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)

1-2-3 Shrimp Scampi!

This year I've become more adventurous in what I make on Fridays during Lent.  This week I wasn't quite in the mood for fish, and one can only eat so much pasta, so I decided to branch out and cook a shrimp dish.  This was seriously the easiest thing I've ever made, and it was DELICIOUS!  Serve over rice, pasta, roasted potatoes, whatever your favorite starch is!  We served this over wild rice because we had it on hand.

Serves 8

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup lemon juice (fresh squeezed is the best, it's juice for approximately 3 lemons; but you could probably use lemon juice concentrate, such as Real Lemon)

 
Eoin helped me hand-squeeze the lemons!

• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 tbsp and 1 tsp of minced garlic
• 2 lbs of medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• ground black pepper, to taste
• crushed red pepper, to taste

Directions:

• In a large bowl, take the olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, garlic, black and red pepper and whisk together. Add cleaned shrimp to the mixture and toss to coat.  Put in the refrigerator and let marinate for at least a half hour.

• When mixture is done marinating, add to a skillet over high heat.  Cook until the liquid boils and the shrimp turn opaque.  

Spinach, Scallion and Provolone Quiche

I haven't posted a breakfast recipe in awhile.  Usually we either have fried or scrambled eggs with corned beef hash or bacon.  Last week I bought a container of cottage cheese, and fully intended to eat it.  Well that was until Friday came around, and I came to the realization that it was just going to go to waste.  I decided instead of wasting it, I would make a quiche for breakfast one day over the weekend.  The joy of making quiche is that you can use whatever you have in your fridge!  I added spinach, scallions (green onions), garlic and provolone to mine.  This very may well be the only way I get my son to eat spinach at the moment!  Since it was on a whim, it was also crust-less.  I am intrigued about all the future flavor combinations that I can try, and will definitely be adding them to this post as I try them!

Makes about 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 (16 oz) container of cottage cheese, I used small curd but you can use whatever fat content and curd size you prefer
• 1 (10 oz) package of frozen, chopped spinach; thawed and liquid squeezed out
• 1 bunch of scallions (green onions), white parts only, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of jarred minced garlic
• 1/4-1/3 lb of slicing provolone, ripped into bite-sized pieces

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325ºF.  Spray baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, beat eggs.  Then using a large spoon, add and mix each ingredient to the bowl.  Pour into prepared baking dish.

• Bake uncovered for about 35-40 minutes.  Mixture will rise slightly and start to brown.  Let stand about 5 minutes, serve.

Homemade Baked Tortilla Chips

Homemade tortilla chips are seriously THE EASIEST thing to make! You can fry them, but for a healthier version, I bake mine. You can season them however you want, toss them in a splash of lime juice, salt them; whatever your heart desires! All you do is take a large tortilla (you can use corn, whole grain or whole wheat); cut the tortilla into eight pieces (cut in half, stack, in half, stack, and in half). Put the tortilla wedges into a bowl and season with a drop of olive oil and whatever seasonings you like. I used salt and chili powder. Then spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Bake at 350ºF for 5-10 minutes, until you get your desired crispiness. Serve as a side to homemade salsa or guacamole! If you use a whole pack of 10 tortillas (most large tortillas come in pack of 10-12), you'll get 80 chips!

Valentine's Day Toddler/Preschool Crafts

So every once in a while, someone will ask me for ideas for arts and crafts to do with their child.  Usually, I don't do anything all that notable.  I am a Nanny to two 20 month olds, and my son is only 25 months old; so I can't do anything all that intricate.  I already have ideas of what I want to do next year and the year after, but I try and break down most of what we do to the simplest form, so it's not too overwhelming for them.  Plus, I don't want to do the same thing year after year, then it just seems like a chore for me!  Here are three Valentine's Day crafts that we have recently done.  They all came out so incredibly cute, and the kids were so proud of themselves.  The last craft is from Parents Magazine.  Usually I'm intimidated to even try the crafts they have, but this looked like something I could do!  The only thing I didn't like about this craft is that, although the kids glued everything down themselves, it still looked like they had help from an adult!  Aside from creating and cutting out all the parts, all I did was put glue on the back of each part!  They did the rest!  It still came out really cute nonetheless!

(This is actually copied from an email I just sent out today) 

Today Eoin's going to do a simple, cut out a white heart and let him fingerpaint it red, but we also did a few more intricate projects:

1.  Valentine's Day Wreath:

We took a paper plate (ours was pink, but any color will do) and cut the middle out.  I have a stash of multi-colored paper scraps so I cut out a bunch of different sized hearts.  The kids I watch are 20 months and Eoin is 25 months, so I do the gluing for them.  I just put a single line of glue all around the perimeter of the plate and then let them put the hearts all over.  I added more glue as necessary.  Then at the end I let them pick out a glitter glue color and just put a little trail all around it.  

2.  Valentine:

I cut one scalloped heart out of white paper (if you want to be even more creative, you can use a coffee filter or doily) Then cut a pink heart smaller than the white.  I have a heart hole punch, if you don't have one, just cut tiny hearts out of different color paper.  Glue the white and pink hearts on a piece of red paper.  Then take a paintbrush and spread glue over the two hearts.  I used the tiny hearts as confetti and let the kids sprinkle them onto the glue covered hearts.  You can also sprinkle glitter over the glue covered hearts.  While that dries, trace two hand prints on orange paper.  I wrote "I ♥ Mommy" on one and "I ♥ Daddy" on the other.  When the hearts dry, then glue the hands onto the paper.

3.  Stuck on you:

I got this one from Parents Magazine:

I included pictures of the step by step process.  

For the frog's body:  Fold the papper in half, then fold in half again.  Draw a half-heart against the folded corner, making sure that the top and side edges align with the folds.  Cut out, unfold, and flatten.

Cut 4 legs as shown, 2 at an angle about 5" tall and 2 straight about 4" tall.  Punch 6 hearts and glue to ends as feet (again, if you don't have it, just cut tiny hearts out) Glue legs under big heart, and bend larger legs at the knees.  Trace spoon handle on pink paper, cut out , and glue inside of mouth.  Cut 2 2" dark green and 2 1" light green (I used yellow) ovals, glue together.  Draw pupils; fold edges of ovals, and glue to top of head.