I preserve my potatoes by wrapping them in a paper towel and putting them in a Twinkies(tm) box which sits on top of the refrigerator.
Where do you keep your potatoes?
– 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 didn’t invade.
Woke up at 4:40 am with cold feet. I had kicked off the blanket in my sleep. I suppose I could have been be proud of the achievement as I had had a heavy blanket on top of me. And a gigantic headache. I don’t recomend starting the day this way. Couldn’t do much of anything around the house as I didn’t want to wake anyone. And at this hour, there was nothing I wanted to do on the internet
Got up, showered, and dressed. It’s important to do this in the right order. I also shampooed, It’s critical to live large every now and then.
I woke up super tired. Had a coffee drink. Then another, This is rare. Sliced onion, carrots, and potatoes. Put these ingredients and corned beef into two crock pots. Started the slow cooking
Picked up a friend. Then we went to the dentist for x-rays and teeth cleaning. I know! Fun.
Drove home. Got back just in time to invade Texas. What can I say? I love brisket.
But I fell asleep. When I woke, Texas’ invasion hours were over.
Sliced cabbage. Put cabbage in slow cookers. Slow cooked for another 45 minutes. (Not me, the food,)
The natives loved the corned beef meal.
Well, that’s enough excited for today. Must learn to pace myself.
Au revoir.
– 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.
Soldiers never like leaving a place, whether it’s their beloved homeland or an exotic land that they’ve come to admire. So then, how much worse is it when you’re leaving to fight the Boers in South Africa? Very much worse. That enemy invariably fires back at you. With malicious intent. Suppose you’ve embarking from India with its verdant scenery and oh so good curry. As far as you know, South Africa has none of that. “Why am I going there?” you asked yourself.
Because you’ve been ordered to do as part of the war effort. And remember you’re not only one forced to go to South Africa. In the 1860s, British sugar-cane plantations needed ever more workers. So they imported Indians to work as indentured servants.
Being forced to get shot repeatedly or to work without salary for a specific number of years is never fun. But since you’re already there, why not avail yourself of the amazing, tasty curry dishes this wonderful land has to offer?
Celebrate the drive and determination of the British soldiers and subjects who brought along their love of curry by sampling my favorite South African dish.
INGREDIENTS
1 medium onion
3 medium potatoes
4 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tomatoes
2 pounds chicken breasts or lamb
3 fresh curry leaves
3 tablespoons Durban masala (See recipe)
⅓ cup chicken stock
2 1-lb whole white loaves
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Dutch oven
PREPARATION
Dice onion. Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into 1″ cubes. Add onion, potato, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, fennel seeds, and vegetable oil to Dutch oven. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir constantly. Remove from heat.
Dice tomatoes. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add Durban masala, Add tomato, chicken, curry leaves, and Durban masala to Dutch oven. Cook using medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir frequently. Add chicken stock. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until potato is tender and chicken is no longer pink inside. Remove Dutch oven from heat. Discard cinnamon stick.
Slice bread loaf in half along its length. Use sharp knife to cut off most of the soft white bread from each half. Leave ½”-to-1″ of bread crust along the edges and bottoms. (The scooped out bread can be made into bread crumbs.) Ladle potato/tomato/chicken mixture into each hollowed-out loaf half. Garnish with coriander. Repeat for second bread loaf.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
6 russet potatoes
3 large carrots
1 large white onion
1 4- pound ready-to-cook corned beef brisket
½ head cabbage
SPECIAL UTENSIL
crock pot
Serves 6. Takes 8 hours using low setting on crock pot and 14 hours using high setting.
PREPARATION
Clean potatoes and carrots. Cut potatoes in two. Cut carrots and onion into slices no thicker than ½”. Add potato, carrots, onion, and corned beef to crock pot. You may need to cut the corned beef into smaller pieces depending on the size of your crock pot. Add water to crock pot until it covers the corned beef. If using low setting on crock pot, cook for 12 hours, possibly overnight. If using high setting, cook for 8 hours (or 2 hours per pound.) Either way, cook until brisket is tender.
Now that you have lots of time, let’s play tic-tac-toe.
45 minutes before corned beef is ready, cut cabbage into slices no thicker than ½”. (1 hour 30 minutes before if using low heat.) Add cabbage to crock pot. Add water until it covers the cabbage. Cook on high setting for about 45 minutes or on low setting for 1 hour 30 minutes or until everything is tender. Serve to adoring guests.
Tell your spellbound guests corned-beef takes 10 days to prepare. This, of course, is the do-it-yourself corned-beef version. You used ready-to-eat corned beef brisket. But you needn’t tell them that.
TIDBITS
1) Potatoes make great French fries.
2) They’re nutritious and a great source of calories too.
3) They grow in the ground where they can’t be seen by hungry, foraging armies marching back and forth across peasants’ fields.
4) On July 14, 1689 Madame Farine du Blé of Poulet sur Marne noticed invading Bavarians ransacking the granary of her neighbors, the Herbes, while leaving her own field of potatoes untouched.
5) This fact kinda excited the peasantry of France who relied almost exclusively on food for eating.
6) Frederick the Great of Prussia noticed this fact as well. He insisted that all the Prussian peasants plant potatoes.
7) And boy, those peasants were glad they did. Massive French, Austrian, and Russian armies crisscrossed the Prussian kingdom from 1756 to 1763 carting off all the wheat they could find. But the Prussian peasants didn’t starve.
8) Why? These farmers simply waited for the invading soldiers to leave, dug up their potatoes, and cooked them. And if the peasants also had the proper spices and deep fryers, they dined on papas rellena, Peruvian stuffed potatoes.
9) When individual peasants don’t starve, the country as a whole doesn’t starve. A well-fed nation can afford to feed its armies in the field. And those Prussian armies did really well earning both victory and survival at the end of the Seven Years War.
10) Prussia united Germany in 1871. A united Germany caused World War I. A united Germany caused World War II. Both wars were unarguably unpleasant.
11) So think about that when you are asked, “Do you want fries with that?”
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
2 large unpeeled baking potatoes
BEEF MIXTURE
3 garlic cloves
1 pound lean ground beef
1 14.5 ounce can Mexican, or spicy, diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon Jamaican Jerk spice
½ teaspoon red recado (This Belizean spice is found online.)
POTATO SPICES
1 teaspoon Jamaican Jerk spice
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
TOPPING
½ cup plain yogurt
½ teaspoon Jamaican Jerk spice
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon diced tomatoes
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Cut potatoes lengthwise into ¼-inch thick slices. Well, this is the ideal. You might end up with ½-inch thick slices. Whatever you do, don’t rush this part or use too big a knife or cleaver. (One big mistake and you won’t be able to use the expression, “I’m all thumbs” anymore.) Use fork to pierce each potato slice multiple times. Mince garlic cloves.
Cook ground beef in skillet on medium-high temperature until beef is no longer pink. Reserve 1 tablespoon of diced tomatoes. Add remaining diced tomatoes, minced garlic, Jerk seasoning and red recado to beef. Stir. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 12 to 15 minutes. Stir this beef mixture occasionally.(I won’t be responsible for the burning of the mixture or the rending of the time-space continuum if you don’t stir at all.)
Meanwhile, back at the spuds. Dip potato slices in cold water. Sprinkle lightly with Jerk spice, sea salt, and black pepper. Place slices in a single layer on no-stick baking pan. Bake for 6 minutes then turn. Redo this baking for 6 minutes and turn until the slices are soft and lightly browned.
(There can be a huge variance in cooking time for this step due to the size and efficiency of your oven and the thickness of your potato slices.)
Mix yogurt, Jerk spice, garlic salt, and remaining diced tomatoes in bowl.
Spoon beef mixture over potato slices. Then add topping.
TIDBITS
1) Potatoes, or spuds, contain lots of calories.
2) So does beer.
3) Budweiser(tm) once used a dog named “Spuds McKenzie” to sell its beer.
4) The New York Yankees had a pitcher during the 1940s called Spud Chandler.
5) Other great baseball names are: Art “What A Man” Shires, Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove, Luke “Old Aches and Pains” Appling, Bob “Death to All Flying Things” Ferguson, Walter “Boom Boom” Beck, The Only Nolan, Walt “No Neck” Williams, Dave “Swish” Nicholson, and Harry “Suitcase” Simpson.
6) Even more great baseball names include: Bombo Rivera, Clarence “Choo Choo” Coleman, Dick “Dr. Strangeglove” Stuart, Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky, “Blue Moon” Odom, Mick “Killer” Kelleher, Dave “King Kong” Kingman, Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, Van Lingle Mungo, “Boileryard” Clarke, and perhaps my favorite, Bristol “The Human Eyeball” Lord.
7) And who can ever forget Joe Shlabotnik?
– 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 garlic cloves
2 onions
2″ ginger root
3 pounds chicken, breast, thighs, or drumsticks
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1½ tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon turmeric
2½ cups chicken stock
3 carrots
1 pound potatoes
1 bay leaf
SPECIAL UTENSILS (If difficult conditions are met)
potjie: this is a cast-iron pot with three legs and is the authentic for this dish. Order it online.
hot coals: The potjie’s contents are cooked over hot coals and firewood. Will your landlord mind?
ORDINARY UTENSILS (If, as likely, the above conditions aren’t met. )
large pot
stove
Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Dice garlic cloves and onions. Grate ginger. Add butter, vegetable oil and as many chicken pieces as will without touching to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken browns all over. Flip chicken enough to ensure even browning. (You might need to cook in batches.) Remove chicken and set aside. Add garlic and onion to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 4 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add curry powder, ground cloves, coriander, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and turmeric. Sauté at medium heat for two minutes. Stir frequently.
Return chicken to pot. Add chicken stock; enough to cover chicken. Cover and simmer at low heat for 1 hour. While pot simmers, dice carrots. Peel and cut potatoes into ½” cubes. Add bay leaf, carrot, and potato or until carrot and potatoes soften. Stir until well blended. Cover and simmer at low heat for another ½ hour. Remove bay leaf. Stir occasionally.
TIDBITS
1) Lots of famous people are named after foods and dishes,
2) And vice versa.
3) Here’s a partial list in alphabetical order of their food names.
Fiona Apple – Famous songwriter and singer. Composed and sang “Extraordinary machine.” When a recording company decided to not release one of her albums, her fans mailed the company apples until they release it after all.
Arnold Palmer – Great golfer. Gave his name to a lemonade-and-iced-tea drink.
Kevin Bacon – in many movies including A Few Good Men.
Shaun Bean – in many movies, including National Treasure and the BBC series Sharpe.
Halle Berry – in many movies including Monster’s Ball.
Brie Larson – in many movies including, Short Term 12. The doctor who delivered was Brita Larson and was a friend of my grandmother. I have visited Dr. Larson’s old farm in Sweden.
Hamilton Burger – D.A. on the show Perry Mason. Fictitious character with a great name.
John Candy – best known for the Canadian TV show, “Second City.”
Cherry Jones- in many movies including The Perfect Storm..
Rosemary Clooney – Chart-topping singer during the 1950s.
Tim Curry – in many movies, plays, etc, including Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Ginger Rogers – Great dance and actress. Starred in many movies with Fred Astaire.
Meatloaf – Born Marvin Lee Aday. Famous singer. Made Bat Out of Hell album.
Barry Pepper – in many movies including Saving Private Ryan.
Condoleezza Rice – Press Secretary of State, the second person to President George W. Bush
Tim Salmon – All Star outfielder for the California Angels.
Shirley Temple – Great actress. Ambassador for the US. Childhood acquaintance of my mother. Gave her name to a drink of grenadine, ginger ale* soda, and maraschino cherry. * = There’s a bit of controversy here. Some people insist that the soda is lemon lime.
Darryl Strawberry – All star right fielder for the New York Mets.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D. (but not with cell phones)
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
1 garlic clove
1 medium onion
1¼ pounds pork spare ribs
9 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 large carrot
2 medium potatoes
¾ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
4½ cups sauerkraut
1 tablespoon minced onion
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons dill or parsley
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Mince garlic clove and 1 medium onion. Add pork spare ribs, water, bay leaf, garlic clove, and onion to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 50 minutes or until meat can be pulled of the bones with a fork. Stir occasionally. Remove pork ribs.
While pork ribs simmer, peel potatoes and chop them into ½” cubes. Pull pork off ribs with fork. Chop pull pork into ½” cubes. Mince carrot. Add pulled pork, carrot, potato, pepper, and salt to simmering pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Add sauerkraut. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 25 minutes or until potato softens. Stir enough to prevent burning.
While sauerkrautn/pork/potato soup simmers, add vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon minced onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add flour. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 5 minutes or until flour browns. If necessary, add just enough stock from pot to prevent the flour from clumping.
Add minced onion/flour mix from pan to pot. Stir until well blended. Fold in sour cream to soup in pot. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with dill or parsley. Goes well with guests who appreciate your culinary exploits.
TIDBITS
1) Kapusniak is served in a bowl.
2) That is on a table.
3) Which is below your head.
4) Because of that you have to bend your head down to see the bowl.
5) You have keep your head down as you guide your spoon to the bowl.
6) Sure, that action is a snap. You probably have been doing successfully for years.
7) But that very act of bending your head forward places a strain on a your neck.
8) And you look down at your food multiple times a day for every day of your life,
9) The stresses on your neck builds up every time you eat like this.
10) Then one day, later on in your life, you wake up with a blinding pain in your neck.
11) You might even have to go to your doctor for a muscle relaxer.
12) How did this pain happen to you? And all of a sudden.
13) It did not happen all of a sudden. You brought this painful event forward every time you ate from bowls and plates that rested on the table.
14) But the bowl doesn’t have to sit on the table.
15) It’s better to have your bowl hover at mouth level.
16) Then you won’t need to bend your noggin down as much.
17) You’ll find yourself getting fewer and fewer neck pains. Less severe too.
18) How do you make your soup bowl hover?
19) Simple, attach an anti-grav device to it. Frustratingly, these gizmos remain hard to find as of press time. CostcoTM doesn’t even carry it, even though people say they have everything.
21) No problem. Buy yourself a drone. Attach a rope holding a cradle to the drone. Place your soup bowl in the cradle and set your drone to hover such that the soup bowl is continually at mouth level, and Bob’s your uncle.
22) Bob really is nice to have gifted your with a soup-carrying drone. Be sure to thank him.
– 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 large avocados
6 ounces crabmeat
2 tablespoons minced bell pepper
2 tablespoons minced celery
2 teaspoons lemon juice
¼ cup mayonnaise
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon minced shallot or onion
4 leaves lettuce
6 olives
Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.
PREPARATION
Peel avocados and cut them in half lengthwise. Remove pits. Add crabmeat, bell pepper, celery, lemon juice, mayonnaise, pepper, salt, and shallot to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until crab mix is well blended. Shred lettuce.
Arrange lettuce evenly over 4 plates. Fill avocado hollows with crab mix. Top avocado halves with neat little mounds of remaining crab mix. Cut olives in half. Garnish each avocado half with 3 olive haves. Place filled-and-topped avocado halves on shredded lettuce.
TIDBITS
1) The early peoples of Central America subsisted on avocados. The tribes living along the Pacific coast of South America lived on potatoes. Naturally, no one likes to eat only potatoes or even just avocados. So, soon a lively avocado-potato trade developed. Then culinary ingenuity propelled these peoples into a golden age with the harnessing of corn into tortillas. Before long a brilliant mind, Chef Ozomatli, constructed the first potato taquito with guacamole sauce.
2) This golden age didn’t last. Robbers ambushed the potato and avocado traders. To meet this threat, the great Aztec empire arose around Mexico. Its armies threw volley after volley of avocado pits at the heads of the robber gangs until the thieves broke and fled. The Incan warrior, however, was invulnerable in his suit of potatoes. These innovations were enough to maintain the great empires until the arrival of the musket carrying, metal-armor wearing Conquistadors.
3) In desperation, local chieftains attempted to attack the Spanish fleets by making canoes out of gigantic avocados. Unfortunately, crabs ate these vessels as soon as they put out to sea. Resistance collapsed. Spain would rule this corner of the world for 300 years. This dish commemorates the destruction of the avocado fleets by the crabs. So some good came out of all this turmoil.
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
1 cup rice
1 medium onion
2 tomatoes
½ cup unsalted peanuts or ¼ cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon salt
1½ pounds black-eyed peas, cooked and drained
½ cup water
SPECIAL UTENSIL
food processor or coffee grinder
Serves 4. Takes 25 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cook rice according to instructions on package. Mince onion. Dice tomatoes. Grind peanuts in food processor until you get a paste. Add oil and onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Sur frequently. Add coriander and turmeric. Cook for 1 minute or until fragrant. Stir constantly.
Add tomato and salt. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes or until liquid disappears. Stir frequently. Lightly mash black-eyed peas with a fork. Add peanut paste, black-eyed peas, and water. Bring to boil at high heat. Reduce temperature to low medium. Simmer for 5 minutes or until dish gets to the consistency of a stew. Stir enough to prevent burning. Serve over rice.
TIDBITS
1) Really ancient humans worshiped the Sun as a god. They could have adored the potato instead. But they didn’t. Not many peoples even had potatoes. So, it never occurred to these tribes to worship the mighty spud. It’s just like wanting to eat lutefisk when you’ve never heard of it. You wouldn’t want to; it’s horrible. Not enough half-centuries have gone by before I’ll eat lutefisk again.
2) Anyway, the Rohohoe tribe, prehistoric Kenyans, had the Sun and they worshiped it. After much discussion, the religious leaders decided that the best way to worship Sun was to make an entree out of: rice, onion, tomatoes, peanuts, veggie oil, coriander, turmeric, salt, black-eyed peas, and water. The brownish mix of ingredients in the middle represents the Sun and the rice, its rays. There.
– 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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