Thursday, January 31, 2008

so right and yet sooo wrong....

Ok, because this is my little space to journal my goings-on in the kitchen, it is only natural that my first real post will exhibit a culinary disaster. Ey curumba is the phrase of the day. However, at the end of the day, we had something edible, and I guess I can consider that a victory after all.

Today, I will tell the tale of the homemade noodles for good ol' fashioned chicken noodle soup. Thanks to Deanna Ebbert for her family's legendary recipe!
It all started simply enough:

HOMEMADE EGG NOODLES:
4 beaten eggs
3/4 tsp. salt
2 1/4 cups flour

Put all ingredients in food processor and pulse until a hard ball forms (stiff, not sticky). If dough is too dry you can add 1 Tbsp. water at a time until right consistency. Roll out very thin on a floured surface and lightly dust with flour. Cut into strips and slice thin. Or if you have a pasta bike, you can use that (I love mine!!). Add slowly to soup.

But, things got a little hairy once I attempted to use my brand new pasta roller.

I'll spare you the gory details, but imagine the dough going in, then coming out in gooey globs...then imagine the roller itself starting to rotate in circles, flinging the gooey globs to various destinations throughout the kitchen. Then imagine my little toddler starting to wail and demand to be picked up, sensing the terrible kharma in the room. Yeah, um, the instructions didn't specify what to do in this scenario...hmm...

However, I did march onward in my soup quest. I would not let the pasta roller defeat my can-do attitude!
Here's the rest of Deanna's recipe:

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

1 large chicken (or 2-3 chicken breasts - that's what I use)
8 cups water (I usually do about 12 cups because some evaporates during the simmering and the noodles absorb quite a lot)
chicken bouillon-lots (since I don't use a whole chicken, I have to use lots of bouillon to get a good chicken flavor)
2 carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped or sliced (I think I generally tend to add more than this of all the veggies because I like to have lots of veggies)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper, to taste
parsley, to taste
homemade egg noodles

Simmer chicken, vegetables, and seasonings in water until meat is tender, about 1 hour. Let meat cool slightly in broth. Remove meat from bones (or cut/pull apart breasts) and return to broth. Make noodles. Bring soup to boil again and add homemade noodles. Let cook on high heat unti lnoodles are tender. Serve over mashed potatoes and enjoy!

You can use canned chicken broth instead of the water and bouillon if that is what you normally use. I just don't usually buy the cans of broth and I always have a huge thing of the bouillon paste stuff from Sam's Club, so I use that and water. I like mine to have a very strong chicken flavor. You can also add any other seasonings that you like - I sometimes add in random things that hit me at the moment.
[I threw in a bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme, then took them out later]

I rolled out the noodles, cut them with a pizza slicer, and threw them in. At this point, I had an all-out grumpster of a son who burst into hysterics everytime I attempted to put him down. Subsequently, I boiled the living daylights out of the noodles, which, in turn, formed into homemade rubber. Ahem. I ditched the noodles, but really enjoyed a comforting bowl of chicken soup. It was a good thing. I kind of needed something comforting right then.

Monday, January 28, 2008

l'ecole gastronomique

Well, this really is for me, and I doubt anyone other than myself will read it. I really have been busy, experimenting in the kitchen, and I wanted a place to record different food experiments, modifications, lessons learned, etc. I always forget what I've done in the past, so this little food diary may be a great place to remember the good and bad from the kitchen.