Two Vinegar Chicken

With all the tomatoes from the garden, it was time to make Two Vinegar Chicken. The original recipe was one my daughter found in the New York Times. I have modified it a bit, substituting items I always keep in my pantry. The texture and flavor of the chicken reminds me of Coq au Vin, without taking the whole day to make. This is special enough for company but easy and healthy enough for everyday.

Ingredients:

2 - 3 pounds of chicken, bone-in or boneless, white or dark   

salt and pepper to taste     

1 - 2  tablespoon olive oil                                           

1 tablespoon butter                                                 

1/2 cup chopped onion                                           

1 teaspoon chopped garlic                                          

1/4 cup white wine vinegar                                    

1/4 cup red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar   

1/2 cup white wine  

1 and 1/2 cups chicken broth  

6-8 medium tomatoes chopped (may substitute canned tomatoes, drained)    

1/3 cup evaporated milk or heavy cream                                                                 

Your Favorite Pasta 

Heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet. Use a medium high heat so the chicken will brown nicely. I strongly recommend a cast iron skillet to make clean-up easier. But that did not happen to be an option for me this night.

While the oil is heating, salt and pepper the chicken.

Brown the chicken in the oil. I used boneless chicken tenders, but cut-up chicken or boneless thighs are great too. My only advice is to keep the pieces small (not a huge, bone-in breast). That way the flavors can permeate the meat.

Turn so the chicken will brown on both sides, usually 4-6 minutes per side. The butter is what gives the chicken the rich brown color.

Throw in the chopped onion and garlic. Saute until translucent.

If your skillet is too full of chicken, you can remove a few pieces so the onion can actually reach the surface of the pan. That's what I have done here.

Add the 2 vinegars and de-glaze the pan. That just means you scrape the yummy bits from the pan. Then add the wine and chicken broth. (If you took out any chicken, just add it back in now.) Cook uncovered on a low simmer until the broth is reduced by half, about 20-30 minutes.

Just a note on vinegar. The original recipe had red and white wine vinegar. I have used balsamic and fruit vinegars with great success. Feel free to use what you have, even if you just use one flavor. But the vinegar should be wine-based - not that plain white stuff (too little flavor) or apple cider (too different a flavor). 

This step will finish cooking the chicken and give it the most amazing flavor!

Add chopped tomatoes and continue cooking for an additional 5 - 10 minutes. 

Once tomatoes are falling apart, add 1/3 cup of evaporated milk or heavy cream. Cook an additional 5 minutes, until sauce is thicker. 

I don't know about you, but I only have heavy cream on special occasions and keep evaporated milk in the pantry at all times. In addition to being on hand, the milk is lower in fat. Now it is an everyday dish, not just special occasion. (Believe it or not, the cream is actually a thickener.)

Toss with your favorite pasta, cooked according to package directions. 

Serve with a green salad and some crusty bread to impress your discriminating diners. 

This is great the next day, so I always make enough for 2 meals, possible now that I don't feed teen-age boys. It is easy to warm in the microwave or just eat cold.

I was a bit impatient to get dinner on this night, so mine is a bit soupy. But by the time we had finished dinner, the left-over pasta had absorbed all the extra sauce. Also, I only used half a box of pasta. If I was feeding a crowd, I would have doubled the pasta without doubling the recipe (if that makes sense).

Happy eating!

Let me know how your recipe turns out.

The House in the Garden - Chapter One

Before the Great Remodel

The story began on a Monday morning in June of last year. Ever since our Colorado home had sold several months earlier, I had gotten in the habit of checking the listings and sales on Realtor.com, frequently 3 times a day. I went to every open house in the neighborhoods we were considering, studied the market and promised Hubby that I would patiently wait for the perfect house.

Then this popped up that morning:

The House in the Garden

This link contains the very photos that I was looking at that morning.

Thoughts were flying through my head as I searched the pictures and data. First, this is an amazing price for a house this size in Arlington. Second, either this is a weed infested yard or an overgrown treasure. Third, looks filthy but very interesting. Finally, this will go fast!

So I did what any logical person would do - I drove over. The pictures indicated that the house was vacant, so I started to walk around the side of the house and look in the windows. Half way down the path, I called Hubby and said, "I think I am in love."

He joked, "I hope it's not another man." 

He was in Colorado for the week, so I called one of his business partners to show me the house. Within an hour I was in the house, talking about writing an offer. 

By the time I went to bed that night, we had written a full-price offer, scheduled to close in 4 weeks. ...And I already knew that we were only one of the four offers made on the house that day.

The next morning I woke up, nervous that the sellers would choose one of the other offers. It was time to play the sympathy card. I wrote a sappy letter to the sellers and described our family, giving special attention to our disabled son. The house would be perfect to remodel for a wheelchair, and he would love to roll around in the garden. It was all true.

When word came back that all the potential buyers were to give their last-best offer, I reluctantly said, "The offer we made is our last and best." Then I tried to forget about the house, assuming we would lose it because I refused to get involved in a bidding war.

SURPRISE! They chose our offer. 

When Hubby arrived back in town, our first order of business was to go see the house. He had already accused me of wanting the house because of the garden and was prepared to criticize it. But half way through, he said, "This is a great house." 

The Redfin listing shows what the house looked like before we did anything. I am sharing with you what we did immediately after purchase just so we could rent the house.

We pulled up the filthy, greenish gold carpet that covered the original hardwood floors. Not sure if they were salvageable, we just rolled out cheap, new carpet. The walls had so much grime on them you could see the outline of everything that had hung on them ... with 1000's of nails and hooks. Also the walls, trim and ceiling were all the same color, so none of the details stood out.

This is looking back to the front door. Paint color did not photograph well from this angle.

This kitchen is the worst part of the house. First, you have to walk through the narrow galley kitchen to get to half of the house!! That doorway at the back has a dryer sticking a good 6 inches into it ... and an 8" step. The cabinets are tacky '60s era laminate with cheap boxes.The drop ceiling makes it feel even more claustrophobic. The only thing I liked was the little rooster curtain that hangs over the sink. I washed it and rehung it after painting the cheap wood siding on the walls.

After walking through that horrible kitchen and utility room (what were they thinking??), the nice little sun room has a vaulted ceiling, 2 skylights, and a nice view of the garden. The floors are just that fake wood stuff, but the nicest floors in the house. We painted the cheap wood walls.

Then you go up two small steps to get to...

what is called a study on the original floor plan, but looks more like a dining room to me.

If you look through the listing photos, this room was red - red walls, red carpet, red ceiling, red trim. RED. And the heavy drapes (floral, not red) did not help much. The bay window has amazing views of the garden and the distant hills of south Arlington! This is my favorite room in the house.

The main floor bedroom is a very nice size. But one of the windows is blocked with a window air conditioner and the other 2 have broken seals so you can't see through them. 

The bathroom is just ugly and has poor craftsmanship everywhere. 

There are two bedrooms upstairs, neither one particularly interesting to look at. We will be removing the window air conditioner, refinishing the original hardwood floors in them, and adding back some closets that were removed years ago. Decorating will be the big change.

This is the upstairs bath, which we had to redo immediately. The floor had a junky laminate that was popping up, revealing rotting wood. Since we had to redo the floor, we (meaning Hubby) replaced the ugly vanity with a classic pedestal sink. We finished it off with white bead board and the original brass towel bars that I polished. 

If you are floor plan person like me, this will help you get an idea of what we have to work with. Notice that there is a workshop, accessible from the outside, between the living room and the sun room. That will be important in the next chapter.

Stay tuned for Chapter Two - the new floor plan and maybe some demolition since we now have our building permit!!

Organizing the Garden Shed

Organizing all of hubby's tools and my gardening things has consumed every free moment for the last two weeks. But I actually did have fun coming up with creative and economical solutions. I am very proud to say that everything was accomplished for $10.

The metal shelving was left by the sellers when we purchased the house. The wooden shelves were picked up for free by the recycling bin in the high-rise apartment we lived in when we first moved to D.C. Random hooks, towel holders, a wall shelf, and a strange cabinet/shelf thing were pulled out of the kitchen and laundry area. All the tool boxes have been acquired over the years.

So this is how I started.

Even with the tool boxes, we had more stuff that needed to get organized. I had the idea to use all my old cat food and laundry detergent buckets since they are sturdy and easy to open. (I am a grandchild of the depression and never throw away anything that might be useful. My children are rolling their eyes right now.) At this point, I made my one-and-only purchase, a $10 quart of chalkboard paint. 

The side of the can listed the surfaces you could use the product on - virtually everything except plastic. But I am a rule breaker, so I taped off the area I wanted to paint and got busy.

As long as I carefully removed the tape, the paint stuck. 

Meow, meow, meow, meow.

I also painted strips on the plastic tool boxes because what was written on them in Sharpie years ago often did not line up with the contents. 

Every plastic container was given the same treatment, including an old, red kitty litter box that now holds gloves! Hubby is obsessed with gloves.

For years we have just stuck our rakes and shovels in a sturdy, unused trash can. They were always a mess. So hubby used a scrap of plywood to make a round separator that fits inside, with blocks of wood screwed on to keep it flat.

I am pretty lazy and would have skipped this step, but hubby wanted the tools to be held upright.

He then cut another round piece that sits over the top, with 3 tabs and blocks that stabilize it.

 A little close-up.

And here's the finished product.

Now fully loaded.

Since our yard is so small, we have an electric lawn mower. Extension cords need to be accessible. The solution is a pair of old dish towel hooks from the kitchen.

There is even room for our gardening hats on the hooks.

I used 2 old closet hooks and an old length of copper pipe to create a holder for tape, wire, and string. Just for your info, any tapes with adhesive will be stored inside during the winter months. They don't like to be frozen.

I also had a couple of over-the-door racks left from the kids' college days. They fit perfectly over the rafters and slide easily out of the way. This one holds work lamps.

This one holds caps.

I left just enough space between the shelves to hold my step stool and a small ladder.

I also used the extra shelf bolts to hang the huge wrenches.

You can see the step stool and the ladder between the shelves.

I painted the vertical front strips of the wooden shelves to identify what goes where. Hubby has the special ability to never remember where he found something when it is time to put it up. I am hoping this will help.

I also used it to point to areas where seldom used items are tucked behind things - like left-over tile and the chain saw.

I found a cheap towel bar somewhere in the house and hung it inside the door.

I folded some light-weight wire into quarters and twisted to make S-hooks for hanging whisk brooms and a small broom on the rod. Then I added a vintage towel.

I think this was my grandmother's. Very 1940s, stained and worn. A perfectly charming rag!

Another fun vintage item to hold pencils, markers, scissors, etc. It is just cardboard with a metal bottom, but I love the patina.

There is not a lot of contrast and the light from the window made it difficult to get a good picture of this simple wooden shelf that I hung above the little window.

I used black, gray, blue and white paint to create a chippy finish. This is not generally my style, but I thought it would be fun in the garden shed. The bottom side is probably the most important part.

I used an old pottery pitcher of my mothers to hold some ivy that I am rooting and will use to make some topiaries.

Here you can see the long ivy vines draping over the rafters. They will be perfect for wrapping around the frames.

And right under the ivy is my potting bench. (Hmm, I wondered where that green glove was.)

Next to the potting bench is a strange shelf recycled from the laundry area. I have also used chalkboard paint to recycled a tea tin, a round candy box, and two plastic containers. The dog biscuits are to win over the neighbor's noisy dog.

I love my gardening corner.

Now the inside feels as neat as the outside!