King Charles was Prince of Wales and William the current Prince of Wales was Prince William when the letter below was written.
It’s nice to know that they have gone up in the world since reading one of my novels.
– 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.
Is there anything more heartwarming and beautiful than the miracle of birth?
Particularly so, when it happens in the wild.
Here then is the rarely seen birth of a red bell pepper.
Just one more push
– 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 – FILLING
2½ pounds chuck or round steak
2 onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt (1/4 teaspoon more later)
¼ teaspoon thyme
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1½ cups beef stock
¼ cup water
3 tablespoons flour (2 cups more later)
INGREDIENTS – BOTTOM PASTRY
2 cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup butter (softened)
10 tablespoons water
INGREDIENTS – TOP PASTRY
1½ tablespoons milk
3-to-4 sheets puff pastry
1 egg
4 tablespoons ketchup
SPECIAL UTENSILS
Dutch oven
4 meat-pie pans with 5″ diameter or 3 pans with 6″ diameter
Makes 4 5″-meat-pies. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.
PREPARATION – FILLING
Cut chuck into ½” cubes. Mince onions. Add onion and olive oil to Dutch oven. Sauté onion on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add meat, nutmeg, pepper, salt, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, and beef stock. Simmer on low heat for about 1 hour. Stir occasionally.
Combine ¼ cup water and 3 tablespoons flour in mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until you get a smooth, runny mix. Gradually add the flour/water mix into the Dutch oven. Stir with spoon until the filling thickens. Remove from heat and let cool.
PREPARATION – BOTTOM PASTRY
While filling is simmering, add 2 cups flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, and butter to a second mixing bowl. Blend ingredients with whisk. Add 10 tablespoons water. Remove dough and knead on surface dusted with flour. (Martian surfaces will work as well, but be sure to take along a space suit.)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Let dough sit for 20 minutes. Flatten dough with rolling pin. (A large can of soup will do. Plastic explosives are way too risky.)
PREPARATION – TOP PASTRY
Line pie pans with bottom pastry. Add filling to each pan. Moisten rims of pies with milk. (This helps tops to stick with the bottom pastry.) Place a sheet of puff pastry on top of each pie. Trim away the excess puff pastry. Press edges of puff pastry onto rims of bottom pastry with fork. Poke holes in bottom pastry with fork. Beat egg with whisk or fork. Glaze tops evenly and sparely with egg.
Bake pies at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Spread ketchup over each pie. Enjoy a nice cooling refreshment. Press gang the least appreciative guest into cleaning up.
TIDBITS
1) Kangaroo is Australian Aborigine for, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
2) Melbourne, Australia has the largest public tram system in the world.
3) Australia is three times bigger than Greenland. So it’s no surprise that Melbourne has a bigger tram system than Nuuk, Greenland.
5) Curly Howard of the Three Stooges said “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk” in many of his movie shorts.
6) The Denver Broncos quarterback often yelled out “Omaha” during plays all through the 2013 NFL season. Some people think he was promoting the city of Omaha, Nebraska.
7) Was Curly really trying to promote Nuuk, Greenland? That would be truly scary for Nuuk was called Godthaab until 1979 and Curly died in 1952.
8) Perhaps Curly had a time machine and visited modern Nuuk. We should all be grateful Curly did not use his time machine to achieve world domination.
9) If you had a time machine you could go back to the point when you had just cooked yourself a wonderful dinner and eat it. You would never have to cook again. You’d just keep going back to that moment and eat that delightful dish over and over again.
10) But then no one would ever need to buy food again. Millions of farmers would be out of business. They’d riot. Worldwide collapse would ensue. And Curly would say, “Nyahh-ahhh-ahhh!”
– 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 Holy Grail
I needed puff pastry to make meat pies. Just pastry. This was My quest. And keep in mind, I suffer from fatigue from the time I get up.
1) I went to Stater Bros. First, I went to buy flowers. No prices on the flowers. No prices on the shelves. An employee who was working there didn’t know. I did not buy flowers.
2) The store wasn’t stocking puff pastry.
3) I went to Sprouts. I couldn’t find it.
4) I asked an employee. He didn’t know what puff pastry was. I had to spell p-u-f-f.
5) He then said they had cream puffs.
6) I asked two employees were chatting with each other. I was told they needed to check in and walked away.
7) I then went to WalMart.
8) The aisles were packed with people not looking where they were going.
9) Or leaving their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle.
10) I went to buy tomatoes. A woman was investigating every tomato.
11) I couldn’t find puff pastry.
12) I asked an employee. No real response.
13) I asked a second employee. She didn’t know what it was.
14) I had to spell p-u-f-f.
15) It’s a pastry, I said again.
16) Is it frozen or fresh?
17) I said frozen.
18) Then it’s probably in the frozen section.
19) Frozen food is in the frozen section. Whoa.
20) I found puff pastry on my third pass of the frozen section. I found one. The last one. It was on the bottom shelf. Push to the back.
21) I went back to buying tomatoes. The same woman was still picking up tomatoes and examining them.
22) I bought a cluster of vine-ripened tomatoes instead.
23) They fell through my cart twice.
24) I went to checkout. I forewent the self-checkout because I don’t work at Walmart, and I want WalMart to hire people. And there were lines even on the self checkouts.
25) I tried to stand inline. But the lines stretched into oblivion because only a handful of the checkout stands were open.
26) So I tried to go to the gardening department to buy my puff pastry. Two employees were standing around. But the check out stands there were not open.
27) I went home.
28) I went on Amazon for delivery. Puff pastry would have been horrifically expensive what with the cost for the product, delivery fee, and tips.
29) And even then, I could not receive my puff pastry until 10 pm.
30) I tried seeing if puff pastry was available at Target.
31) Target kept insisting its closest store was 40 miles away.
32) I typed in my zip code.
33) It said the nearest store was in Minneapolis. Was that correct?
34) Finally, I got the site to acknowledge I do indeed live in Poway, CA.
35) I asked the site to check for puff pastry sheets.
36) The site showed dozens of bed sheets.
37) Okay, I asked for puff pastry.
38) The site showed dozens of bed sheets.
39) I typed in puff pastry again.
40) A major step forward. The site suggested Pepperidge Farm puff pastry sheets.
41) I clicked on that.
I just want puffed pastry.
42) The site showed dozens of bed sheets.
43) The site then suggest another brand of puff pastry sheets.
44) I clicked on that new brand.
45) The site showed dozens of bed sheets.
46) For sh*ts and grins, I looked at Instacart.
47) Same problem as with Amazon. Too expensive and no delivery before 10 pm.
Now I have no puff pastry and I’ve used up all my energy.
– 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 almost forgot to write a post today. Lots of things to think about, not all of them good.
Take care.
– 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 cultured buttermilk blend
4 cups water
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 eggs
½ cup butter
SPECIALTY UTENSILS
electric mixer
PREPARATION
Use “batter” setting on electric mixer, or beater, to combine buttermilk blend, water, eggs, and melted butter (You can, of course, buy buttermilk of using buttermilk blend, but your buttermilk will go bad if you don’t use it right away.)
Combine in a second large mixing bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Melt butter.(Use a mere fraction of an ostrich egg if chicken eggs aren’t available.)
Pour the contents of the second bowl into the first mixing bowl. Mix together with fork until just blended.
Fire up the griddle to 350 degrees. Use a 4-ounce or ¼ cup ladle to pour your batter onto the griddle. Cook for 1 3/4 minutes on the first side and for 1½ minutes on the second side or until brown on both sides.
Makes 22 6-inch diameter pancakes, enough for those neighbors next door so they’ll invite you over for one of their sauna parties.
TIDBITS
1) Buttermilk was originally the non-fat liquid left over after churning milk into butter.
2) Today, buttermilk is made by adding lactic-acid-producing bacteria, usually Streptococtus lactus . . . Oh gosh, I can’t go on. I googled “fun facts about buttermilk” and this is what showed up!
3) People drink buttermilk to soothe their stomachs.
4) But not before reading the expiration date on the carton.
– 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.
Wanda Wunder #30
– 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
1½ pounds ground beef
1 medium onion
1 teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon coriander
No-stick cooking spray
6 slices provolone cheese
6 hamburger buns
PREPARATION
Completely defrost hamburger meat. Mince onion in food processor. Preheat skillet to 350 degrees. Mix onion, paprika, salt, cayenne, poultry spice, cumin, thyme, and coriander on large plate. Form 6 hamburger patties. Coat both sides of the patties with no-stick spray.
Place the patties on plate and move them around until they are coated with spices on both sides. Place patties in skillet, gently turning them over every 1 minute, or until spices are blackened. Keep skillet’s lid on while frying.
This is a great dish if you wish to impress people at a barbeque or at an embassy if somehow you manage to get past the guards.
TIDBITS
1) I’ve never seen a Cajun hamburger, but if I were Cajun and was hankerin’ for a burger this is how I would make it.
2) Hamburg is a major seaport in northern Germany. A panhandler at its main train station kicked me in my shin when I declined to give him a handout. On the other hand, one of the city’s prostitutes smiled and said, “Have a nice day,” after I had said no.
3) I had Chinese food on that stopover in Hamburg. I couldn’t find German food near the train station. I went to Tijuana once with a friend. We couldn’t find Mexican food, so we settled for Chinese. What is it with Chinese food being everywhere? If I went to Beijing, would I only be able to find German or Mexican cuisine?
4) Provolone cheese is not really very Cajun. But its inclusion is in keeping with the theme of “Cooking with what’s handy.” I had provolone cheese, so I used it. Besides, it made a nice culinary contrast and complement to the Cajun spices.
5) Or maybe it is not too hard to imagine a French-Italian couple kicked out of Acadia, Canada by the English in the 18th century settling in the bayous of Louisiana sustaining themselves by selling Cajun burgers with provolone cheese.
– 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 cook many different dishes from around the world. This means I require herbs from all over as well. Many of these herbs cannot simply be found near my fair city of Poway, California. So today, I browsed Amazon.
There are dozens of sites selling herbs for witchcraft. Okay! But don’t you know, there are many people who aren’t witchcraft masters. Lots of us are completely untutored in witchcraft ways. I am one of them
But Amazon sells herbal witchcraft kits for beginners. I can now practice witchcraft. I can! I can!
You better not rile me.
– 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.
Goofy Man #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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 