Hello Everyone!
Today's Frugal Femme is a post about failure and a recipe. Don't worry, the recipe is not the failing part of the story. The recipe is actually very simple yet delicious. No, the failure part is about me and some metal/wooden ducks.
When I was a child my sister, cousins, and I used to play in my great grandmother's basement. This was a win situation for everyone as it kept us kids out of our grandmother's hair, (In case you were wondering, yes, this is the same grandmother that was the inspiration for my vintage skin regime.) and allowed us to feel like we were not being constantly supervised. Which we loved. To make the basement more interesting (and, yes, this was before home video games were really a thing and VHS tapes weren't around yet, let alone dvds or home computers) my great grandmother stocked the basement with items that she thought kids would have fun playing with. We had empty spice tins and pots and pans that were no longer used in the kitchen to pretend like we were cooking. There were boxes filled with vintage clothing (some that I would kill to own today) that we could play dress up in. There were vintage board games, card games, and Twister and my mother's Barbie, Skipper and Scooter dolls complete with pink case and outfits on tiny hangers that grandma had pulled down from storage for us to play with.
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| I remember this had a place for Skipper and Scooter on either side of the box and, in the middle, they each had their own closet and drawer so that you could hang their clothes and store their accessories. It was a little girl's dream. What strikes me now is ALL of this was vintage - even then. It came from the 50s and 60s and were items that she had held on to from two generations of children (my grandmother and mother) and were now being played with by a third generation of kids. And the basement was decorated in the same style. All of the furniture, including the television was from the 1950s with some throw-ins from the 60s and I WISH I had it now. But one of the things that stuck in my memory the most from the decor of this room was the ducks. Along one of the walls were three wooden ducks flying along the wall - each with a different wing design. I loved these ducks! And I decided, recently, that since I live in a home built in 1965, it would fit right in if I could find those ducks. They couldn't be that expensive right? WRONG! I don't know why these ducks are so much, maybe their age, but if I had to make a guess, I would say that it is because they were featured in Mad Men. (A show that I still need to watch. I haven't seen even one episode.)  Here are the ducks of my childhood as seen in the show Mad Men. Apparently, that is Herman "Ducks" Miller on the phone. Being on a limited budget, I couldn't afford the ducks that looked like new and were already refurbished- those cost $200-$350 - so I decided to look for some fixer uppers and hope with a little elbow grease I could make the turn out alright. So here are my ducks.  They didn't look too bad and, after reading a post on fogmodern.com's blog on the restoration he did on his ducks, I felt I was prepared to try it myself. Taking his suggestion to use Brasso, I dug through my cabinets and found some Brasso. Unfortunately, my Brasso was about fourteen years old and it did nothing. You would think that my next thought would be to get some new Brasso and try that. No friends. That is not how my mind works. It is how my mind should have worked but I decided to do another homemade way to clean brass that I found online from Bob Vila. He said to clean brass, use one part salt, to one part flour, to one part white vinegar and this will clean your brass. Eureka! So I set to work.
 I then slathered that all over the wings of my ducks and, per his instruction, left the concoction on their wings for an hour.  He then said to rinse with warm water and your brass would be clean. Ummmmmm.... That is not what happened for me. They did get cleaner but they looked worse! One of the ducks even had an area on his wing where there was a circle of bright brass and then there was a black spot. It looked terrible and stood out even more than it did before the ducks were cleaned.  I'm not going to lie. I panicked. I should have purchased new Brasso and tried seeing if that would have fixed the problem. Instead, I decided to paint them. DON'T DO THIS!!!!! In general, you shouldn't paint vintage things. It just isn't something that you should do. If you learn nothing from Antiques Road Show you learn this mantra - don't paint vintage and antique items. But, in panic mode, I decided to paint them. And I don't regret the decision, but....... yeah. They look.......meh. Not horrible. But not great.  I have decided that I am going to put them up as they are for right now. I just don't have the willpower to sand the paint off and try Brasso on them. I'm sure they will start irritating me within a month and I will sand them and try to polish them again. And the good thing about that is, that it should be cooler by then and I can work on them outdoors without dying from heat stroke. So, if that happens, I will post those pictures for you.  But, since I am doing a post about mid-century ducks, I thought why not do a classic recipe that involves chicken? So the promised recipe from last post is going to Chicken a'la King - For Two. Chicken a'la King - for Two Most Chicken a'la King recipes call for heavy cream and are for four or more people. I almost never have heavy whipping cream in my house- unless its a holiday, and I am only feeding two people, so I decided I needed to modify this classic recipe a little. Also, I thought it was a little bland, so I changed that a little too. Chicken a'la King has been around since the 1880s, but it really grew in popularity during the mid-century. Although no one is sure who invented the dish and many claim the honor. Some of the old recipes have sherry and truffles in them. A far cry from the dish seen in 1950s cookbooks, but a variation I definitely have to try - but not in this recipe. It can be served on pasta, rice, bread or biscuits and also usually has peas in it. I hate peas. My husband isn't too fond of them either. So we nix the peas in this recipe, but if you love peas, feel free to add them back in. Ingredients 2 tbsp. onion, diced or minced (can substitute shallots) 1 tbsp. celery, diced or minced 1 clove garlic, minced 1/4 cup butter cubed 2 tbsp. seasoned flour (recipe for flour below) Sprinkle of Creole seasoning to taste 1/2 cup chicken broth 1/2 cup sour cream mixture (instructions below) 1 cup cubed or shredded cooked chicken Instructions 1. If you don't already keep this in your pantry, as I do, prepare your seasoned flour. This can be a mixture of any herbs and spices that you like. I usually make more than I need for a recipe and then store it for things like breading pork chops, etc. but you be you. Here is what I make: 1 cup flour (sometimes 2, it depends on my mood) 1 pckg. (envelope) Lipton's Garlic and Herb Mix 1/2 tsp. black garlic powder 1 tsp. dill 1/2 tsp. Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute 1 tsp. onion powder (optional - depends on my mood) 1/4 tsp. Creole seasoning Put that all in a bowl and mix with a fork until it is all combined. Will store for several months in an airtight container in the cabinet. Set your flour mixture aside for later. 2. In a medium to large skillet melt the butter over medium high heat. When butter is melted, lower the heat to medium and add the onions and celery. Saute until crisp tender, usually about 5 minutes. 3. While the onion and celery is cooking, prepare your sour cream mixture. In a measuring cup, measure out slightly less than 1/2 cup of sour cream. Add about 2 tbsp. milk or water. What you want to end up with is 1/2 cup of sour cream that is the consistency of heavy cream. You may have to add more milk/water but do it slowly in small increments and remember that you only want to use 1/2 cup of the mixture in the recipe. Set aside. 4. Stir flour mixture and garlic into the pan and stir constantly for about 5 minutes. (You want to almost make a light roux, basically you are trying to cook out the raw flour taste.) 5. Gradually stir in the chicken broth and sour cream mixture, using a whisk and making certain everything is smooth before adding more liquid. Once everything is combine raise the heat to high and add the chicken. 6. Bring mixture to a boil and then reduce to medium heat and simmer until sauce has thickened to desired consistency and chicken is heated through. (This is usually between 10 and 15 minutes but could take more or less time. Go by how thick you want your sauce.) I sometimes add about a half tsp. dill and about 1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper at this stage, but sometimes I don't. It depends on my mood. I have never had to add flour to make it thicker, but if you need to, make sure that you use it sparingly to get the consistency you want. A little will go along way. 7. Once sauce is the desired consistency, remove from heat and serve. Serve over whatever you would like. My husband likes toast or biscuits. I like pasta or egg noodles. Its your choice really. Well, there you have another easy Frugal Femme recipe. Like I wrote in the previous post, I am going to try to post more regularly so, hopefully, you will be seeing Frugal Femme posts at least every other week. Bye for now! |
