Posts Tagged With: pigs

Pigs in a Buttermilk Blanket

American Entree

PIGS IN A BUTTERMILK BLANKET

INGREDIENTS

1 16-ounce package jumbo buttermilk biscuit dough
1 cup grated Four-Mexican cheeses
8 turkey franks

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate the dough into eight pieces. Elongate each dough piece with a rolling pin dusted with flour or simply roll a turkey frank along the dough if any are remaining.

(You don’t have to use turkey franks instead of beef franks or buttermilk biscuits instead of plain ones in this dish. In keeping with this cookbook’s theme of “Cooking with what’s handy,” I used, well, what was handy. You can even use a 10-ounce package of dough, but it will mean thinner blankets for your pigs.)

Sprinkle grated cheese evenly among the eight dough pieces. Put a frank near one end of a dough piece and wrap the dough around the frank. Put this work of art on cookie sheet with the dough overlap on the bottom. Otherwise, the dough will bake apart and you will have “Pigs in a Buttermilk Boat.”

Bake in oven until biscuits are golden brown or about 10 to 15 minutes. This is a bad time to hibernate; monitor your Pigs in a Buttermilk Blanket to make sure they don’t burn or cook unevenly. It’s discouraging to have part of a baked dish be burnt on one side and doughy on the other. You might need to rotate the Pigs at least once. Heat escapes each time you open the oven, so in these cases you might need to cook the dish a minute longer. Remember, vigilance when baking.

TIDBITS

1) This tidbit was eliminated during editing.

2) April 24th is National Pigs in a Blanket Day.

3) This dish is also known somewhere as “Weiner Winks.”

4) The British make Pigs in a Blanket by wrapping up small sausages in bacon.

5) Footballs were originally made from pigs’ bladders. This sounded so gross, people took to calling them pigskins. These early footballs could very well have been the inspiration for air pumps. But footballs made from cows’ bladders would have been huge, while ones coming from chickens would have been tiny. Would Payton Manning have thrown all those touchdown passes if he had been tossing chicken bladders downfield?

 

– 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.

Advertisement
Categories: cuisine, history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shrimp Briouates

Moroccan Entree

SHRIMP BRIOUATES

INGREDIENTS

1 garlic clove
2 green onions
1 small yellow onion
2 tablespoons olive oil (maybe ½ cup more later)
¼ teaspoon chives
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
¼ teaspoon white pepper or black pepper
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
8 ounces filo (phyllo)* sheets
¼ cup melted butter
1 egg yolk**
3 tablespoons olive oil.

* = It’s more authentic to buy ouarka or warqa sheets. They, however, can be very, very difficult to find no matter what the spelling might be.
** = It’s a frustrating experience buying a single egg yolk at the store. For that matter, purchasing a single egg is often difficult as well.

Makes 30. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic, green onions and yellow onion. Add garlic, green onion, yellow onion, and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chives, coriander, cumin, paprika, parsley, and pepper. Add shrimp. Lower heat to medium and sauté for 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink or orange. Stir frequently. Remove from heat. Mince shrimp.

Add filo sheet to flat surface. (Keep other sheets covered until needed. They dry out fast.) Brush filo sheet with butter. Cut filo sheet into strips 4″ wide. Add ½ tablespoon shrimp ½” from the end of the strip. Take one corner of the strip and fold it over diagonally to make a side of a triangle. Take bottom corner of triangle and fold it up to make another triangle. Continue to fold dough until you come to the end. You now have a briouate. Dab loose end of briouate with butter and fold into pocket formed by the open edg.

Add olive oil (½” deep) to pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Add as many briouates as possible without them touching. Deep fry on medium-high heat for 2 minutes or until golden brown. (Frying times go down with successive batches.)Turn briouates enough to prevent burning. Removebriouates and drain on paper towels. Repeat for successive batches. Goes well with harissa.

TIDBITS

1) Frankia, modern-day France, was named after I. A. Frank.

2) Frank operated a chain of sausage stands/inns for hungry, weary pilgrims.

3) The pilgrims loved Frank’s sausage in a bun.

4) So much so that they started calling his delicacies, Franks.

5) The entire land went so hot-dog made that the entire region started calling itself Frankia.

6) See the seminal work on Medieval treatise by Monk Jean de Tours, Mon Dieu, Mon Pays, et Mon Frank.

7) Reading this literary masterpiece is harder than just seeing it. You really do need to be fluent in Medieval French.

8) Anyway in 732*, an invading Arab army under Emir Abdul Rahman threatened Frank’s culinary empire and Frankia itself.

9) *That’s 732 AD. AD stands for Anno Domini, Latin for the year of Our Lord. This system of dating is falling out of favor with many historians who prefer the less assertive, CE, or Common Era. I like to refer to this date as 1246 APB, or After Paul’s Birth. In a strange coincidence, my name is Paul.

10) So why did the Arabs invade Frankia? To convert Frankian Christians to Islam.

11) Culinary historians assert, however, that the reason was that Frank’s Franks were made out of pigs. The Arabs believed no one should eat pigs. So by conquering Frankia, they’d rid the land of forbidden pig-filled Franks.

12) To be replaced by Shrimp Briouates The invaders believed this blessed dish to be the best entree in the entire world.

13) I, personally, do not wish to take sides in the Great Hot Dog/Shrimp Briouate Controversy that has racked humanity for centuries. I can see, however, how they came to believe so strongly in the tastiness of the Shrimp Brioautes.

14) But the adherents of Frank’s Franks prevailed in the Battle of Tours. European pilgrims came to visit Tours to give thanks for hot dog’s victory. Larger and larger groups of pilgrims came, necessitating the forming of tour companies. So many tours came to Tours, that people took to changing the town’s name from Tours to Tours.

15) As a side note, briouate is one of the few dishes that’s spelled with all the vowels: a,e,i,o, and u.
You can even use the sometime vowel, y, if you want to spell briouatey, as in “That pastry is so flaky, it’s positively briouatey.”

 

– 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

Bad Advice Friday, 4-28-17

Oh my gosh. It’s Friday. So, I shall once more be dispensing bad advice As usual, the advice will stupendously bad. You know it will be so as I had overwritten the file with my previous answers and to re-answer. I mean how can you trust advice from a person who does that?

JBL asks: Will this be on the test?

Dear JBL: Yes, it will. Unfortunately, you don’t know what test. I strongly urge you to go to every school you can and take every test. If you don’t answer the question, you will get a zero for it. Indeed if you miss the test completely, you’ll fail the test and fail the course, and get kicked out of your university. And you paid a lot of money getting into that university. You won’t graduate. There will go your dream of becoming an astronaut and of being the first person on Mars. Oh, and here’s foolproof way of acing every test. Simply tattoo every fact and theorem you’ve run across onto your body. Now it’s quite possible, that the tattooed answer will be under your clothes. In this case, you’ll have to strip. If the teacher complains, say you’re allergic to clothes. If the answer is on your butt, ask the student behind you (See what I did there?) to read the answer. Ask nicely; manners are always in fashion.

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

MA asks: Can yard bunnies do multiplication problems?

Dear MA: Oh yes. But they’re shy. They just don’t talk to anyone. You have to gain their trust. You have to get down to their level. This means crawling up to them and feeding them pellets. Rabbits are terrified if they talk to people as they fear by doing will stop the supply of pellets. So talk to them in a soothing voice. Tell them that you will provide gourmet pellets if they solve multiplication problems for you. This is known in economics as incentivizing the bunny.

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

RAS asks: How do I teach my dog Trotsky to play chess?

Dear RAS: You must learn to speak dog. This is not as hard as it might seem given the smallness of the canine vocabulary when compared to English. Conjugating verbs verb in Dog is much easier than in Dog than in English and, my gosh, much easier than in French. To illustrate, for “Am Hungry.”

French:
J’ai faim.
Tu as faim.
Il a faim.
Nous avons faim.
Vous avez faim.
Ils ont faim.

English:
I am hungry.
You are hungry.
It is hungry.
We are hungry.
They are hungry.

Note there are six different conjugations in French: ai, as, a, avons, avez, and ont. English is easier with only three different conjugations: am, are, and is. However, Dog conjugation for “am hungry” has an elegant simplicity to it.

Dog:
Woof!

There are no cases for you (familiar or polite), for we, it, or they. That makes learning the dog vocabulary easy. Indeed the word, “woof,” is the words for literally dozens of nouns and verbs. Dog convey meaning by intoning their “woof” differently for each instance. You will need to practice your canine intonations and indeed, inflections as well. Get practicing.

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

LF asks: Why can’t pigs fly?

Dear LF: They can! They can! You just need a big enough catapult. Try getting your catapult at CostcoTM; they carry everything. Get your catapult while you can. As of press time, there’s no government regulation about flinging pigs great distances in your neighborhood, but how long can that last given the government has seen fit to regulate commercial aviation.

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

BRW asked: I point a red laser light at the neigbhor’s blinds when they are gone. The cats destroy the blinds chasing the red dot. Am I evil? (Taken from a meme.)

Dear BRW: Only if your neighbors are annoying. And if they’re annoying to you, they’re likely to be annoying to others on your street as well. In this case, wait until your irritating neighbors leave their house with lit candles. Point the laser beam at the candle. The cats will attack the red dot on the candle. The candle will fall to the ground. The rug will catch fire. The house will burn down. The neighbors will leave. (Gosh, neighbors is a hard word to spell. Another reason to see them go.) It’s much better to be proactive like this then to let your resentment against them fester into something serious. That benefits no one.

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

LHH asks: Over the top, or under the weather: which is best for a Hump day? And are there differences by season?

Dear LHH: If you want to be over the top for weather, you need to go to the North Pole. But with global warming, you can’t guarantee solid ice for your lawn chair. On the other hand, you could be the first person to surf the pole. In contrast, you’ll under the weather at the South Pole. While the South is over a mile thick layer of ice, it is under the Earth. There is nothing underneath you. Nothing! You’ll fall. You see because of gravity, everything falls down. At the South Pole, there is no more down. The scientists at this pole meet this existential threat by constructing buildings. The ceilings on these upside down buildings prevent the people there from falling off the planet. The fear, however, persists as in this line from an angst-filled song, “Put our hands in the air like the ceiling can’t hold us.” Some polar scientists hew to a more devil-may care philosophy as evidenced by the line, “dancing on the ceiling.” If you must go outside when at the South Pole, you must, must wear boots with VelcroTM soles and stay on the Velcro paths. Otherwise, you fall off the Earth. This is true for Hump day, the other days of the week, and for the two seasons of day and night. The Laws of Physics never sleep.

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

LF states: A question for Bad Advice Friday? I can’t think. (This is from memory. I overwrote the file where I answered this.)

Dear LF: Thinking is overrated. Millions of people in a few select professions never think, politicians and human billiard balls (A surprisingly popular sport) come to mind. But if you’re really having trouble thinking and would like to start again, I have two suggestions. First, join the French Foreign Legion. You’ll have plenty of undisturbed time to conjure up a thought as you’re marching under the hot Saharan Sun. However, as people join the Legion to forget, you’ll immediately forget what idea you created. But you will have started thinking again and that’s the main thing. Second, commit a crime, a crime so horrible that you will be spending years in solitary confinement. The serene, tranquil, undisturbed aura of your own is enormously conducive to thought. Try it and see!

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

The Deadly Threat to American Manners

 Red Weathered Etiquette Stamp Circle and Stars

Much has been made lately about how illegal aliens are the root cause of our country’s woes. Fine debate indeed, often reaching the lofty level of thinking. But unfortunately, all this animated discourse obscures the greatest threat to America.

Poorly groomed zombies.

I mean look at them. They wear shabby clothes, never comb their hair, and always, always have unsightly blood smears around their mouths.

Everyone knows I’m no prude and am incredibly open minded, but the undead really creep me out. They putrefy all over the place and don’t even get me started on zombie marriage.

Zombies don’t even attempt to fit in. Is it so hard to bathe? I know it’s hard to own a home with a shower in it when you lose all your assets upon death. But if you have the initiative to find people and eat them–especially when your live victims are so much faster than you–then how hard is it to find a public shower, at the beach for instance?

And if you can’t shower every day, why not carry around a supply of moist towelettes? You’re just not going to get invited to any neighborhood barbeques with blood dripping off your chin. It just gives you away as someone who kills and eats humans. And that sort is never welcome at parties.

And that brings me to another point. Why the heck, do you zombies have to eat live humans all the time? It’s so rude. Why not try live pigs? It’s the other live, white meat. And how about vegetables? Why not eat vegetables? Your body’s decaying. You really need a balanced diet. Remember roughage. Poohing is likely to more difficult for you. Not trying to be rude, just saying.

And don’t even try to collect Social Security. You’re dead, okay?

– Paul R. De Lancey, Concerned Citizen

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

Bacon Roses

American Breakfast

BACON ROSES

INGREDIENTSBaconRoses-

1 pound sliced bacon

SPECIAL UTENSILS

1 box wooden toothpicks
1 or 2 baking pans (must have raised sides to keep bacon grease from spilling into oven)

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll up bacon slice. Put 3 or 4 toothpicks into the bottom of the bacon roll so it stands upright like a spaceship. Repeat for remaining slices. Put bacon spaceships upright in baking pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy. This dish is particularly good on the mornings of those romantic days such as Valentine’s Day or your anniversary and you’ve suddenly realized, Oh my gosh, I forgot to get flowers.

TIDBITS

1) Bacon is great for you. It will make you live longer. For proof, click http://newrisingmedia.com/all/2013/9/30/study-shows-eating-bacon-will-make-you-live-longer.

2) Bacon inspires artists. For Nick Offerman’s slam poem for bacon click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVO5VloDlc. Read Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 and The Merry Wives Of Windsor to see how bacon inspired the Great Bard.

3) I am running for president on the Bacon & Chocolate Party ticket. My running mate is Candace C. Bowen. Click on https://www.facebook.com/BaconChocolateParty for more information.

4) Bacon conquered the Wild West. Settlers from the East carried bacon, coffee, beans, and flour with them. Wagon trains carrying too little bacon turned back or met with horrible fates.

5) Making bacon by preserving and salting pork bellies began with the Chinese around 1500BC. The earliest account of bacon and eggs for breakfast dates back to 1560. China is the world’s most populous nation. Coincidence? Perhaps.

6) George Orwell wrote about bacon in 1931. He wrote Animal Farm fourteen years later, possibly to justify the killing of pigs to make bacon.

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

Pigs In A Blanket

American Entree

PIGS IN A BUTTERMILK BLANKET

INGREDIENTS

1 16 ounce package jumbo buttermilk biscuit dough
1 cup grated four cheeses
8 turkey franks

PREPARATION

Defrost franks. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate the dough into eight pieces. Elongate each dough piece with a rolling pin dusted with flour (Male chefs, this will not work on you.) or simply roll a frozen turkey frank along the dough if any are remaining.

(You don’t have to use turkey franks instead of beef franks or buttermilk biscuits in this dish. In keeping with this cookbook’s theme of “Cooking with what’s handy,” I used, well, what was handy. Similarly, a 10 ounce package of dough will mean thinner blankets for your pigs.)

Sprinkle grated cheese evenly among the eight dough pieces. Put a frank near one end of a dough piece and wrap the dough around the frank. Put this work of art on cookie sheet with the dough overlap on the bottom. Otherwise, the dough will bake apart and you will have “Pigs in a Buttermilk Boat.”

Bake in oven until biscuits are golden brown or about 10 to 15 minutes. This is a bad time to hibernate; monitor your Pigs in a Buttermilk Blanket to make they don’t burn or cook unevenly. It’s discouraging to have part of a baked dish be burnt on one side and doughy on the other. You might need to rotate the Pigs at least once. Heat escapes each time you open the oven, so in these cases you might need to cook the dish a minute longer.

Remember, vigilance when baking.

TIDBITS

1) This tidbit was eliminated during editing.

2) April 24th is National Pigs in a Blanket Day.

3) This dish is also known somewhere as “Weiner Winks.”

4) The British make Pigs in a Blanket by wrapping up small sausages in bacon.

5) Footballs were originally made from pigs’ bladders. This sounded so gross, people took to calling them pigskins. These early footballs could very well have been the inspiration for air pumps.

6) But footballs made from cows’ bladders would have been huge, while ones coming from chickens would have been tiny. Would Payton Manning have thrown all those touchdowns if he had been tossing chicken bladders downfield?

– 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, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

%d bloggers like this: