Recipe: Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic (in only 30 minutes)

Fabulously French, easy to make, and the perfect main course for any winter evening is my version of Chicken with 40 (more or less) Cloves of Garlic. If you have a working fireplace and a cast-iron skillet, you can make this poetry-in-a-pan on the open hearth, as I do. Or, accomplish all at your stovetop. Either way, the entire process takes only 30 minutes from start to finish.

Ingredients for 4 servings:
2 or 3 heads of garlic, cloves separated but not peeled
8 skinless, boneless, chicken thighs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Olive Oil
Fresh thyme
1/4 cup dry Vermouth
Salt and Pepper

Special Equipment:
For fireplace cooking, use a well-seasoned, cast-iron skillet, preferably 12-inches in diamter, and with a tight-fitting, glass (Pyrex) lid; for stovetop preparation, use any large skillet with a lid

A small saucepan, for poaching the garlic

Poaching the Garlic
In the saucepan, poach the unpeeled garlic cloves in boiling water for exactly 10 minutes. As the garlic poaches, brown the chicken.

Browning the Chicken Thighs
Be sure the chicken is well-dried or it will not brown properly. Set the skillet over moderately high heat; add one tablespoon each of butter and oil. When it is very hot but not smoking, lay in the chicken pieces. (Do not crowd the pan: there should be a little air space between each piece for proper browning; do the chicken in 2 batches if necessary.) Turn the chicken every 20 seconds or so until a rich, brown color is achieved.

Finishing the Cooking
Drain garlic, and then pour the cloves over the chicken thighs. Add salt, pepper, and three or more stems of fresh thyme. Cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid, and let the chicken mixture simmer, over moderate heat, for 20 minutes or until juices run clear.

Making the Glaze
Remove chicken and garlic to a platter, and keep it warm. Pour vermouth into the hot skillet, and boil it down rapidly, all the while scraping up coagulated juices from the bottom of the pan. When the liquid is reduced to the syrupy stage, swirl in a tablespoon of butter, to smooth out and enrich the glaze. Toss in a tablespoon of butter, and swirl it around until melted. Pour the glaze over chicken, strew on addition sprigs of thyme, and serve immediately.

Eating the Garlic
To eat the unpeeled garlic, pinch with the fingers the pointed tip of a clove. Out will come the garlic in a smooth, flavorful paste. You can spread this creamy goodness on rounds of French bread, or, if you are calorie-conscious, on chicken pieces.

Open-Hearth Cooking:
Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic is really easy to make in front of a fire (it is also tastier, because of the increased caramelization that is inevitable with fireplace cooking). On the hearth, arrange two bricks about 10 inches apart, and shovel red-hot embers between them. Then set the frying pan on top of the bricks. Proceed exactly as for stovetop cooking, adding or withdrawing embers to increase or decrease heat. If you have a flame-proof saucepot, you can poach the garlic at the hearth, too. Otherwise, do your poaching at the stovetop, and accomplish all else at the fireplace.

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African Violets: Divide & De-Sucker for Better Flowering

My white-flowered, no-name African violet is going under the knife today. Why? Because it no longer looks attractive. It has produced -- as all saintpaulias eventually do -- multiple crowns and a series of little offshoots, or "suckers." These two things wreck the parent plant's symmetry. They also interfer with flowering. A little surgery, artfully performed, will restore the plant back to its original, single-crowned glory. And the surplus crowns and suckers? These can have lives of their own.

A saintpaulia with more than one crown can be separated into a number of smaller, individual plants. Let it dry out a little before the operation. Dry roots are easier to cope with than wet ones. First, remove the plant from the pot. Then spread the plant out on a newspaper and gently but firmly pull the sections apart. If roots are stubbornly entwined, use a pen-knife to sever them. In the photo above, I was able to get two divisions without any trouble at all. Later, a third division was cut away with the aid of a pen knife.

When a division is removed with at least some roots attached, the next step is to plant it in a 2- or 3-inch pot (above). With plenty of surface room, it will soon develop large, handsome leaves and maintain an open crown from which a constant parade of flowering stems will spring forth. Use any light, porous soil.

If, however, all roots are lost, additional surgery will be required. Reduce foliage until the division is nothing more than a tiny rosette of leaves (below). Then plant into a 2-inch pot, using the same soil soil as before.

Suckers growing out at the sides of the crown are another source of new plants. Let them attain enough size to get hold of (and make sure you are removing a sucker, not an oncoming flower), before cutting them away with a pen-knife. Roots attached or not, plant them in 2-inch pots.

When you have a great number of rootless suckers and divisions, it pays to create a little nursery for their convalescence. I find the hinged, plastic container that hydroponically-grown Boston lettuce comes in makes an ideal hospital (above). I fill the container's shallow, bottom portion with slightly damp soil, insert the rootless plants, and then close the lid. Divisions and suckers revel in the humidity this container affords, and soon produce roots. When new foliage is evident, the plants are withdrawn for separate potting.

Such is the surgical procedure that turns one plant into many. And each one of these, with good care, will exhibit the kind of "show-quality" we all want: a perfectly symmetrical rosette of leaves, topped with a full, and continuous, bouquet of blooms.

Incidentally, the surgery on my one African violet returned a total of 8 plants. Where will they go? Why, on my list of gift-plants for unsuspecting friends!

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Groundcovers in the House

Did you know that certain groundcovers, among them Pachysandra terminalis (above, click to enlarge), will gladly adapt themselves to winter life in indoors?

Cuttings of pachysandra will produce not only a terrific houseplant, but an elegant centerpiece, too. I snip a dozen stems from garden in early November. Inserted into a floral frog, which is placed in a round, blue and white soup tureen filled with water, the cuttings soon grow roots and send up fresh, pale green growth. The effect is attractive for both dining and coffee table. The planting is also lovely in the window garden, in association with paperwhites and ferns. Pachysandra will thrive in any bright but cool location. Refresh the water weekly, and shower the foliage frequently with cold water to keep aphids at bay.

Vinca minor (above and below), commonly called "periwinkle" or "myrtle," will also live happily indoors. Cut stems any length you like, and remove the lower inch of leaves. Then insert the stems into a 4-inch pot of average soil. I will never forget the pots of vinca that resided one year on brackets at each side of my east window. They flourished all winter, framing the window with cascading masses of small-leaved greenery studded with blue flowers. You can make this portrait of periwinkle, too, in any window that is sunny or merely light. Just be sure to spray the vines weekly with cold water to ward off pests like aphids and red spider.

English Ivy, Hedera helix, can be clipped from the garden, and grown in the same manner as vinca. Cut the stems in late summer, however, before cold weather toughens them. I gather vines in September, and let them soak for a week in a bucket of water on the front porch. This helps acclimate them to indoor life. Lengths of ivy, of course, are marvelous to have for flower arranging.

I've heard that European Ginger, Asarum europaeum, will easily adapt to a double life. If, in your garden, you happen to have this evergreen groundcover, simply dig up a small clump and pot it in humusy, well-draining soil. Placed in a bright window, asarum will send up its glossy, kidney-shaped leaves all winter long.
I recently lifted a small, rooted section of Blue Pimpernel from the garden. This Anagalis monellii is a shrubby, annual delight here in zone 5-b, and a spreading, perennial groundcover where winters are mild. I'm hoping my pimpernel project is a grand success, and that in midwinter it will trail from a bracket, the medium-green foliage bedecked in flowers of the truest blue. Well, I can dream!

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November Brilliance: The "Thanksgiving" Cactus (Schlumbergera truncate)

Not all cactus plants come from the desert. The one I treasure most comes from the mountains of Brazil, where it grows, like the orchid, in the crotches of trees. I'm referring to the oft-mislabeled Schlumbergera truncate. From late October through November, this "Thanksgiving" cactus puts on a show that mocks every other resident of the window garden, when some two dozen fuschia-like flowers drip from all the leaf tips which cover the five-inch pot. If you don't already own one of these beauties in purple, pink, red, yellow, or white, why not obtain a fine specimen now? Your florist is sure to have one already in bud or bloom at this time. And what an investment! The plant increases in both grace and dignity with each passing year.

Unlike desert cacti, truncate is all the better for a humus-rich but well-draining soil. My own three florish in two parts leaf mold and one part perlite. A commercial potting mix, if it drains well, is as good.

For better growth, and hence more blossoms, I pamper my cacti during the warm-weather months. They lounge and luxuriate on the shady and sheltered front porch all summer long , and I keep their fountainous growth coming along with every-other-day waterings, and frequent applications of all-purpose plant food.

Summer is also the time to pinch off segments to encourage branching. Broken segments, 3 to a 4-inch pot, can be rooted for new plants. These often flower their very first year.

Truncate, like the poinsettia, produces its flowers in response to shortening day-lengths. In September all food must be withheld, and watering decreased to once weekly. Bring the plant to a cool, dim windowsill in October, and leave it there until every leaf tip is lit with color. If your plant refuses to set buds, give it long, 12-hour nights in a dark closet for thee weeks, and only dim light during daytime.

When buds begin to open, bring the cactus to a light, cool place, and preferably on a perch of some sort where its pendulous stems can freely cascade. Here at a Garden for the House, purple 'Majestic' goes on a plant stand set somewhat back from the sunny southern window in the parlor. Rose 'Amethyst' and carmine 'Maria' observe the world from old-fashioned lamp brackets in the library and music room window gardens. Cool temperatures and weekly water insure a lush and lengthy bloom period that lasts from four to six weeks.

When flowering ceases, decrease water and move the cacti back to the sunny window garden. That is, until warm weather invites its return to a shaded, sheltered position outdoors.

Florists commonly mislabel the Thanksgiving cactus, Schlumbergera truncate, as the Christmas one. The true "Christmas" cactus is Schlumbergera bridgesii. Here is how you can tell the difference between the two (even if your florist can't): Truncate has two or three jagged points on every leaf segment, and its bloom time, under natural circumstances, runs from late October through November. Bridgesii has smooth, not jagged, leaf segments, and typically flowers in January or February.

The Christmas cactus is very difficult to find these days. But that's not a problem, because the Thanksgiving-type offers a much broader color-range than its orangey, late-blooming relative. You might enjoy one of these truncate varieties:

Purple - Christmas Charm, Christmas Magic, Sabrina, Majestic
Yellow - Gold Charm
White - Snowflake, Snowfire
Rose-Pink - Lavender Doll, Amethyst, Sonja, Lavender Lady
Red - Kris Kringle, Red Radiance, Maria, Koeninger, Norris

If you have any questions or comments about this cactus that mitigates all of November's dullness, please post them below.

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What To Do in November

I wish I'd never heard that old, but so-true adage "Leave the garden in the fall the way you want to find it in the spring." Yes, I'm aware that every weed pulled now, every hosta cut back to the ground, and every clean-up operation completed before snow will count against the spring pandemonium. But by season's end my desire is rest, not work. Nevertheless, November's labor pays rich rewards in April:

OUTDOORS

Leaves. Don't throw these out, unless you prefer to pay for soil later on. Rake, shred, and compost them. And I hope you don't have a lone hold-out, like my beech tree. This one sheds its gold burdens long after the maples and other deciduous trees, making timely clean-up around here nearly impossible.

Tulips. It's not too late to set these out. Water them well to hasten root development before the soil freezes solidly.

Iris. After a hard freeze, mulch new plantings lightly the first year. Only in really cold zones is mulching necessary in subsequent years.

Hellebores. Dig in a little bonemeal around the plants. Also, give them a top dressing of compost.

Hostas. Cut back to the ground. Refrain, however, from dividing and transplanting at this time; you'll have better success if you wait until spring.

Hoses, Faucets and Gutters. Store hoses in cellar or garage, drain faucets and clean out leaves from gutters. Hire someone, if you can, to accomplish these three essentials in one fell swoop.

Gravel Drives. Rake smooth to avoid frozen ruts later, and insert markers while you can still pound them into the ground. Heavy iron stakes with reflectors make good guides for snow removal, and keep most, though not all, thoughtless drivers from parking on lawns and beds.

Boxwood. If new plantings are of dubious hardiness, either cover with burlap or spray with WiltPruf. WiltPruf is an antitranspirant that protects against both sun- and wind-burn. Hardy varieties like 'Winter Gem' need no protection at all.

Roses. If you live in zone 5 or colder, like I do, be prepared to work. Once the top two or three inches of soil has frozen, mound soil, shredded leaves, or compost up a foot or more around plants. Don't pull soil out of beds, but bring it in from another location. I cut only the most exuberant canes back to keep them from whipping around in the wind. To be safe, avoid further pruning until spring.

Vegetable Beds. Harvest Brussels Sprouts at mid-month (if you have a recipe for these delicious little cabbages, by all means send it to me!). Soil has undoubtedly settled in vegetable boxes; better replenish now with compost, finely shredded leaves, or a mixture of equal parts manure, top soil and sand. Don't dig the new material in; leave on top for further composting over winter.

Infinitely more pleasurable are the indoor gardening chores:

African Violets. Give plants in windows a quarter turn every other day to keep them shapely. Plants under fluorescents do not require turning, but they do need more food and water.

Amaryllis. Why not treat yourself to one of the gorgeous, big-flowered King's Court varieties? Start it out in a warm, dim spot, and water sparingly until growth is about 6 inches along. Then move to a cool, sunny place.

Bulbs. Potted or vased bulbs in cold storage need weekly checking for water. Don't let roots dry out!

Thanksgiving Cactus. Mine is now fully in bud; perhaps yours is, too. Water and feed this Schlumbergera truncate weekly while it blooms.

Calla-Lily. Pot the yellow ones now for Easter bloom; they take about four months.

English Ivy. Drench weekly at the kitchen sink to avoid attacks of red spider and aphids.

Kalanchoe. For Christmas bloom, provide twelve to fourteen hours of darkness for three weeks before Christmas. I put this short-day plant in the dark guestroom closet from 6PM until 8AM.

Paperwhites. Plant at mid-month for Christmas flowers.

Chinese Sacred Lily. For a yellow and white New Year's bouquet, plant bulbs at mid-month.

Scented Geraniums. If, in October, you joined me in planting slips of scented geraniums, these are fully rooted now. Pot the young plants separately in three inch clay pots. What nice gifts these will make for the December holidays.

Finally, sit by the fire and enjoy my favorite Butternut Squash Soup!

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Autumn Vistas

A boy needs a breath of fresh air every now and then. Consequently, I took a break from writing about my indoor gardens this morning, in order to photograph the colorful ones outdoors. The lawn here is a thick mat of brown, fallen leaves, courtesy of the ancient sugar maples on the property. But until my giant, 200 year old copper beech (above) gets with the program, fall cleanup will have to wait.

Next to the front porch, Lilac 'Avalanche' makes a golden sculpture

There is no finer chrysanthemum than the late-blooming 'Helen.'

Following two major rainstorms, water has at last returned to the Hudson River tributary behind my Woodland Garden.

A towering maple in the Woodland Garden

The Rose Garden, fountains turned off for the winter

One of several blueberry shrubs, their verdant foliage now cloaked in vermillion and gold.

In the Serpentine Garden, spring-blooming Witch Hazel now wears its autumn dress

I have a bumper crop of quince this year. Anyone have a recipe to share?

I hope the autumn color is lovely where you are, too. Have you already raked your leaves, or are they still falling?

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Flowers & Foliage for a Bright North Window

A north window needn't be dull. Here, Tolmiea, Davallia fejeensis, pachysandra, philodendron, wax begonias and African violets all flourish in my bright but sunless kitchen window. Click to enlarge.

What, exactly, would I grow in a north window that receives not one hour of direct sun, but stays bright for most of the day? Almost any foliage plant will thrive there. For flowers – and I must have flowers – there are African violets, wax begonias and impatiens. Florist’s plants, too, if fully budded and ready to bloom, can provide long-lasting color. Or, sun-loving plants can be brought to the budding stage under fluorescents, and then moved to the window as they bloom. The following list, arranged in a seasonal-sequence, shows the glorious possibilities for the sill and frame (and, if you have them, the shelves and brackets) of a bright but sunless window garden.

September-October

Frame (all seasons). Philodendron scandens or Grape Ivy, Cissus Rhombifolia


Sill. Ageratum (lifted from the garden); ferns (Boston, Rabbit's Foot, Asparagus); pachysandra cuttings, rooted in a handsome China bowl; Chrysanthemums and Asters from the florist.

Shelves. Impatiens, Wax Begonias, African Violets, stems of philodendron in colorful glass vases.

Brackets. Maranta, Tolmiea menziesii, Hedera helix, Tradescantia

November-December

Sill. Narcissus paperwhites, forced in bowls of pebbles and water; ferns, pachysandra. For the holidays, arrange Poinsettias, Paperwhites and African Violets on a bed of evergreen boughs.

Shelves. Miniature poinsettias, impatiens, African violets, kalanchoe

Brackets. Maranta, Tolmiea menziesii, Hedera helix, Thanksgiving cactus (Schlumbergera truncate)

January-February

Sill. Azalea, ferns, pachysandra, forsythia branches, forced in a big vase, primroses (Primula obconica, P. senensis), Chinese Sacred Lily forced in pebbles and water. Pots of tulips and hyacinths obtained from the florist.

Shelves. Primula malecoides (the "fairy" primrose), cyclamen, wax begonias, kalanchoe

Brackets. Maranta, Tolmiea menziesii, Hedera helix, Ceropegia woodii, Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera bridgessii)

March-April-May

Sill. From the florist: Easter lily, gardenia, gloxinia. Ferns, pachysandra, caladium. Forced branches of apple, crabapple.

Shelves. African violets, wax begonias, impatiens, coleus. Also, any of the myriad shade-tolerant annuals available from the florist or garden center at this time.

Brackets. Maranta, Tolmiea menziesii, Hedra helix, Ceropegia woodii, Oxalis

This list, of course, is by no means complete. But I can only write of the plants which I have grown myself, successfully, in a bright, north window.

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November Brilliance: Schlumbergera Truncata (Thanksgiving Cactus)
Setting Up a Window Garden
Indispensable Vines
African Violets: My Easy, Always-In-Bloom Program
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