chicken breasts lightly with kitchen mallet until they are ½” thick or thinner. Rub chicken with pepper and salt.
Add flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and parsley to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Dredge chicken breast through mixture in bowl. Shake off any excess. (Excess flour falls off in the oil, adding a burnt taste and look..) Repeat for remaining breasts.
Add 3 tablespoons vegetable oil to large pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat until a little bit of flour in the oil starts to dance. Add 2 chicken breasts to pan. Cover and fry chicken breasts for 2½ minutes or until bottom of chicken breasts turn golden brown. DO NOT move them. (Only lift a corner of a chicken breast to see if the bottom is golden brown. Use spatula to flip chicken breasts. Cover and fry for another 2 minutes or when new bottom turns golden brown as well. Remove breasts to plate and cover to keep warm. Add up to 2 more tablespoons oil, if necessary. Repeat for 2nd batch of chicken breasts. (The 2nd batch might take less time to cook.)
Slice lemon into 4 pieces. Serve each chicken breasts with a lemon slice Garnish each chicken breast with ¼ teaspoon parsley..
TIDBITS
1) The title of this dish pretty much tells us that chicken breasts are fried in a pan.
2) Or can we be so sure of this?
3) Sure, the picture to the right is indeed a pan.
4) But maybe, just maybe, pan here means something else.
5) “Pan” is a term used by drama and movie critics to denote harsh criticism of the artistic endeavor.
6) Indeed, Cal Porter’s*, Broadway play, Fried Chicken Breast closed after only one performance.
7) The very next day, the headline on Variety(tm) read, “All Critics Pan Fried Chicken Breast.”
8) Noted acid-penned critic, Farine du Ble called the play, “Fried Chicken Beast” and advised Cal Porter to stick to one-word haikus.
9) To this day, actors morn the quick closing of a play by eating Pan Fried Chicken Breasts. And this is how this entree got this name.
10) But wait, there’s another subtle explanation.
11) In ancient Greek mythology, Pan was the god of the wild, shepherds, rustic music, and great chefs. He had the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat. Yep, he was the original Goat Man.
12) Goat Man loved chicken as what Greek god didn’t?
13) Pan originally ate fire-burned chicken. This recipe involved herding chickens into a brush fire. This frustrated the hooves off Pan. When the blaze finally died, chances were all the chickens had to turned to ash. He’d throw himself down and beat the ground with his fists. This is the origin of the line, “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”
14) Plus Goat Man had to wait for lightning to strike the fields near his chicken. And you can’t really count on a lightning strike when you’re hungry.
15) Then happy mythological day, the god Prometheus** gave fire to us mortals. Zeus’s monopoly on fire went up in smoke. Petulant Zeus tied Prometheus to a rock and had an eagle peck away every day at the fire-donor’s liver.
16) Sure, that was bad for Prometheus, but fire was a positive boon to Greek cuisine***. We could now fry things. Pan started Hellenic cuisine off right with his Fried Chicken breast. Grateful Greek chicken diners called it Pan Fried Chicken Breast. So maybe this dish got its name this way.
17) * Cal Porter was Cole Porter’s distant cousin. ** Prometheus twin brother was Antimetheus. *** Fire was also a boon for Greeks wishing to stay warm on cold, like during wintry nights.
– 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.
The struggle is real.
Angry Man #21
– 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.
Peas porridge cold.
Peas porridge hot.
Peas porridge scalding.
Peas porridge fiery
Are my now volcanic peas
Hot from global warming?
No! The Earth is spiralling toward the Sun.
Aah! Aah! Aah!
Poetry is hard.
– 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
2 ½ pounds beef loin top sirloin
1½ pounds beef sirloin tip
1 10.5 ounce can condensed French onion soup
1 cup beef stock or broth
½ cup water
8 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon beef base or 1 beef bouillon cube
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
¼ teaspoon black pepper
10 slices provolone cheese or about 10 ounces
5 French rolls
SPECIALTY UTENSIL
3 quart, or larger, slow cooker.
PREPARATION
Cut the top sirloin and the sirloin tip enough so that it will fit inside your slow cooker and be covered with the liquid you will add later. Dice garlic cloves.
In fact, here comes the liquid now. Pour French onion soup, beef stock, and water into slow cooker. And now for addition. Add peppercorns, bay leaf, rosemary, thyme, garlic, beef base, sea salt, meat spice, and pepper. And wait.
And wait. Oh and the turn the cooker on low for 6-to-8 hours. (Egads, you’ll have time to collect all receipts that you’ve stashed all around the house in preparation for tax time. Then you forgot where you put them. Now you have time to find them. Go! Go! Look for those receipts. I’m with you on this one.)
It really pays to get an early start on this one, especially if you are using your cooker for the first time. Many but not all slow cookers will get the job done on low in 6-to-8 hours. (My crock pot however needs to be set on high to cook anything in less time than it takes a city to repair a major street.)
Use spoon with holes in it to remove beef from cooker to serving bowl. Open French rolls. Put a slice of provolone cheese on each half. Use spoon with holes in it to put a generous portion of beef on the roll. Spoon juice remaining in cooker onto open sandwich. Close sandwich. Spoon more juice onto closed French roll. Eat. Dream of Heaven.
TIDBITS
1) The sandwich was invented in 1762 when the Earl of Sandwich was too busy to leave the gambling table to eat. Instead, he had a waiter bring him roast beef between two pieces of bread.
2) See, gambling has been good for society.
3) Indeed, many people believe professional sports came into being because gamblers hired players to be on the team they were backing with their bets.
4) The Earl asked for slices of bread to keep the grease from the roast beef from marking the playing cards.
5) While the Earl earns a spot in any culinary hall of fame, he was indeed a flawed man: opinionated, drunken, corrupt, incompetent, a sex fiend, a Satan worshiper, and all that.
6) There is no word, however, if he over spiced.
7) But he did weaken the Royal Navy to such an extent that the French Fleet beat it in 1781, ensuring America’s victory in the American Revolution.
8) A lot to think about when you bite into your next sandwich.
– 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
4 russet potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves
1 stalk green onion
½ small yellow onion
2 ounces diced green chiles
2 eggs
¼ cup grated Four Mexican cheeses
4 deli slices ham
4 deli slices turkey
PREPARATION
Wash potatoes. Bake potatoes at 425 degrees for about 50 to 60 minutes or according to instructions shown on bag.
While the potatoes are baking, put olive oil in frying pan. Mince garlic, yellow onion, and green onion. Put garlic, yellow onion, and green onion in frying pan. Sauté at medium high for about 3 minutes or until yellow onion is tender.
Also while potatoes are baking, boil eggs for 12 minutes. (Roger Bannister was the first man to run the mile in under four minutes with a time of 3:59.4. It is thus really cool to think how he could have left his kitchen, run the mile three times, and come back in time with 1.8 seconds to spare.) Cool eggs, peel off the shell, and mince the eggs.
Cut baked potatoes in two lengthwise. Put an equal amount of the sautéed mixture and the minced eggs on each potato half. Add half a ham slice and half a turkey slice to each potato half. Top each potato half with an equal amount of the grated cheese.
Put 8 fully assembled potato halves in the microwave for about 2 minutes or until cheese is completely melted.
TIDBITS
1) The Powegian Vacation Potato has a long tradition.
2) Where “long” is an hour. I was going on vacation and using up perishable ingredients.
3) My wife kept asking when it would be done. I had to say I didn’t know; it was a new recipe.
4) Everything is all right now. The dish came out well and I’m listening to my neighbor’s garage band. They’re quite good.
– 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.
Shrinkflation
Spoiler alert, this blog is more informative than funny. It’s also has a bit of an opinion.
A local discount store raised the price of most of its goods to $1.25 from its once hallmark, $1.00. This is 25% inflation.
One of the coffee drinks shrank from 11 ounces to 8 ounces. This corresponds to a 37.5% increase in the per-ounce price of the coffee drink. A corresponding 37.5% increase in the 11-ounce can would have made the new price $1.72. The manufacturers chose not to do this. They hope we will continue to see the same price and think nothing has changed.
Disguising price increases by shrinking the product is shrinkflation, the kissing cousin of inflation.
If we combine the 25% price increase over a year ago with the 37.5% increase via shrinkflation, we get the percentage increase per ounce in this coffee drink to be 71.9%. I don’t think we can blame all of this 71.9% on increases in wages. Yet, our policy, especially the Federal Reserve’s, seems to be dedicated to throwing the lowest-earning workers out of jobs.
I had thought up a scathingly brilliant and funny blog early today, but I forgot the idea. So you got this post instead. Modern live can be hard.
– 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 did seven things of varying importance today.
1) pulled weeds
2) cooked poutine for dinner
3) looked over my finances
4) diverted a comet that was on a path to collide into Earth. It would have ended all life on this planet.
5) did word-finds, an exercise for my eyes
6) worked on an adult (this adult artistic skill, not steaminess) coloring book. This was another eye exercise
7) took Number Two Son to the airport.
I think I’ve earned a good rest.
– 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's Blog 
Laughing Horse Thinks You’re Funny
And wonderful. Neigh
Hee! Hee!
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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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