Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Homemade noodles

Well, here it goes! Onto making the world's greatest meal for the best holiday ever..... THANKSGIVING!!!!

I acquired a recipe for homemade noodles from a FANTASTIC friend of mine in Alaska. Rachel Kahler has me addicted to these noodles! (shame on you girl lol). Here is the recipe: (hope you don't mind as there really is only one person on my blog)

1 egg
Some milk (about a cup or so)
A pinch of salt
enough flour to stiffen the dough

Lol that's the way she taught me. Add it all in one bowl, mix her up, and than flatten it out with a rolling pin and cut your noodles until you're content!! Yields about 2 cups of noodles, enough for 4-6 people.... Than just put them in some chicken stock or broth and voila!! you have your own gravy with noodles!!!!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Chicken Stock Recipe


Homemade chicken stock!!! Yummy!! Well, the time came today that I actually HAD time to make my chicken stock. Want the recipe???

1 large chicken (or 4 wings, 4 legs, 4 breasts, 4
thighs, bone in, skin on)
2 large carrots, cut into chunks
2 large stalks of celery, cut into chunks
1 medium onion, cut into chunks
10 cups of water (you're going to need a very large dutch oven pot or a stock pot)
1/4 cup of salt (yeah, I know it sounds like a lot, but this helps draw out the flavor in the bones)
1/2 tsp of black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 tsp basil (or 2 sprigs of fresh)
1 tsp parsley (or 2 sprigs of fresh)




Combine all ingredients in a large cooking pot. Allow to boil on medium for 2 1/2 to 3 hours (yes, I know, this sounds like a long while, but I took a nap while the baby was napping!)

After the meat is very tender on the bone, debone the chicken (aka take the meat off the bone). Place the bones and the skin of the chicken to the side on a plate or in a bowl. Don't throw this away, you're going to need it for the next hour!! The bone doesn't have to be completely cleaned off. If there is a little meat on it still, that's fine!!! Don't worry!!

After deboning the chicken, pour all the broth into a colander into a separate bowl. The vegetables and herbs should stay in the colander. After pouring the broth out, transfe
r it back into the pan, along with another 3-4 cups (or how ever much broth you may need) of water. Toss out the veggies or make some soup out of it!!

Toss the bones that you just tore all the meat off of and the skin back into the pot and let this boil for about another hour, hour and a half. If need be, you can add a little more salt if it tastes bland.

After that next hour or so, dump all ingredients back into the colander, and toss out the bones and skin. Now you should have some scrumptious chicken stock!!!!! YUMMY! I threw in a couple of bouillon cubes too, our little chicken wasn't very big (4 lbs maybe), so we needed an extra "chicken flavor" boost. Now, you can freeze this in freezer bags, or you can CAN it. Lol can can it... ugh! That's a mouthful! Enjoy and look for my recipe that a friend gave me for homemade noodles on Sunday!!!
TnChickHen

Thursday, November 17, 2011

That Darn Dog!!

Well, yesterday was a frenzy!!! We lost our very first chicken, Henny, to Jack attacking her. Jack, our little beagle pain in the butt, got out of the kennel and ripped half of her feathers out. Well, as first aid was being taken care of, Sammuel, our 2 year old, decided to pull her off the table and squeeze her (more of less try to make her feel better and give her hugs) and accidentally did the job in. That's all right. We needed some chicken stock. So we are (ok, more or less myself because Josh doesn't want to butcher the chicken) are going to defeather her and make up some stock for Thanksgiving.

This year's Thanksgiving is going to be fantastic as we are going to have Josh's mom, dad, sister, and nephew down here to visit for 5 days!! We are so excited! We haven't seen them in a while, and it will be nice to have them visit us! Especially now that we are closer than we ever were! Alright, off to defeather the chicken.... Adios!

TnChickHen