Monday Moanin'

I could feel every step I had taken up and down that step ladder, cleaning the gutters Sunday, on Monday morning!

When I got home from work, I immediately started making some egg noodles. If you remember my first attempt, the texture was good, but I didn't think the taste was "eggy" enough. But this new recipe calls for four egg yolks. Seems like that should do it!

So, I sifted two cups of four, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder. Then I mixed in the four yolks, "until the dry ingredients are moistened." Uh oh, first problem: not all the dry ingredients are moist. I can't form the ball they want me to. Luckily, I had saved the whites, so I added enough to get all my ingredients moist. I cut the ball of dough into quarters and rolled each quarter out on a floured surface to about 1/8 inch thick. Then I cut them about 1/2 inch wide and two inches long.

I set them on a dish towel in a sheet pan to dry (these have to dry for at least two hours before you boil them).

At that point (6:00 PM) I cleaned up the flour mess, got my book and, since I can't make the soup now until 8:00, headed for the couch.

At 7:30, I started chopping the veggies. This is a fairly simple, fool-proof recipe (unless you are a fool like me, lol!) So, I peeled and sliced two carrots, then two celery stalks, a medium-sized onion and three cloves of garlic. Oh, and I deviated from the recipe and added eight ounces of thick sliced Cremini mushrooms. That all went into my stock pot after I heated two tablespoons of olive oil to medium high heat. I cooked and stirred that about 5-6 minutes (you want the veggies softened, but not brown). I also added a bay leaf and four sprigs of fresh thyme.

Here's where I made a mistake. I was supposed to add two quarts of chicken stock to the veggies, bring that to a boil, add 8 ounces to dried wide egg noodles (or fresh-made ones, in this case) and let that simmer for five minutes until the noodles are done. Then you fold in 1 1/2 cups of cooked shredded chicken, simmer another couple of minutes until the chicken heats through, season to taste and top with fresh flat leaf parsley (finely chopped).

But...

I got to worrying about all the loose flour on those homemade noodles. Would it thicken my beautiful stock too much? Would I have gravy instead of soup? So, instead of bringing the stock to boil, etc, I got out more stock and boiled the noodles in a separate pan, drained them, added them to the stock pot and then added the fresh chicken stock and the chicken. I warmed that all up and dished a bowl up to eat about 8:30 PM.

But...

Without the boiling, then simmering process, the veggies were not quite done. So, I had a pot of chicken noodle soup, with beautiful broth, and much better egg noodles but with slightly crunchy carrots!

Oh well, I was hungry enough I didn't care. Tasted great. I left the mess (I'd already cleaned up the kitchen once tonight from the noodle making) and moved from reading on the couch to reading in bed until about 10:30 PM.