Which came first...

Chicken and drop biscuits or dumplings

I recently cooked 'Chicken Fricassee with Dumplings' from Guardian Service Tested Recipes cookbook that I thought and had been told was from the 1950's, since it had no date inside.  As I began prepping the chicken I realized that I had cooked this recipe before. After cleaning up, I retrieved my 1936 Magic Chef cookbook and it had the same recipe idea with a couple changes.

My family loved the 1950's version of the recipe instead of the one I had cooked before, so I assumed on taste that it had been updated throughout the years. I looked online and I saw a picture of my 1950's cookbook that actually dates it back to 1930. The recipe my family and I thought had been improved upon was actually written 6 years before the 1936 Magic Chef.

Until I find out for sure which one came first, I'll leave it up to you to decide which is tastier...

1936

Stewed Chicken with Drop Biscuits & Gravy (1936)

Temperature, 275 degrees; Time, 3 hours 

then

Temperature, 450 degrees; Time 15 to 20 minutes.

Cut 3 1/2 or 4-pound chicken for stewing. Place the pieces on a rack in a roaster. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of salt over it. Pour 2 cups of boiling water in the bottom of the pan and cover. If the cover has a valve, open it. Place in the oven at 275 degrees for 3 hours.

When the baking period is completed, remove the pan from the oven, pour off excess fat and save the broth for the gravy.

Have ready a biscuit mixture made as follows:

Biscuits

2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons fat
3/4 cup milk

Mix and sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the fat. Add the milk and mix to a soft dough. Drop by tablespoons on the chicken. Place the chicken and biscuit mixture in the oven at 450 degrees and bake uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes.

While the biscuits are baking, prepare a gravy.
Gravy
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 tablespoons butter
broth

Mix the flour, salt, pepper and butter. Add the hot broth and enough water to make 3 cups of liquid. Stir and cook on the surface burner until the mixture reaches the boiling point. Serve hot over the chicken & biscuits

Yield: 6 servings.

1930's ?

Chicken Fricassee with Dumplings(1930)?
Time: 1 1/2 - hours. (Serves 6)
4 - 6 lb. Stewing chicken
1 small onoin
2 sticks celery
1 carrot, sliced
2 sprigs parsley
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 bay leaf
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup cream
Finely chopped parsley

(1) Singe, wash, dry and cut chicken in serving pieces, dip in flour.
(2) Place 2 tablespoons fat in roaster, add chicken, brown over medium heat.
(3) Barely cover with boiling water. Add onion, celery, carrot, parsley sprigs, peppercorn and bay leaf (or may be prepared without browning, then omit step 2).
(4) Bring to boiling point, cover roaster, reduce heat to very low until chicken is tender. Add salt the last half hour of cooking period.
(5) Remove chicken to the preheated serving platter.

Gravy

Strain broth and return to unit over a low flame. Stir in cream slowly, thicken with about 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup milk combined to a smooth paste. Pour gravy over chicken, sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Dumplings:
2 Cups flour
3 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon butter
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Sift flour with baking powder and salt, mix in butter. Beat egg and add milk. Stir into dry ingredients. Batter should be quite stiff. Drop by spoonfuls on top of chicken. Try to find pieces of chicken to park dumplings on. They will be lighter if not soaked with gravy. Cover roaster, raise heat to 1/4 flame. Bake for 20 minutes without lifting cover. Remove cover, lift dumplings to serving platter, sprinkle with finely chopped parsley or chives. Arrange chicken in center and pour over gravy. Serve bordered with a mound of prepared rice, dumplings or noodles around outside of platter. Baking powder biscuits or cornbread work well.

*If you don't want to cut up the chicken yourself, buy one that's already cut into pieces.

*Both recipes are good, but I found that 2nd recipe that added the vegetables, flour and fried lightly sealed in more flavor.

*Both recipes say you can pour gravy over the biscuits turning them into dumplings, but I chose to leave them dry. (My son has SPD and there are certain food textures that bother my son. If I had poured the gravy over the biscuits the soggy texture would bother him).

 

Have fun cooking either one recipe or both.

 

Victory in the Garden

Victory Garden - 2013

Finally! Victory in the garden. I had done it. After some time of being unsuccessful, I grew not one thing, not two, but 8 garden beauties. I grew 2 types of Tomatoes, Basil, Oregano, Pumpkins, Hungarian peppers, Jalapenos & 1 little Cabbage. This is my post on what I went through trying to grow a garden and my need for earning my vintage gardening patch.

I had many reasons as to why I wanted my own 'Victory Garden'...it brought back memories of gardening in California as a child with my grandmother, an excuse to buy vintage gardening hats, new place to take pics, gardening is relaxing, teaching my kids about fresh produce, saving money, possibly even canning for winter, all good reasons. Personally I felt that growing a successful garden would somehow earn me a "Vintage gal gardening patch". Little did I know that was a long ways away....

First area I picked was behind my garage & very small. I don't know what I intended to grow in such a small spot, but I had refused to ruin the openness of my large backyard. When I began digging I found just about every little thing that could be found in the backyard. My neighbor pointed out that the previous owner was a junk collector and tossed his trash in the backyard. Nothing grew! Too junky. That patch is now our dog run. 

Second area was all the way back of my yard. I dug it, used an old window screen to thoroughly clean the soil. My neighbor suggested I cut down some branches for more sunlight, but I felt guilty cutting into my beautiful big trees. Okay, my neighbor was right. Nothing grew! Not enough sun. This is now my firewood area.

Third area. Third time a charm? No! Too muddy. This is now my compost area.

Fourth area. I can't even remember why it didn't work. After this last try I just concentrated on planting flowers in my front yard. Hostas, what a confidence booster they are. Wow can they grow!

I'm a vintage gal in every other way, clothing, cooking, sewing, decorating and every time I wore or made something I felt I was earning a patch in vintage accomplishments. As a Girl Scout dropout I knew the importance of badges, after all I'd earned 4 or more like 3 before I left. This gardening patch was tougher to earn than I thought and the "I can do it" attitude was waning.
A couple years went by and my neighbor had been moved into a nursing home. New neighbors moved in and they began digging their garden. Gardens to the left of me, gardens to the right of me. My competitive nature came out and I thought there's no way I can let myself be the only one without a proper garden.The new neighbors unknowingly gave me a push to try again and so I did. I took what I learned from the previous tries and I went for it. Again.

First - I realized that having a big beautiful garden wouldn't ruin my spacious yard, but would add to it. 

Second - I finally had enough sunlight. Due to past storms, we had lost some trees. No guilt in cutting them down.

Third -  I built a proper fence, something I hadn't tried before. I asked the hubs to let me do it myself after we both realized, that his center mark is different from mine when measuring for a garden fence.
When I had finished digging, screening, building, decorating and finally planting, I waited & waited anxiously for the first sprout to come through. It was tough, but somehow I knew I would have something this time. I just knew & I did!  Seeing the tiny little red tomato hanging on the vine felt incredible. My family was proud of me and I was proud of me. I had done it!!

Thanks to the support of my family, friends, neighbors tips and vintage gal motto 'We Can do it'! I did. I had earned my vintage gal "Victory Garden patch" and it was real. I got one every time I picked off the vines in my new garden and they were delicious.

Hungarian wax peppers

Plum tomatoes

Good harvest

A picture before I finished the entry door.

I found two vintage gate doors & chair for decoration.

In the background is my first garden attempt...now a dog run.

A not so ripe Pear

My very first Tomato.

Homemade pasta sauce

Ration Bread Pudding

Delicious Bread Pudding

I recently had to postpone a 1960's Mad Men party, due to very bad winter weather. Luckily, most of the food I was going to serve would keep until needed, but not the large loaf of bread I had purchased for my retro Fondue. I had already cut it into cubes and was just about to make the Fondue when the cancellations started coming in. I set the bread aside until I could find a recipe, so that I wouldn't have to throw out the stale bread. I looked through my vintage cookbooks and other vintage sites for recipes that were authentic and simple. I finally found a recipe on one of my favorite blogs...'The 1940's Experiment'. I had to change it a little, when I realized I didn't have the exact ingredient portions, but the recipe is so delicious that it didn't make a difference.

       Ration Bread Pudding

• 10 ounces of stale bread. Cut into medium sized cubes
• 2 ounces of melted margarine or butter
• 1 ounce of Sugar
• 2 ounces of Raisins
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of Cinnamon
• Milk about 1 ounce. Enough to moisten bread.
• extra sugar for a lite sprinkle topping

Place bread in bowl and add about 2 tablespoons of water. Just enough to fluff the bread, but not soak it. Set aside. In another bowl beat egg lightly with fork, till well blended. Add butter, sugar, raisins and cinnamon. Mix well with fork.

Squeeze out any extra water from bread, if any. Add milk. Fluff bread, then add rest of the ingredients together and mix.

Pour into greased pan 9 inch square pan. Half way through baking, Sprinkle a little sugar on top.

Bake at 320 till lightly browned around edges.

*If bread is too wet, cut back milk or too dry add a little more.

*You can use any stale bread. Just make sure to remove any toppings that would ruin the sweetness of the raisins and cinnamon.

*Remember that this is a rationed ingredient bread. If you would like, you could add more cinnamon, raisins or sugar to taste.

Titanic steerage supper

RMS Titanic

The Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank after colliding with an iceberg on April 15,1912 at 2:20 am on her way from Southampton, UK to New York, US. There were 2,224 passengers and crew aboard the ship, more than 1,500 died. There were not enough lifeboats to hold their total of passengers and the lifeboats that were available on the ship were not filled to maximum capacity. The Titanic sent out distress signals, the Californian saw the flares, but failed to assist and any other ship at sea were too far to reach her in time. The Carpathia, however did respond to the Titanic distress calls, but did not reach the Titanic until 4am, by then only 710 passengers were rescued from their lifeboats. The survivors were then taken to New York. It would be weeks before family members were given full information on their loved ones whereabouts.

I knew about the Titanic, read a couple of books and had seen the many movies made about it, so when I read about the Titanic Steerage supper at the Midway Village Museum I thought it would another unique way to learn about it.

Front entrance display

On March 19, 2011 my husband and I attended the Midway Village Museum 'Titanic Steerage Supper'. This was the first big event we had ever attended at the museum. We were a little nervous, we didn't know anyone there, but we were excited to meet new people and learn more about the Titanic.

The museum did a fine job in making it an interesting & fun learning experience. As you entered the building they would check you in by stamping your tickets and then asked some questions that would've been asked at the time. "Do you have lice"? I was taken aback, I didn't expect him to ask that. I hesitated for awhile and then wondered if he would let me in for taking my time answering him. He laughed that he had caught me off guard and then went on to explain what other things that would have been asked or done at the time before boarding. Thank goodness, I didn't scratch my head! Doesn't everyone itch at the mere mention of the word? The power of suggestion.

Inside the dinning room there so many beautifully dressed people. Some outfits were grand and others were simple, but they were all wonderful to look at and they really set the scene for the rest of the night. There were several tables with a variety of flags to represent the passengers heritage, a menu, a mini quiz, a listing with the passsengers names and background. They served dinner, had historic presentations and then ended the evening with dancing to Celtic music.

I didn't find out about the dinner till 1 week before, so I didn't have time to sew anything. I went to the thrift shop and bought my skirt, blouse and my husbands vest. I already had the flat cap, shawl, boots and vintage cameo.

Titanic boarding tickets

Dinner menu

My husband in our kitchen.

My husbands "Ugh, she's going to make me dance" face.

Last minute outfits

Made friends with sweet and very knowledgable ladies.

Water Street Bridge Band

Beautifully dressed couple

Dancing

Loved their outfits

My Photos

I enjoy taking photos of anything that catches my eye. I take them everywhere I go, when my husband is driving, walking the dog, picnics with the kids, antiquing, etc.. I try to notice every detail in everything I come across no matter what it is. My father would always tell me "Look at something, take it apart in your mind, then go back and look at it again as a whole. Your going to realize how much you missed". 

Chicago building

Honeycomb house

Spider Art

Gorgeous green

Downtown bridge

Chicago rooftop

Vintage memories

Unicorn in the sky

Squirrel!

Spinning Christmas lights

 

First year review

Well, it's been a year since I began writing my blog and even though I knew it wasn't going to be easy and it wasn't, I still went ahead with it. My family and friends pushed me to start blogging and even though I had no computer skills at all, I was curious to see if I could do it. Then I read about Pinterest, Instagram, Gmails and everything else that went along with blogging and I worried some more. Was it a bad idea? Maybe, but I wanted to learn something new and maybe this older Hispanic vintage gal could bring a little something to the blogger world., and so began every vintage gals chant "Yes, we can"...um, maybe.

The "Maybe this was a bad idea" moments.

• The first time I opened Blogger, I realized how little I knew about computers & what I little I knew was not going to be enough. It truly wasn't as easy as changing my music on my old MP3, so said the little voice in my head(I have an iPhone now. Wow, those skinny little things hold a ton of music). I had stayed away from many modern items and the computer was one of them, but I never thought that I would try to enter the blogging world. It took months before I could download my pictures or even post something without my yelling for my husband or daughter for help. I was afraid of hitting the wrong button and destroying some important file.
• I learned that my thoughts didn't easily translate to what I wrote. My finger was constantly hitting delete, write, delete and write again....Delete! I spent so much time trying to get the perfect blog post, that I ended up with no posts. I'm surprised I posted anything at all. A whole year, less than forty posts and the reason some of those made it..I ended with stitches after hurting my finger when moving firewood I had just chopped. No delete button!
• It felt like a bad idea when half the year had gone by and I had not added any blogging buttons, no daily posts, or tutorials. I froze, chills every time I sat before my computer. I even drank a glass of Champagne to loosen up, another glass, then for some reason the bottle was empty. Tiny bottles.

The "I can do it"  moments.

• I needed a photographer & it ended being my 11 year old daughter. We not only found out that she liked taking photos, but she was great and calmed my nerves about how I looked in the photos. We've had some funny moments..my almost falling over a log as I backed up or she almost ending in the pond looking for the right angle. I don't fear the camera anymore just falling.
• I learned that I have a great support system. My family & friends listened when I need to vent about computers. The owners of the shops I frequent, were always read to help out with anything I needed and offered any advice on any topic they could.
• I learned that I can do it when one night I stayed up late to write a post and the tried to link it. No one was up at 3am, so I went for it and...I threw my arms up in the air. Yay! I had done it all on my own, not once or twice, but five times. 
• I can do it! When my link helped my Facebook page go up to 20 likes, strangely enough my blog stayed at 5. Add them together and that's pretty cool.

Well, there you have it, my own review on the first year of my blog. I know it needs work and having less than 40 posts in a whole year is not much, but it's more than I thought I would have. This blog may not have the best this or that, it's not perfect and neither am I. As someone that takes things out of the trash and sees some beauty in it to repurpose, it's because I look beyond it and see it's imperfections, the crooked lines or the odd way it feels, but it's an original. There is probably not another one like it and how cool is that. This something that I have to learn to apply to my blogging.
My blog is odd, quirky, strange, missing cute little buttons and pretty little background, but I will get there. Can I do it? Yes, she can!

Shop Small

Support small shops!

Small Business Saturday is November 30th. This is the day when we can show our support for our community by shopping at local small businesses. I thought I would make a small list of my favorite places to shop.   

TresYours Vintage

Vintage Wear

TresYours Vintage Corner - If you have read my blog or viewed my Facebook page, you know that I can't stop talking about TresYours. It may look small tucked in the back corner of the Rockton Antique Mall, but I have easily spent more than three hours in there. You can go in and  put together an entire outfit for any occasion you may have - dresses, handbags, jewelry, hats, shoes, even stockings. The clothes are clean, they are from all eras and are well priced. You can even shop from the ceiling if you look up and notice all the beautiful vintage umbrellas hanging upside down.

Rockton Antique Mall

Antiques

Rockton Antique Mall - The first thing you will notice is the long inviting front porch. Once inside you'll realize why it's called a mall, it's huge! When I first went to the mall, I would walk past everything and not stop to look at anything, my focus was on the clothes and nothing else. I finally slowed down to look at the rest of the vendors and I have found some interesting items for my home and as gifts. It will take you most of the day to really get a good look at everything in the mall, but it will be well worth it. 

Angela's Attic

Angela's Attic - Angela's happens to be directly across from the Rockton Antique Mall and is just as big. The old factory is split into two sides with the main desk in the center and then split into separate spaces for different vendors. They even have a backyard that is opened in the summer with many cool weathered items that are placed on every surface available, so it makes for a fun hunt. Some areas have items hanging from the ceiling, so don't forget to look up or you may miss some awesome finds.

Bargain Barn - (Not pictured) This large building has antiques, records, coin area & even homemade crafts. There is also a second floor with a variety of items hanging on the stair wall as you go up.

A Lovely Reprieve

Jewelry

A Lovely Reprieve - If you don't buy vintage jewelry for fear it may fall apart due to age, or it's simply too expensive, but you still need something to complete your vintage look, I suggest A lovely Reprieve. Their jewelry is handmade, beautifully crafted and have a vintage look. If vintage isn't the look your after, the same piece adapts well to a modern outfit. It saves you money to be able to buy one piece that goes well with any look you want to wear.

Culture Shock

Records

Culture Shock - Once you notice the pickle shaped wine stopper, record shaped coasters, cool t-shirts, cute dresses & hear the cool music in the background, you just can't help being in a good mood. They carry vintage records from different eras as well as the current modern bands. They just recently moved to a larger building directly across from the old building and now have even more space than before to fill with happy.

Other suggestions-

Tillymint's Antiques

The Antique shops of Rockton

 

What I love about shopping small - 

You will find, fun, interesting, collectibles, homemade, one-of-a-kind items that will make for a more interesting find. Plus, who doesn't love saying their item is an original and know that it didn't come from a table that had a hundred more of the same thing.

You get to know everyone and it makes for a nice enjoyable shopping experience. In one certain shop, I can't start my shopping if I don't get my hug and a little chat. 

You know where your way around. I'm not saying things don't change, but there certain areas that must stay and that helps. I have more than once, had to run inside to grab something for a party, gift or even for myself when I regret not buying something at the time, so it helps to know where to find it.

There are more reasons as to why I enjoy shopping small, but I hope that maybe you will come up with your own reasons on November 30th.