Yoga instructor #7
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
6 baking potatoes, not the itsy bitsy kind
1 green chile
4 garlic cloves
6 stalks green onion
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon dill weed
½ cup diced tomatoes
2½ cups shredded Four Mexican cheeses
¾ cup sour cream
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 12-ounce package bacon
4 tablespoons shredded Four Mexican cheeses
PREPARATION
Rinse potatoes. Bake potatoes according to instruction on bag; often about 50 to 60 minutes in oven preheated to 425 degrees. While the potatoes are baking, remove seeds from green chile. Cut chile lengthwise into 8 equal pieces. Mince garlic and green onion.
Combine garlic, green onion, Parmesan cheese, salt, paprika, dill weed, diced tomatoes, Mexican cheese, and sour cream in mixing bowl.
Slice all strips of bacon lengthwise into 8 equally long pieces. Separate small pieces of bacon in a no-stick frying pan. Cook at medium-high heat until all pieces turn crispy and turn golden. Stir frequently. Tilt the pan away from you so you don’t get splattered by grease. Be sure to monitor the bacon constantly. Bacon goes from a golden crispiness to charred ash faster than a politician forgets campaign promises.
Take bacon out and put on plate covered with a paper towel. Put a paper towel on top on the bacon pieces. Press down. This should remove much of the grease.
Remove potatoes from oven. Close oven door to save its heat for later. Cut baked potatoes in half lengthwise. Remove the inside white part until only ¼-inch remains all around the skin.
(For Pete’s sake, when your sweetheart asks you what plans you have for the white stuff, look him or her firmly in the eye for about five seconds and say with a strong voice, “I will make mashed potatoes with them. The mashed potatoes will be magnificent. Angels in Heaven will sing their praises. This speech works.
Do not! Do not say, “I don’t know. The recipe didn’t say.” Your significant other will not believe you. Harsh words will ensue. Your beautiful relationship will dissolve and all you will have left are these wonderful potato skins; which might or might not be sufficient compensation for the loss of your sweetheart.
Oh, and if after the spat, you write an apology do not start with, “Dear Sweatheart.”)
Meanwhile, back at the kitchen. Brush vegetable oil all over the insides and outsides of the potatoes. Spoon garlic/green onion/cheese/sour cream mixture into the hollowed out potato halves. Use no-stick spray on a baking sheet. Put filled potatoes on the baking sheet. Place sheets in oven. Cook at 450 degrees for 8 minutes.
Remove filled potatoes from baking sheet. Place green-chile strip, its inside part face up on filled potato. Place bacon bits on top of that. Sprinkle lightly with remaining cheese.
Have an ice-cold root beer and serve potato skins to adoring guests. (Assuming you didn’t alienate them to the point of leaving over what to do with the scooped out potato pulp.)
TIDBITS
1) A survey by Maple Leaf FoodsTM found that 43% of people would rather have bacon than sex.
2) Why not have both? Instead of lighting up a cigarette afterwards, try frying up a pound of bacon.
3) I suspect far less than 43% would prefer raw bacon to raw sex.
4) The Chinese have been salting pork since 1,500 B.C., and look how many Chinese there are.
5) People from India don’t eat any bacon or any pork and yet there are over a billion of them.
6) Still, Chinese outnumber Indians by about 300 million. So if you want a hot and heavy night, treat your sweetheart to a bacon dinner.
7) Oh, chocolates, flowers, and champagne don’t hurt your chances either.
– 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 am not alone in mishearing this line.
Unfortunately, I found out the correct version fairly quickly. Sometimes I think these lyrics sound better than Starship’s original “We built this city on rock ‘n’ roll.” What say you?
– 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 THIN boneless pork loin chops
2 avocados
1 jalapeno pepper
½ onion
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon lime juice
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ cup diced tomatoes
10 ounces queso quesadilla jalapeno (queso = cheese)
½ cup Crema Mexicana (sour cream)
¼ cup grated Four Mexican cheeses
¼ cup water
½ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
SPECIAL UTENSILS
cooking scissors
Dutch oven
PREPARATION
Cut each thin pork loin into ½ inch squares. It is easier to do all this cutting with kitchen scissors than with a knife.
Mash the avocados thoroughly with a fork. (Make sure avocados are soft to the touch.) Ruthlessly remove stem and seeds from jalapeno pepper. Mince jalapeno pepper, onion, and cilantro. Crumble the queso quesadilla jalapeno. (There are no known tongue twisters that use the word, jalapeno.)
Add all ingredients to Dutch oven. Blend completely with fork or whisk. Cook stew on low heat for about 15-to-20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Cheeses should be completely melted.
TIDBITS
1) Pigs were first domesticated around 5,000 BC.
2) But beer was first brewed about 9,500 BC. Go, beer!
3) But it wasn’t until the last part of the twentieth century that packages of pork rinds AND six packs of beer were available in convenience stores.
4) At one time, some peoples used pig bones as weapons.
5) These civilizations lost out to ones using bronze swords.
6) Can you imagine Achilles and Hector fighting each other with pig knuckles?
7) Finally, pork’s myoglobin content is lower than beef’s.
8) I have no idea what that means.
– 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.
Archer Woman is a woman of action.
Archer Woman #9
– 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
⅔ cups plain yogurt (fat, not low-fat)
⅓ medium cucumber or ½ small or 1 tiny
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon sugar
4 teaspoons dill weed
1 garlic clove
2 teaspoon lemon juice
1½ pounds ground beef
3 large eggs
2 cups breadcrumbs
no-stick spray.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Peel the skin off the cucumber. It is optional to remove the seeds from the cucumber. This step, however, will make the sauce sweeter.
Peel the skin off the garlic clove. Cut up the cucumber into about eight pieces. Put the cucumber and garlic into a food chopper or food processor. Blend, chop, and process away until mixture is almost liquid.
Put the yogurt and cucumber-garlic mix into bowl. Add the salt, sugar, dill weed, lemon juice, ground beef, eggs, and breadcrumbs. Get a nine-year old to thoroughly mix this with his hands. (If you don’t have such a child in your house, knock on neighbors’ doors until you find such a kid.)
Spray baking pan with no-stick spray. Pour delightful meat mixture into baking pan. Put baking pan in oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until meat is no longer pink.
Place slice of meatloaf on plate. Take a ladle and pour liquid from the baking pan on top of the meatloaf.
TIDBITS
1) My nine-year old son is listening to a Pokemon(tm) episode on the laptop while I’m trying to think up tidbits.
2) I’m not thinking well with this distraction.
3) There’s no Pokemon on the moon, is there?
4) Is that why astronaut Neil Armstrong landed there on July 20, 1969? Did American rocket scientists have a vision of America’s Pokemon future?
– 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.
Angry Avocado #3
– 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.
We need to know.
– 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
FIRST BATCH
2 cups garlic bread
2 garlic cloves
½ avocado
½ green bell pepper
1 7 ounce can red beans
1 7 ounce can pork and beans
1 7 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 15 ounce can condensed tomato soup
15 ounces water
½ cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
½ cup grated Romano cheese
½ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon chopped chives
¼ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon parsley flakes
⅛ teaspoon ground mustard
⅛ teaspoon tarragon
SECOND BATCH
½ pound ground turkey
⅛ teaspoon white pepper
⅛ teaspoon rosemary
⅛ teaspoon sesame seed
2 eggs
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Large soup pot or saucepan
PREPARATION
Cut the garlic bread into 1-inch cubes. Mince the garlic cloves. Remove the skin and pit of the avocado, and cut the yummy remaining part into ½-inch cubes. Mince the green bell pepper.
Add all ingredients listed under first batch to soup pot. Cook on medium heat. Stir frequently enough to keep soup from burning on the bottom before the top gets hot.
(Take a break to consider how beer saved the world.)
Use clean hands to mix second batch of ingredients: ground turkey, white pepper, rosemary, and sesame seed. Cook on medium-high heat. Transfer to soup pot after turkey meat changes from pink to white.
Add eggs after soup gets hot. Stir thoroughly with fork so eggs blend in. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes. This soup is great.
TIDBITS
1) This was originally called “Paul’s Refrigerator Soup” as many of the ingredients came from my refrigerator, but it tastes so good that I went with Tuscan Sunset.
2) Garlic bread, in particular, was taking over the fridge and blocking the view of everything behind it.
3) The food behind the garlic would have spoiled and eventually mutated into all sorts of new life forms.
4) Who’s to say these life forms wouldn’t have evolved into ravenous carnivores?
5) So, I might have saved my family with this soup. And my goodness, it’s tasty.
6) The food of the ancient Romans was simpler. They were often called “porridge eaters” after the blandness of their cuisine.
7) In their defense, these Romans possessed no refrigerators.
– 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 