Sunday, December 7, 2008

Homemade Noodles and Chicken Noodle Soup

Had a turkey carcass from Thanksgiving that we ate most of the meat off of and it was just taking up space in the fridge, so into the soup it goes!
First I got all the meat off the turkey by putting what was left of the bird into my pressure canner pot with about 3-4 inches of water at the bottom. Put the lid on and cook till the rocker is rocking. Cook about 5 minutes then turn the burner off and let it cool down on its own. If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can cook it in your crockpot or on the stove--it just takes longer.
Once it's cooled, the meat just falls off the bones. Pull the whole carcass out of the pot--keep the cooking water in the pot (it's now turkey broth). Separate the meat from the bones and ick and put the meat back in the pot with the broth.
Cut up some carrots and celery and 1/2-1 whole onion and add to the pot. You can put in a chicken boullion cube or two also. Now make your noodles while the veges are softening.

NOODLES:

1 cup flour
1 egg
A little water

I double this and use 1 cup white and 1 cup wheat flour (we like lots of noodles).

First, get your food processor out with the chopper blade (I got mine from my mom after she wore it out and it's magically still working--yours probably looks nicer than this one, but it works):
Next, put the flour and egg/s in (okay, my pic only shows the flour, but just follow the directions, okay?):

Chop until it's blended together. It just looks like a little more grainy flour--almost cornmealy texture: Last, add the water a little at a time while running the chopper until the dough pulls away from the sides. If you get too much water and it's sticky, add more flour.
Now, grab a little bit and roll it out as thin as you can, and slice with a knife into noodles. I do it on my floured cutting board so it doesn't stick and I'm not cutting on my counter. Use however much flour you need to keep it from sticking to the board and the rolling pin. When you get a few noodles cut, toss them in the pot. If you toss them on a plate, they'll be all stuck together by the time you're done cutting and ready to put them in the pot. This picture shows cut noodles on the left, rolled dough in the middle and unrolled/thick dough on the right side:


Cook the soup till the noodles are done, add salt, pepper, garlic, thyme, sage, whatever you like to taste. Yummy! The flour off the noodles thickens the soup so it's not all watery. If you don't start with broth from cooking your meat, you can use canned broth or water and lots of chicken boullion cubes as your soup base.

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