Posts Tagged With: recipes

Egg Drop Soup

Posted on November 13, 2012 by pauldelancey

Chinese Soup

EGG DROP SOUP

INGREDIENTS

1/2 small potato
3 stalks green onion
32 ounces chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon Vegetable MagicTM spice
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 eggs

PREPARATION

Bake a potato for 40 minutes at 400 degrees or according to instructions shown on bag of potatoes. While the potato is baking, mince the green-onion stalks. Cut the baked potato into tiny squares or dice briefly. (Consider using microwavable potatoes. This nifty agricultural advancement from this great country saves you time and your guests don’t have to know. Or you can skip the potato altogether.)

Mix broth, green onion, spice, oil, potato, and cornstarch thoroughly in pot. Bring soup to boil. Add eggs. Reduce heat to medium high or until the boiling soup no longer resembles the frothing witches’ cauldron in Macbeth. Mix soup with fork until all the egg yolks are cooked and are in small bits. You might need to go on a search and destroy mission for any lurking and intact egg yolks.

This dish cries out to be served in china bowls or at least no bowls with elegant Winnie-the-PoohTM designs. Make this dish often. It tastes great, looks impressive, and is so easy to make.

TIDBITS

1) My wife and I once went to a children’s museum in Ashford, Oregon. The challenge of the day was to prevent your egg from cracking when dropped from a height of ten feet. Your job was to prevent this using a balloon, a square of cardboard, and some tape. Both our kids’ eggs survived the drop. Hooray!

2) When I was a small boy, we had a chicken farm just a few blocks away. However, nearly all municipalities today forbid the raising of chickens. You have to go to outlying areas to buy fresh eggs.

3) My younger son loves to cook eggs.

4) Many Chinese recipes for egg-drop soup omit potatoes. Potatoes in this soup is a variation by the Chinese laborers who helped to build the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.

5) Don’t drop eggs from a height of ten feet when the soup is boiling. You’ll regret it. Greatly. For a long time.

6) Does anyone remember how Linus in that great comic strip, Peanuts, drove his grammar-school teacher Miss Othmar crazy by repeatedly forgetting to bring egg shells to class?

– 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, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Jamaican Pepper Pot

Posted on November 6, 2012 by pauldelancey

Jamaican Entree

PEPPER POT

INGREDIENTS

1 chicken breast
2 garlic cloves
1 medium yellow onion
1 tablespoon olive oil (1/2 tablespoon more later)

1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 large fresh red tomato
1 small sweet potato
2 ounces kale (about 2/3 of a bunch at my supermarket)

2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon scotch bonnet sauce
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 bay leave
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 tablespoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 8 ounce can kidney beans, drained

UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Chop chicken into 1/2-inch cubes. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Dice tomatoes. Peel and dice sweet potato. Remove leaves from kale’s stem and cut them into small pieces. (Sorry, your food processor does a poor job on kale leaves.)

Put 1 tablespoon olive oil in Dutch oven. Cook chicken cubes, garlic, and onion at medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until chicken begins to brown and has changed color on the inside. Remove chicken/garlic/onion and set aside.

Put 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in Dutch oven. Add tomatoes, potato, and kale. Cook on medium-high for about 5 minutes. Add chicken broth, scotch bonnet sauce, coconut milk, allspice, bay leaves, black pepper, brown sugar, celery seed, chili powder, cilantro, coriander, ginger, sea salt, thyme, and kidney beans.

Add chicken/garlic/onion to Dutch oven. Bring to boil at high heat, stirring frequently. Lower temperature to low-warm and simmer for 30 minutes. Cover and stir occasionally. (You will need to, of course, remove the lid to stir the contents of the Dutch oven. If you don’t need to take off the lid to stir, please let me know. A Nobel Prize in Physics would look very nice on my mantlepiece.)

TIDBITS

1) Scotch bonnet peppers are about 40 times hotter than the esteemed jalapeño pepper.

2) That’s important information to know if you’ve been dared to eat the scotch bonnet pepper at a party. You’ve got to ask your taste buds, “Do you feel lucky today?”

3) And if you eat the fiery pepper without the aid of milk to coat the pain receptors in your mouth, the knowledge that these peppers possess a deeply inverted rounded apex won’t help you at all.

4) However, as you stagger around the party, sweat streaming down your burning face, other parts of your body are benefitting from the helpful fruit. You see, the mighty scotch bonnet pumps goodly amounts of vitamins B and C, iron, niacin, thiamine, magnesium, and riboflavin.

5) These vitamins help bobsledding athletes excel.

6) Jamaican athletes eat scotch bonnet peppers while British athletes never eat them. Jamaica has a better bobsledding team.

7) So eat your scotch bonnets if you wish to enter the Winter Olympics.

8) You might want to eat the fiery peppers as part of a meal such as this one.

9) If you do enter the Winter Olympics because you ate this recipe, please let me know. I’ll be sure to watch and cheer for you.

10) My wife recently won the challenge at Orochon Ramen Restaurant in Los Angeles by eating a huge bowl of their spiciest ramen in 30 minutes; a feat accomplished by only fifty-four others. I am proud to say her picture now hangs on the restaurant’s Wall of Bravery. You can find out more about this dish by watching an episode from the show, Man v. Food.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Chimole Recipe

Posted on November 5, 2012 by pauldelancey

Belizean Entree

CHIMOLE

INGREDIENTS

1 small pumpkin squash or acorn squash
1 small white potato
1/2 medium white onion
1/2 chayote
2 large, ripe red tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
2 medium whole cloves
1/2 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon red recado
1/2 tablespoon black recado (Recado spices are available online.)
1 vegetable bouillon cube
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 tablespoon allspice
1/2 tablespoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon cumin
3/4 teaspoon red pepper
3 cups water
1 chicken breast
8 hard-boiled egg
4 or more flour tortillas (Use half as many if you have burrito-sized tortillas)

UTENSIL

spice or coffee grinder

Makes 6-to-8 bowls.

PREPARATION

Peel squash, onion, and white potato. Remove seeds from squash. Dice squash, potato, onion, chayote, and tomatoes. Mince garlic cloves. (Just in off the internet news. Five people stole 9.5 tons of garlic. They were caught by the Hungarian border police who noticed a strong garlic smell coming from the five cars.) Put squash, potato, onion, chayoite, tomatoes, and garlic cloves in large soup pot.

Put whole cloves and black peppercorns in spice grinder. Grind until you get a powdery substance. Crumble red recado, black recado, and bouillon cubes into soup pot. Add salt, allspice, oregano, cumin and red pepper. Pour in water and cook on low-to-medium heat with lid on for about 40 minutes or until all veggies are soft.

While the vegetables and spice are cooking, chop up chicken breasts into 1/2-inch cubes. Also, boil eggs for about 12 minutes and let them cool. Add chicken cubes to soup pot.

Ladle soup into bowls. Peel eggs and slice each three times. Put an equal number of egg slices on top of the soup in each bowl. Serve with at least two flour tortillas and one plate per person. The tortillas may be used for dipping or for making burritos from the soup.

TIDBITS

1) January is National Soup Month. What does this mean? I don’t know. Have you ever celebrated National Soup Month? Me either.

2) Soup is an anagram for opus. Opus means an artistic work such as an opera.

3) Soup is also an anagram for puos. Puos is the plural form of puo.

4) Soup lovers in America eat about ten billion bowls of soup a year.

5) Soup haters consume considerably fewer.

6) Nebraskan bar owners may not sell beer unless they are cooking soup. That and possessing a liquor license.

7) Andy Warhol ate tomato soup every day for lunch for over twenty years. He became a famous pop artist. However, hundreds of millions of people have devoured rivers of tomato soup without achieving the slightest bit of fame. So, who can say?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Spinach Ravioli

Posted on November 3, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

SPINACH RAVIOLI

INGREDIENTS

PASTA

3 cups or more of flour (1/4 cup more later in FINAL STAGE)
2 eggs
3/4 cup water or more
1 tablespoon olive oil (1 tablespoon more used later)
1 teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)

FILLING

2 garlic cloves
1/2 pound fresh spinach
1 1/2 teaspoons parsley
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)

MARINARA SAUCE

6 Roma tomatoes
1/2 large white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons basil
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt (Used 3 times for a total of 2 teaspoons)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 6 ounce can tomato sauce

UTENSILS

rolling pin
cutting board

FINAL STAGE

water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (1 tablespoon more used earlier)
1/4 cup flour (3 cups more earlier in PASTA)

Makes about 40 ravioli.

PREPARATION OF PASTA

Combine flour, eggs, and cup water. Mix with hands. Make a ball of the mixture. It should just be able to come off your hand. If some of the ball sticks to your hand, then add a bit more flour, mix again, and try the new flour. If the flour ball is powdery, it is too dry. Add a bit more water, mix again, until the consistency of the next ball is just right.

Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on your cutting board and rolling pin. Roll flour ball out until it is NO THICKER than 1/4-inch. Frequently sprinkle the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Let rolled-out flour sit for AT LEAST 4 hours. It should be nearly dry.

PREPARATION OF FILLING

While rolled out flour dries, peel and mince 2 garlic cloves. Dice spinach. Put garlic, spinach, parsley, Parmesan cheese, and salt in frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Put contents of frying pan into bowl. Mix and put spinach filling in fridge.

PREPARATION OF MARINARA SAUCE

Mince Roma tomatoes. Peel and mince 1/2 onion (Wouldn’t it be nice if you could buy a 1/2 onion at the store?) and 2 garlic cloves. Add tomato, onion, garlic, basil, marjoram, oregano, salt, thyme, and tomato sauce to sauce pot. Cook ingredients on medium-high heat until it boils, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes with the lid on. Stir occasionally.

FINAL PREPARATION

Dust cutting board with flour. Use knife to make 1 1/2-inch wide strips in the flour. Cut these strips into rectangles every 3 inches. Dust strips with flour. Put a 1/2 teaspoon or so of the filling on the right side of the 1 1/2-inch by 3-inch flour rectangle. (Did you know there is cutting board that has all sorts of measurements and angles on it if you want to make an exact 1 1/2-inch square ravioli? You can order it on line.) Fold the left side over the filling. Push down on the open sides with the tines of the fork to seal the spinach ravioli.

Fill pot with enough water to cover ravioli. Add salt and olive oil. Boil water. Add ravioli and cook for 20 to 30 minutes. Ravioli should float to the top and the dough should be completely soft.

While your ravioli boils itself to perfection, cook pasta sauce in pot on medium heat until it is warm. Put ravioli in bowl and add pasta sauce.

TIDBITS

1) There are a lot of Italians in Italy.

2) There are a lot outside Italy as well. This is why Italian cuisine is so easy to find.

3) But Caesar’s salad isn’t Italian. This salad is often considered to be American though it was actually first made at Caesar’s Hotel in Tijuana, Mexico.

4) I recently went to a dentist in Tijuana for my teeth. Dentist’s in Mexico are much cheaper than in America. Caesar’s Hotel was only a block away.

5) The savings from seeing the Mexican dentist vastly outweighed the cost of the meal.

6) Indeed, there are “surgery” cruises and vacation packages to Mexico. People enjoy the cruise ship, the sights of the Mexican ports, and have a surgery for less than the cost of the same surgery in the United States.

7) There are a lot of ordinary American tourists in Mexico as well.

8) And there are certainly a lot of Mexicans in Mexico.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Tamales

Posted on November 2, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

TAMALES

INGREDIENTS – MEAT MIX

1 onion
1 1/2 pounds chicken breast (or ground beef or shredded pork)
1 beef bouillon cube
1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder (1 tablespoon more later)
1/2 tablespoon coriander
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1/4 cup yellow corn meal
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder (1/2 teaspoon more later)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

INGREDIENTS – CORNMEAL COATING

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoons chili powder (2 tablespoons more earlier)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (1/2 tablespoon more earlier)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package corn husks or tamale paper

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

1 cup tomato sauce
1 7.5 ounce can chili
1 bouillon cube
1 cup vegetable oil

(This recipe is spicy. If you prefer milder food, consider reducing the amounts of chili powder by up to half the stated amounts.)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

2 large pots
Box of wooden toothpicks (optional)

PREPARATION – SOAKING OF CORN HUSKS

Place corn husks at a time in first large pot. Heat corn husks at warm heat for 1-to-2 hours.

Soaking makes the corn husks pliable. Stiff, brittle corn husks really don’t roll well. The corn husk will split or the tamale will unravel. (You’ll end up shouting over the ensuing disaster and your whole family will head grumpily out to a fast- food joint.) Soak those corn husks.

PREPARATION – MEAT MIX

Set aside an afternoon to do this. Mince onions. Shred chicken breast or meat of choice. Crumble bouillon cube. Combine onion, tomato sauce, shredded chicken, chili powder, coriander, cumin, corn meal, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and bouillon.

Mix thoroughly with hands. Shape mix into sticks no longer than about 3/4 the width of the corn husks.

PREPARATION – TAMALE COATING

In large bowl, mix corn meal, chili powder, garlic powder, and salt. Roll meat sticks in corn meal until coated all over.

Take a tablespoon of this coating and place it near the top, narrow part of the corn husk. Roll the husk from the top until the meat stick is enclosed. Fold in the sides of the husk and finish rolling. Be sure to roll it tight. Place the resulting tamale in second large pot with the seam side down.

Continue with the rest of the tamales. Put each tamale right up against the side of the pot or another tamale to prevent the husks from unraveling. You might wish to hold the tamales together with a wooden toothpick as well.

REMAINING PREPARATION

Mix sauce ingredients together. Pour sauce over tamales. Add enough water to cover the top layer of tamales. Bring to boil then reduce heat. Simmer for 40 minutes. Add vegetable oil. Simmer for 5 minutes more. Let soak for 30 minutes. This gives the cornmeal time to absorb the sauce.

Unroll the corn husks and serve the tamales. Cover the tamales with as much sauce as desired from the pot.

ADDITIONAL MEALS FROM THIS RECIPE

It’s possible that you might run out of pots to cook all the tamales you would otherwise make. You can use the excess meat mix as a burrito or taco filling. The remaining sauce in the pot makes an excellent chili soup. Reorganize the fridge. Make room for all this great food.

TIDBITS

1) My grandmother, who was born in Sonora, used to make tamales. I wish I remembered this better.

2) After making this dish, you’ll have a much greater appreciation of why tamales cost so much in stores and in restaurants. You’ll also see why establishments make tamales in such big batches.

3) Profusely thank your sweetheart who cleans up after your cooking. If you don’t have a sweetheart, consider finding one to help you tidy up after making tamales.

4) There is a Tamale Museum in Newport Beach, California. Featured there are paintings of Los Angeles’ taco trucks.

5) The first tamale factory in America opened in Austin, Texas in 1911. Prior to that, America was in the culinary dark ages.

6) There is a tamale factory in Vicksburg, Mississippi. It opened in 1939. I’ve been there. Their food is good. People in Northwest Mississippi are serious about their tamales. Who knew?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Simple Crêpes

Posted on November 1, 2012 by pauldelancey

French Dessert

SIMPLE CREPES

INGREDIENTS

1 cup flour
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup milk

UTENSILS

non-breakable mixing bowl
no-stick frying pan
no-stick spray

PREPARATION

Use whisk to mix all the above ingredients in a large mixing bowl. At this point, you can let the batter you have made sit in a refrigerator for two hours or … you can practice your Tarzan yell while banging your non-breakable bowl on the counter top to get the air bubbles out.

Spray the frying pan with no-stick spray, or add just enough butter or cooking oil to coat the bottom. Pour about two tablespoons batter in the middle of the pan. Swirl it around right away, particularly after pan gets hot, so the batter covers as much surface as possible.

Cook for 20 to 30 seconds or until batter has firmed. Carefully flip the crepe over. Try not to fold the batter while doing so. (This takes some practice. Try to get the entire spatula under the crepe.) Cook for 20 seconds more. Keep making crepes until you run out of batter.

Lots of yummy ingredients can go inside a crepe. My favorite is butter and confectionary sugar. Other tasty fillers include: blueberry and strawberry jams, hazelnut spread, ham, and cheese. Place the filler of your choice in the bottom-center part of the crepe. Form the crepes as you would a burrito. Fold the sides in a little bit and roll up from the bottom.

If you want to serve your crepes cold, put them on a plate to cool off. The crepes can be stacked once they are cold. But if you’re like me you’ll want to eat now. Eat them while they’re hot.

TIDBITS

1) Crepes in French is spelled, crêpes.

2) This dish is pronounced creps in France. Many people in America call it crapes. When the waiter takes your order don’t pronounce it, “Creep.”

3) Crepes are often served by themselves or a dessert.

4) Crepes could be served as an hors d’oeuvre.

5) Here’s a tip for little boys. Pronounce hors as oars. If not you might say it in a way that gets you sent to your room, particularly if your mom is entertaining your neighbors.

6) So when your mom asks you to serve her guests, ask them, “Would you like one of these?”

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Doro Alicha (Mild chicken stew)

Posted on October 29, 2012 by pauldelancey

Ethiopian Entree

DORO ALICHA
(Mild chicken stew)

INGREDIENTS

3 pounds white onions
1 garlic clove
2 chicken breasts
2 cups Niter Kibbeh (See recipe in this book for this spicy butter.)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup red wine
1 1/2 tablespoons lime juiceAll Posts
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt

water
6 eggs

Goes well with injera, Ethiopian flat bread.

PREPARATION

Peel and mince 3 pounds onions. (You’ll cry over this recipe.) Mince garlic clove. Cut chicken into 1-inch cubes. Put chicken cubes in bowl. Coat chicken cubes with lime juice, pepper, ginger, and salt.

Put onion, garlic, Niter Kibbeh, water, and wine in large pot and saute at medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Stir frequently.) Add coated chicken cubes. Simmer for 45 minutes at warm heat, or until most of the water is gone, and it looks like a stew. (Remember, most people have no idea what Doro Alicha looks like. So no matter how it turns out, say it came out well.) Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile back at the range, boil eggs, peel them, and slice them into fourths. (Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.) Put eggs on top of stew and serve.

TIDBITS

1) Lucy, a 3.2-million-year old human skeleton, was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974

2) Lucy van Pelt, the character from the comic strip Peanuts was created in 1951.

3) Lucy of Ethiopia was for many years the oldest human skeleton. Unfortunately, just lost her oldest status to Selam, a 3.45 million year old skeleton. Honestly, you don’t look a day over 3 million.

4) The last new comic strip featuring Lucy van Pelt ran in early 2000.

5) The new millennium has not been kind to either Lucy.

6) Lucy van Pelt used to whisk away the football before Charlie Brown could kick it.

7) Maybe, just maybe, Lucy of Ethiopia did the same thing to another boy 3.2 millions ago?

8) And did they have tailgate parties at football games way back then?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Italian Pork Chops

Posted on October 21, 2012 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

ITALIAN PORK CHOPS

INGREDIENTS

4 pork loin chops
1 red bell pepper
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
1 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1 14.5 can diced tomatoes, Italian style
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon thyme
8 ounces mozzarella cheese

PREPARATION

Remove bone from pork loins. (My wife doesn’t like bone in pork. Good enough for me.) Remove seeds and whitish stuff from inside of red bell pepper. Cut pepper into 8 rings. Mince garlic cloves and onion. Cover both sides of pork loins with pepper. Melt butter in frying pan. Saute pork in frying pan on medium heat until both sides are brown and inside is no longer pink.

(Unless you’re experienced, the best way to see if the inside of the pork is pink is to cut off a piece and see. If the piece has turned white inside then the best thing to do is eat it. If it tastes great, try tasting the other pork loins. You might want to sample the other side of the loins as well. And if your diligent sampling gets out of hand and the pork loins in the pan are shrinking visibly, that is why we chefs cover everything in sauce. No one need ever know how much you ate.)

Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, and onion to the pork loins. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer with lid on for about 8 minutes.

Put 2 red bell pepper rings on top of each pork loin. Put about 1 ounce of mozzarella inside each bell pepper ring. Put lid back on and cook at medium-high heat for about 4 minutes or until cheese starts to melt.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe has sage, rosemary, and thyme in it.

2) Dagnab it. No parsley! I was so close to making a dish with “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.”

3) This line is from the famous Simon and Garfunkel song, which was also a medieval ballad.

4) Much thought has gone in the meaning of the four spices in this song.

5) Three schools of thought predominate.

6) First school believes mixing parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme together makes a love charm. Before you stampede the local supermarket, remember that we no longer believe this… Oh what the heck, go for it!

7) Second school notes that these ingredients were used in Four Thieves Vinegar to ward off the Plague.

8) The third school of thought says, “I dunno.”

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Aigo Boulido Soup From Forthcoming Cookbook

Posted on October 19, 2012 by pauldelancey

French Soup

AÏGO BOULIDO

INGREDIENTS

1 head or bulb of garlic (The number of cloves will vary.)
2 cups water
4 thin slices of French bread (Baguette style is best.)
4 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano cheese (Plain Romano cheese will do. And yes, Italian cheeses are allowed in a French dish.)
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

(Makes two bowls)

PREPARATION

Peel and mince all the cloves in the head of garlic. (If the number of cloves in the head of garlic varies from head to head, will the intensity of the garlic taste vary as well? Yes, it will. Either way, this is a dish best eaten after a job interview.)

Pour 2 cups water into pot. Add minced garlic and cook on high for 15 minutes. Keep lid on to avoid evaporation. Monitor occasionally to avoid boiling over. Add bay leaf and sage. Stir.

While the garlic and water is cooking for 15 minutes, toast four slices of bread. Try to cut them as thin as you would for a sandwich. Sprinkle olive oil on both sides of toasted slices. Sprinkle 1/2 tablespoon Pecorino cheese on each side of each slice. Do this over a soup bowl so that the cheese that doesn’t stick on the bread falls into the bowl.

Put two bread slices into each of two bowls. Pour garlic/water mix into bowls. Add 1/4 teaspoon olive oil to the surface of the soup, but don’t mix it in.

Bon goût.

TIDBITS

1) “Taste great, less filling” translates into French as “Bon goût, moins de remplissage.” Not as catchy, is it?

2) Foreign cookbooks can be so darned vague. Augh! Augh! Augh! There, I feel better now. I hope this version is clear.

3) The French sure like garlic and onions. Mais oui.

4) The average American eats about twenty-one pounds of onion a year. Libya leads the world with an average of sixty-seven pounds per person per year.

5) America is a robust republic. Culinary political analysts fear the new Libyan republic will be on shaky ground unless it brings its per capita onion consumption below fifty pounds.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Baked Garlic Squash From Forthcoming Cookbook

Posted on October 18, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Entree

BAKED GARLIC SQUASH

INGREDIENTS

1 big butternut squash
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh parsley
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Vegetable MagicTM
1/2 teaspoon herbes de Provence
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut off skin of squash. Remove pulpy bottom of squash and discard. (Put in recycling bin if your community recycles squash pulp.) Cut remaining squash into one-inch cubes. Melt butter. Mince garlic cloves.

Mix butter, olive oil, parsley, garlic, salt, vegetable spice, herbes de Provence, and Parmesan cheese in 2-quart baking dish. Add squash cubes. Stir and turn cubes until they are well coated with the mix.

Bake dish at 425 degrees for about 50 minutes or until squash is tender.

TIDBITS

1) Don’t waste this tasty dish on kids who might look at it and say, “Ew, squash. I don’t like squash. I won’t eat it.” Good. More for you.

2) The USDA said that a 3/4 bushel of small, Georgian yellow crookneck squash costs from $8.00 to $10.35.

3) Some raw squashes can make men jealous. They’re probably the ones that cost $10.35.

4) Squash is a fruit and was never reclassified by the Reagan administration to become a vegetable.

5) George Washington enjoyed growing butternut squash. It is doubtful that our Revolutionary War against England would have been won without him.

5) The Confederate soldiers in the Army of the Tennessee were called “butternuts” because used dye from the butternut walnut to color their uniforms. The South lost the Civil War.

6) The popularity of the butternut walnut declined forever in the post-war South.

7) Well, it could have happened.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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