Pasta Puttanesca

We don't eat a lot of pasta, but lately I've been craving a lighter pasta dish.  Generally, I love marinara and bolognese sauces, but don't really dig putting them on pasta - I'd rather put them over some spaghetti squash.  This time, I felt like pasta, but didn't want one of those heavy sauces, so I did my own version of Puttanesca.  It's mostly traditional, but a little of my own preferences thrown in there.  Came out really delicious.  When I minced together the garlic, anchovies, sun dried tomatoes and olives, it looked like a tapenade of the Gods!  I just wanted to spread it on some garlic toast!  Admittedly, I was spooning some of it onto the tomato halves, sprinkling some basil on top, and munching them that way as I was cutting them in half, heheh.  The dish was really quick and easy to make!

I was reminded the other day that I hadn't used anything from Rancid's new album with one of our recipes.  So here is another Rancid Recipe - the title track, "Honor Is All We Know".  -jen

PASTA PUTTANESCA
Prep Time:  10 minutes
Cook Time: 10-15 mimuntes
Difficulty:  Very easy
Serves:  4-6, depending on serving size

• 6 large garlic cloves
• 6 anchovy filets (I'm inclined to use the whole 2oz can)
  
• 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, diced
• 1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives (or green, or black, or D-all of the above)
• 12oz dried pasta (your choice: spaghetti, bow tie, rotini)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-5 large scallions, diced (about 1/2 a cup)
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 
• 3/4 cup dry white wine (or chicken broth)
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
• 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
• 1/4 cup pasta water
• juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup basil, chopped or julienned
• 4oz Romano cheese, crumbled

Bring large stock pot of salted water to a boil while preparing the following steps.

Mince together garlic, anchovies, and sun dried tomatoes.  Roughtly chop the kalamata olives right into the minced mix.  Set aside.

Add pasta to boiling water, bring back to a boil, and then turn down to a low boil, cooking 6-8 minutes until al dente (still slightly under-cooked.  Pasta will cook more in skillet.)  Drain and reserve 1/4 cup of pasta water.

Heat oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep skillet.  Saute scallions and red pepper flakes for 1 minute.  Add white wine and simmer for 2-3 minutes, until wine has cooked down by half.  Add grape tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the minced garlic, anchovies, sun dried tomatoes, olives and the rinsed capers.  Cook for 2 more minutes or until sauce is reduced and thickened. 

Add pasta to skillet mixture with 1/4 cup pasta water.  Cook another 1-2 minutes (sauce will mostly absorb into pasta).  Remove from heat and toss with lemon juice and zest, basil, (a dash more of wine, if you like,) and crumbled Romano.  Add salt and pepper to taste (careful with the salt since the olives, capers and cheese will add a lot of salt).  Serve immediately while hot, however, it is quite tasty left over cold, straight out of the fridge.

Chicken Piccata

One of my favorite dishes from my youth.  My mother didn't, nor did anyone else in my family, cook anything piccata but one of the jobs I had for a couple years in high school was as a waiter and they had veal piccata on the menu.  I used to get it quite regularly and as I've gotten older I've done fish piccata every so often when I get the craving for that butter fat, lemon, white wine tanginess.

The dish is pretty simple and versatile so, as I stated before, you can use pork, veal, chicken, or fish for this recipe as piccata refers to a style of preparation as opposed to a specific protein or sauce.  Pounded, breaded, fried, and served in sauce.  I generally use snapper or sole when I do fish and have done pounded out pork tenderloin steaks as well so mix it up if you like.

And to accompany this delicious dish I went with a classic song from a classic punk group who I'm shocked to say, has not yet been featured in a recipe of ours.  These guys are also a flashback from my youth because it was my high school days when I first heard Agnostic Front and it may very well have been this song, "Gotta Go".  I know it was one of the first that I'd heard from them so it's fitting that I go all the way back to sophomore or junior year. - justin

CHICKEN PICCATA
Time: 40 minutes
Difficulty: medium
Servings: 3-4

• 3-4 chicken thighs, deboned, skin removed, cut in half
• 1cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 tbsp butter divided into 2 tbsp halves
• 1 cup onions, minced
• 2 tbsp capers
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup white wine

Preheat oven to 350.

Pat your thighs dry with some paper towels.  Toss your flour and panko in a gallon zip lock bag, along with some salt & pepper to season it up.  Beat your egg and water together to make a little egg wash.  Dredge your half thighs in the egg wash and toss inthe flour and bread crumbs to coat.  Set aside until all are done.  allow them to sit while you heat a large skillet to medium high heat and add your olive oil and 2 tbsp of the butter.

Brown the chicken on both sides until the breading starts to crisp up.  Place the thighs on a sheet pan in the oven for 10 minutes to finish them up.

While the chicken is in the oven, toss the onions in the skillet with all the drippings from the chicken.  After 5 minutes or so, when the onions should be translucent, add the lemon juice, the white wine, and the capers.  Simmer for about five minutes and when the chicken is done add the last 2 tbsp of butter to the sauce and stir it in as it melts.  When the butter is all incorporated, serve the chicken and drizzle the sauce all over the servings.

Italian Chopped Salad with Dressing

In keeping with Justin's summer theme on the last post, I made this fantastic summery vegetable salad with a homemade Italian dressing.  I'd been feeling like raw veggies lately, and one thing with veggie salad is that it's usually cut into large pieces that you can fit two, maybe three veggies on the fork.  I wanted this salad chopped a little smaller so that I got all the flavours with every bite.  It reminds me of a large-chopped relish.  But it was really good... especially after it sat refrigerated overnight.  And it's versatile!  The first night, we just ate it in a bowl.  The next night, we sprinkled it onto lettuce greens.  I was thinking it might be tasty warmed and served on crustini, too!

When we make olive oil and vinegar based dressings, we usually just whisk all the ingredients together and you get big bits of dried herbs.  It's always good, but I was thinking about the dressing packets you can buy at the store, so I took all my dry dressing ingredients and blended them into a fine powder with our herb grinder and then used the stick blender to blend it into the oil. It came out good, so you could do it that way... but for the ease of those without herb grinders or stick blenders, I posted regular blender instructions

As soon as I started thinking about posting this salad as a summer salad, I got The Atari's "Boys of Summer" song stuck in my head.  Well really, it's Don Henley's song, I guess, but it's their version that got stuck on repeat.  It's a little poppy... but so was the original, and I still like that one too. :P  -jen


the Ataris - boys of summer by dairygalpal

ITALIAN CHOPPED SALAD WITH DRESSING
Time:  15-20 minutes prep
Difficulty:  Can you handle a knife?
Serves:  About 6, as a side dish

• 3 medium zucchinis (about 2 cups), large dice
• 2 carrots, large dice
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 orange bell pepper, large dice
• 1 cup crimini mushrooms (about 7), large dice
• 1 medium shallot, diced 
• 3 green onions, diced
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1 and 1/2 cups mozzarella (12oz), diced
• 1/2 cup rough chopped green or kalamata olives 
• 1 can (15oz) garbanzo beans, drained
• 1 can (15oz) red kidney beans
  
• 3 teaspoons capers, drained
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 and 1/2 cups Italian Dressing (see recipe below)
• 1/4 cup pepperoni, diced (optional)

Place all ingredients into a large bowl.  Toss with dressing.  Serve at room temp.
Note:  I'd have put some fresh herbs in this if I'd had any on hand, but since I didn't, I didn't want to put it in the recipe.  Maybe 1/4 cup chopped basil or flat leaf parsley.

ITALIAN DRESSING
Time:  7 minutes
Difficulty:  E-Z
Makes:  1.5 cups

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Accent or MSG (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 cup olive oil

 In a blender, combine all dry ingredients and vinegars.  While blending, remove the middle spout of your lid (most blender lids have these) and very slowly drizzle in the olive oil so that ingredients emulsify.