My Dad's Garlic and Oil Pasta with Vegetables

I am so happy to present my reader's with my second guest contributor, my Dad!  I have not tried out this recipe yet, but I will in the foreseeable future, and I'm excited!  It looks great.  After years and years of just pasta and sauce, I have finally discovered just how versatile pasta can be.  You can literally add ANYTHING to it and come up with your very own dish!  This uses frozen Italian vegetables, but I'm sure you can substitute it for any frozen packaged vegetable that you have in your freezer.  

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of pasta (Vermicelli)
• 1/3 - 1/4 cup E.V.O.O.
• 3-4 cloves of fresh garlic (crushed)
• Kosher salt
• l pound bag frozen Italian vegetables

Directions:

• In a large pot of salted water, boil pasta until al dente.  Drain well.  (Reserve 1/4 cup of pasta water).
• In medium pot, heat vegetables, and drain well.
• In a small saucepan heat oil slightly, add garlic.  Saute garlic until it is lightly browned.  Be careful not to burn garlic.
• Combine pasta and garlic, vegetables, and pasta water.  Toss and serve.  
• Top with Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Salt and Vinegar Chicken Thighs

I was planning on having my cousin and his girlfriend over for dinner one night, but then Bill went to 12 hour work days and scheduling a dinner date was next to impossible.  I had planned to make Greek-Style Chicken and had bought the extra chicken thighs and all, so I needed a new recipe to use up the surplus.  Although my family loves the Greek-Style Chicken, we don't want to eat it constantly!  I have recently been experimenting with brining, and it does make a world of difference!  This chicken came out so moist and tender!  It was delicious!  And for any of you that know me, I am so not a fan of chicken, especially dark meat!  As I've gotten more and more acclimated to making dishes that are healthy and totally from scratch, I've gotten more adventurous.  There are so many "spices" that don't come dried in cylindrical containers!  I left my chicken marinating for 2 days, but you can leave it marinating for far less than that.  Just make sure you marinate it for AT LEAST and hour.  Your are also going to save 1/4 of the marinade.  The chicken will cook in it for a half hour.  Then just use a baster to drain all of the marinade from the baking dish.  

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 6 chicken thighs (I used bone-in, skin on)
• 1.5 cups of apple cider vinegar (you can substitute for white vinegar if you don't have cider)
• 1 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 teaspoons of seasoned salt
• 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons of minced garlic

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the apple cider vinegar, vegetable oil, egg, seasoned salt, black pepper and minced garlic.  
2. In a baking dish, lay chicken thighs in a single layer and pour marinade over them.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to 2 days.
3. Preheat oven to 350º.
4. Transfer thighs to a glass baking dish, and pour 1/4 of the marinade over the top.
5. Bake chicken for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, drain the marinade from the baking dish and return to over.  Bake an additional 15-25 minutes.  Until the juices run clear and the skin is nice and brown and crispy.  Chicken thighs should be cooked until the internal temperature is at least 165ºF.

Fried Chicken

It seems like every time I have chicken thighs, I make Greek Chicken.  While I personally love my Greek Chicken, change is also very good!  I NEVER make fried chicken, the closest I ever come is oven-fried chicken.  I'm personally not a huge fan of poultry, but I figured Bill would love the change of pace, and he did!  He actually LOVED this chicken! It does take a while.  I made my own buttermilk, it's easy enough and you can find the recipe from this oldie but goodie:  "You can catch more flies with honey than VINEGAR, assuming you want to catch flies!", it's located under the cooking and food uses.  You can soak the chicken in the buttermilk anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours!  I soaked mine for about 5 hours, obviously the longer you soak, the better.  Just lay the chicken flat in a shallow dish, pour the buttermilk over it, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.  I fried the chicken thighs in the pan and oil for the whole time, but I think next time I may just fry them until the outside gets crisp and then bake them the rest of the way.  It took me about 50 or so minutes to fry them, which seemed drastically long because they weren't all that thick to begin with!  

Makes about 4 servings

Ingredients:

• about 5-6 chicken thighs, roughly 1 1/2-2 lbs total
• 1 cup buttermilk (store bought or homemade, look for the recipe above)
• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2-2 tspn of seasoning salt
• 1/2 tspn chili powder
• 1/2 tspn ground black pepper
• 1/2 tspn garlic powder
• oil for frying

Directions:

• Soak the chicken in the buttermilk, as explained above, for desired time.

• Combine the flour and the spices in a large resealable bag.
• Drain the thighs and put into resealable bag, one at a time.  Toss to coat.  This is a fun part for your child to help with!  Mine did, and had a blast!  

• Shake off excess flour and put on a wax paper lined baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining thighs.  Let stand for 15-20 minutes.

• Heat about 1/4" of oil in a large fry pan.  Fry each side until a deep golden brown.  (Next time here is where I would drain the chicken on paper towels and then I would bake until cooked through).  Cover and cook for 30 minutes, turning occassionally to keep from burning.  Uncover and cook for about another 15 minutes, turning to prevent burning until chicken is cooked through.  

• Drain chicken pieces on paper towels.  Serve with your favorite sides!

Blackened Tuna Steaks

For awhile now I've been toying with the idea of making a blackened chicken dish and hopefully as warm weather approaches, I will gain some courage and attempt to make it.  We had the opportunity over Lent to get some real good tuna steaks, and I didn't want to do the "tried and true" ways of preparing it, like most no-fail fish dishes: broiled with lemon.  Don't get me wrong, it's DELICIOUS that way, but I'm becoming a more adventurous cook!  I've only had blackened catfish before, and it was very good, so I figured blackened tuna would be just as good; and it was!  For those of you, who are like me, and are frequent flippers, FIGHT THE URGE!  This needs to cook 4 minutes on each side!  At 4 minutes, it is medium, if you want it more thoroughly cooked, cook for another 2 minutes on each side.  Longer than that, your fish is going to start to dry out.  We had gotten four pretty thick tuna steaks, and while the cajun seasoning wasn't that spicy the day of, after sitting for 2 days, there was a decent kick!  There is also a blackening seasoning, I have not tried it, but if you do, please feel free to leave your feedback!  It is always encouraged and appreciated!  Also, while I didn't experience this, you may encounter a lot of smoke while cooking this.  It is very encouraged to open your windows and turn off your smoke alarm while cooking!  Afterwards, please remember to turn that smoke alarm back on!

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 tuna steaks
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 2 TBSP butter
• Cajun seasoning (about 1/4-1/2 TBSP for each steak, you're going to sprinkle both sides with the seasoning)

Directions:

• Heat oil and butter in a pan over high heat.
• Coat both sides of each tuna steak with cajun seasoning.

• When oil is hot, near smoking, add each steak and cook for 4 minutes on each side (1 or 2 minutes longer if you want it more well-done)