Tag: Noodles

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Homemade Noodles and Small Things

When discussing my blog posting strategy for November, my husband suggested that I incorporate things for which I am thankful along with recipes for your Thanksgiving feast.  This past year has been one of the most challenging of my life and it’s easy to lose sight of how lucky I am.  I decided to take his suggestion to heart.  For the month of November I will be dedicating each post to one thing that I am truly thankful for.  This week, I present you with:

Small Things

The simple touch of a hand when you are feeling adrift.  A smile across the room that makes you feel less alone.  The smirk that shows you are part of joke instead of the butt of it.  The feeling of warm grass on bare feet.  Mud squishing between your toes.  The lilac drunk smell of springtime.

There are so many little things to be thankful every single day.  The other day I was at a coffeeshop and a father was putting his baby into the carseat.  The baby wasn’t happy.  I looked at the baby over his father’s shoulder and smiled and waved.  The baby ceased his fussing and smiled at me.

My husband smiled the other day as my daughter proclaimed him the best dad ever because he bought cereal that she likes.  His eyes have the best happy crinkle I’ve ever seen.  He doesn’t even have to have the smile on his lips yet, because his eyes betray his feelings.

When we had kids over the other day, it was amazing to watch them learn.  You could see their brains working as they put pieces together and figured things out.

At work, the moment you know you did good work.  I made a diagram for something the other day.  It wasn’t amazing new technology.  Other people could’ve done it better, but I figured it out.  I made it legible.  It was what was needed.

The first snowflakes started falling here.  White flakes drifted down to our back yard.  The kids smiled as they watched the lawn turning white.  It was a perfect moment.

It’s things like that text when you don’t expect it, but really need it.  It’s the girl interrupting your typing to smile in your face just because.  It’s the coworker who catches you smiling at your own thoughts and smiles back and tells you that she had to make sure that you saw her smiling back.

There are so many small kindnesses in the world that make everything a little more magical.  My sons hold doors. Not always because they don’t always remember, but often enough that I notice.

One day, my son decided I needed flowers just because he thinks I’m a great mom.  For the next week, every time I saw the flowers I smiled.

I have this picture of my grandparents that I love.  They are sitting in their garden and watching my kids play on the lawn.  Grandma has her hand up in the air as she laughs.  Grandpa’s face is wide open as he chuckles at the antics of the children.

But it’s also the tear that escapes when people don’t expect it.  The real moments that happen in between all those other moments.  

I love taking pictures of my garden, but nothing pleases me more than when I discover a perfect imperfection in my photos.  I have pictures of flowers in their full glory with an insect marring their pristine blossoms.

It’s all of these small things that make the world a richer place.  It’s the details that matter most some times.  It’s like putting homemade noodles into soup.

When I was young, my mom would sometimes bring out the pasta maker.  She would let us turn the crank and flatten the dough.  After a few passes we ran the sheets of dough through the mechanism that cut them and hung homemade noodles from drying racks in the kitchen. Usually mom had stock simmering on the stove while this went on.  I didn’t really care about soup for supper, but loved the homemade noodles. 

When I got my first Kitchen Aid mixer, I asked for, and received, the pasta roller attachment.  I don’t use it as often as I should because I keep forgetting how easy homemade noodles are to make.  They are time consuming and they are messy, but they aren’t hard.

If you don’t have a pasta machine, you can just roll the dough into a thin sheet, coat it lightly with flour, roll it up into a cigar shape and cut off ribbons.  Of course there are millions of ways to get fancy with it.  Add herbs or veggies to basic noodles to change the flavor or color.  Parsley and spinach are common.

A single recipe makes a lot of noodles.  It may have been more than my soup actually needed, but homemade noodles are so good that I didn’t care.  My daughter wanted to eat leftover soup for breakfast, after school snack, and as an appetizer before dinner.  The boys didn’t like it quite that much, but still enjoyed it.

Do not let the intimidation factor prevent you from making this recipe.   Mix all the ingredients together to make a stiff dough.  Let it rest for 10 minutes and roll it out to desired thickness.  Use flour to prevent the dough from sticking.  Throw those noodles in pot of boiling water and cook for a few minutes.  Serve buttered, as a base for stroganoff, or throw into a pot of soup.  You probably have turkey bones sitting around anyway, with all the colds and viruses waiting around to infect you, nothing is better than a nice hot bowl of soup.

The Recipe:

Homemade Noodles

1 1/2 cup flour
1 t salt
1 t fat (I used butter, but you can use anything)
1 egg

Mix ingredients together to form a stiff dough.  Knead until smooth.  Let rest for 10 minutes.  Cut into pieces and roll each piece to desired thickness using a pasta maker or a rolling pin.  Flour both sides to prevent sticking.  Cut into desired width.  Boil in for 3-4 minutes until done.

If you liked this post and want to see what I made last Thanksgiving, check out:  Whiskey Slush, Champion Apple Pie, Cherry Meringue Pie, Pumpkin Pie, and Food Roadtrip: Honey and Cinnamon Candied Yams.

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Easy Beef and Noodle Skillet

Every once in a while I like to try to make things easy on myself.  I can’t let it become a regular habit because someone needs to freak out, worry, and then do things the hard way. If I don’t stress, who is going to?

Speaking of stress, maybe it’s just cost of living down here, but hamburger is not as cheap as it used to be.  I remember it being used a lot more when I was younger because it was the cheap alternative to other meats, same with chicken.  You can still get leg quarters inexpensively, but…I need to stop.  If I continue down this rant the next thing I’m going to be doing is yelling at some kid to get off my lawn.  (Remind me to tell you the story of my friend B and Night Ranger at some point.)

Ok, enough of the beef I have about the price of beef and onto the good stuff.  I am sure that most of you have had Hamburger Helper at some point.  Maybe it’s because of an exhausted mom or maybe because you were bachelor who didn’t really cook.  It doesn’t really matter.  It’s a thing that exists and I’m not judging (much), I mean we’ve all done it.  (Except maybe me, I’m not sure I actually have ever purchased a box of Hamburger Helper or any of its offshoots.  I have made it before, though.)  It’s easy, convenient, and pretty versatile. 

If you think about what that magic box contains, though, it’s pretty basic.  There is some carbohydrate (noodles or rice) and a seasoning packet.  You have to provide your own browned hamburger and whatever veg you may want in there.

How would you feel if I told you that you could basically make your own seasoning “packet”?  There are a bunch of recipes online that you could use, but why would you use those when you could use this one?  (Hint: Because in order to make this one really delicious, it requires a lot more herbs, spices, and salt than this recipe says.)  This is a good jumping off point.  

Once you have the seasoning made, you can use that to make one of three delightful dishes.  (There is enough seasoning to make all three.) I chose to make the Beef and Noodle Skillet to start.  It’s a lot like hamburger stroganoff, but as bland as you imagine food coming from a place where ketchup was considered spicy.  Honestly, when I made this exactly as written in the recipe, I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to serve it to my family and get them to eat it.  It’s too bland.  Since it was already sort of like stroganoff, I added lots of garlic, some paprika, some Worcestershire sauce, and a bit of sour cream.  

All in all, this is a great idea if you can get the seasoning right.  It’s nice to have something like this on hand for quick meals when you don’t have time to make something like Chicken Tetrazzini, Frazzalene, or Sausage Bean Casserole.  The advantage of making it yourself is that you know everything that is in it and can easily adapt it to your family’s preferences.  I have enough of the Hamburger Dinner Mix to make the rest of the recipes suggested, but the next time I make a seasoning “packet”, it will have a lot more flavor.  

If you are still reading at this point, let me tell you about B and Night Ranger.  When we lived in our old town, every summer there was Riverfest.  It was a classic carnival, activities, food, and music-type affair where most the bands could no longer get work anywhere except these sorts of small town festivals.  Bands on the way down, not usually on the way up.  One year, Night Ranger was going to appear.  You know their song “Sister Christian” and that’s about it. For years, I had told my friend B about which acts were performing at Riverfest since music was one of things we bonded over.  

The year Night Ranger came to town, I IM’d him to let him know.  He responded with disgust.  “I wouldn’t go see Night Ranger if they were playing on my lawn.” He typed back to me.  I hesitated wondering how to respond while the icon that showed he was writing something else came up.  “Except to tell them to get off my lawn.”  The image in my head of him going out and shaking his fist at Night Ranger cracked me up, but also made me realize that I kind of want to have a lawn concert.  That’d be so cool.  

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Weeknight Dinner Chicken Tetrazzini

I have major spring fever.  As frequent readers know, I have a new house with quite a lot of yard that we are unaccustomed to.  Last year, we were moving in and settling at the time planting was supposed to happen and I ended up with a small, haphazard garden that was eaten by my stupid groundhogs (woodchucks). This year I have plans in mind.  I have ideas to make it better. Chicken Tetrazzini pan Last year we converted an old dog kennel into a raised bed garden.  All the viney things on one side and all the other stuff on the other.  I made some mistakes.  I didn’t put down enough weed blocker or mulch or compost.  I didn’t really think about where things were supposed to be planted or garden design.  I just wanted to get things into the ground.   One of my lovely friends took an afternoon and helped me.  Because of the lateness of getting things into the ground, I bought most of my plants from the greenhouse instead of planting things from seeds.  All of that is about to change.  My husband knows to be wary of me when I get these ideas in my head.

I have this plan…Chicken Tetrazzini CloseI have this obnoxiously large jetted tub in my bathroom.  We don’t use the tub unless we put all the kids in swimsuits and let them swim for a while.  It is too much water for one person to bathe in.  With people in Capetown, South Africa on the verge of lining up for water and one of my colleagues telling me about places in India where they can only get non-river water every other day, I feel terribly guilty having a tub large enough to let 3 children “swim”.  Plus the tub is hard to get in and out of and my water heater isn’t large enough to fill the tub with hot water.  I haven’t even mentioned the part where the tub is located underneath 2 windows on the front of the house (on a busy street) and 2 windows on the side of the house all of which are very look-inable from the wrap around porch.  (This whole thing sounds obnoxious now.) I’m not in a place to remove the tub at the moment.  It’s time I just don’t have.

Ok, so let’s tie all this together because if you’ve gotten this far with me already, I know you are in for the long haul and are probably reading this for the content anyway and not just for the recipe.

I have this plan…

There is absolutely no reason in the world that this tub would not make the best ever place for starting seeds.  In seed trays, not just filling the tub with dirt.  And I need you think about this with me because I might be completely crazy.  It’s in a place in my house where there is natural light, but could also support a grow light.  It could be covered with a clear shower curtain or something like that to create a “greenhouse” and keep the moisture in.  And it has the added bonus of having a water source and drain right there.  Is this nuts?  Chicken Tetrazzini Plate

Ok, so how does the recipe for Chicken Tetrazzini relate to any of this?

I’ve got a lot going on lately.  I’ve got a lot of ideas and plans and lots of things that I want to do.  I’m a working mom and don’t have the time I used to have to prepare the exact meals I want for my family.  It’s a lot harder than when I worked at home.  Being done at 4 PM these days (if I’m lucky) doesn’t mean that I get to leave my desk, go to the kitchen, and start making supper.  Which means meal planning and figuring out how to make leftovers last through the week and planning ahead and all of that fun stuff.  And it all has to be done at a reasonable time because people have things to do and kids have bed times and the kitchen still needs to be cleaned.  Are you exhausted reading this?

With the spring coming (in another 4 weeks according to the groundhog’s prediction), I want to be able to do projects and play around in the yard when the sun is out.   Which means I need dinners that can be prepped in 30 minutes or less.  With a little pre-prep this one can be.  (Actually, with some extra liquid, a rotisserie chicken, and some aluminum foil, I bet you could do this whole recipe in the oven while you did something else.)  Chicken Tetrazzini log

I have a friend that goes to Italy frequently.  He has a favorite restaurant in Rome that he visits on each trip.  As Italian as this dish sounds, I doubt they make it this way in Italy (or probably much of anywhere else).  If he’s reading this recipe, he’s thinking of ways he could make it better.  Truth be told, I am too.  Which is not to say this is not something to make.  It’s good.  It’s comfortable.  It’s like yoga pants and bare feet at the end of the day.  Chicken Tetrazzini

If you want other good weeknight supper ideas Sausage Bean Casserole, Hot Chicken Salad, Supper In a Bread Loaf,  but if at this point you are just overwhelmed, perhaps a nice Whiskey Slush is more your speed.

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Pork Meatballs

Who even knew that Cream of Onion soup was a thing? Apparently, it’s just me.  I asked John that question when he got home and he knew. I know my friends are laughing at me as they read this.

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I haven’t used canned soup in over a decade.  There were all those articles about sodium content and then I realized that it just didn’t taste like homemade soup from fresh ingredients. I am a snob. I like what Andy Warhol did with cans of soup.  I ate canned soup growing up.  I have eaten recipes that other people have made with canned soup, but I just didn’t buy it or use it in my own cooking.

 

So when Miles chose this recipe and it called for a can of cream of onion soup, I had no idea that was a thing that still existed.  I knew about cream of asparagus, cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, I think I had even seen cream of shrimp at one point, but because I don’t look in the canned soup section of the grocery store, I just didn’t know.

In the rules I set up for myself, I decided that I was going to follow the recipes exactly as written (except in cases where there were no instructions).  So with my shopping list, the boys and I set out for the grocery store.

The grocery store with children is always a challenge.  I like the company, to a degree, but they need to figure out how to steer the cart where I want it.  I hate the number of times I have to say “no” about things.  We are normally the loudest people in the store (and everywhere else we ever go), but our loud is normally more pleasant than obnoxious (or so I like to think).  We enjoy being together and making each other laugh and we are friendly.  Anyway, we went to the meat section and there was no ground pork.  There was pork sausage and pizza sausage, but no plain ground pork.  I asked the guy at the counter if there was any.  He explained that he couldn’t get any out because he was cutting something else and cross-contamination and whatnot, but if I could wait until 2.  It was noon.  I wasn’t going to drive back to Stoughton for ground pork.  I could’ve gone to the meat market across the street from my house, or as the kids suggested, I could just grind my own.  It’s a pain, but doable.  I grabbed some country style ribs and put them in my cart and started to walk to the yogurt area, when I saw the guy from the meat counter waving behind me.  I’m sure we were hard to find in the store since we are so quiet and all…This sweet, sweet man had taken pity on me and had stopped what he was doing and secured me the two pounds of ground pork I needed for the recipe.  He wouldn’t let me thank him or say anything to him about it or even acknowledge that he had done it because the store cameras may pick up the action.  I just hope he realizes how much I appreciate his efforts.

DSCN2340I, stupidly, didn’t start the recipe until much later than I should’ve because I was baking something else that I had started too late.  The oven was set at 375 for that and I forgot to turn it up to 400 which I didn’t realize until the end of the cooking time.  It might’ve cost me a bit on the browning of the meatballs, but they were still cooked through. I ended up getting supper on the table and had just enough time to eat before I sent John off to a Euchre tournament at the coffeehouse.  You know, like everyone does.  I figured it might be a good way to start meeting people in town.  John likes Euchre.

At dinner, instead of having epic rap battles, coming up with punny new jokes, or discussing new game ideas, we discussed these meatballs.  Nick was sure they had too many onions and picked them out.  (Reminder to self to cut them smaller next time).  The flavor of the pork was good.  The bread soak held in the juice.  Nick doesn’t think meatballs should have bread. I didn’t bother to explain the bonding principles to him this time.  I just rolled my eyes.  For some reason, the meatballs’ flavor reminded me of the inside of potstickers.  No idea why.  The cream of onion soup didn’t make the creamy sauce I was expecting from reading the recipe.  It was creamy, but could’ve probably benefitted from the addition of some milk to thin it.  John commented that this was one of those recipes where, if he had made it, he would’ve been very proud of himself, but because I had made it, it was just ok.  Miles ate it and declared it delicious, but that might’ve been partially prompted by the ego he had invested in having chosen the recipe.  He declined seconds and was “starving” by bedtime.

It’s not a pretty recipe.  It doesn’t make something eye-catchingly beautiful.  I’m sure there are ways to make it look better, but I’m not going to make that sort of effort for family dinner when it’s already late and everyone is starving and has places to be.DSCN2354

This is the sort of dish that is a great base for experimentation.  It could benefit from the addition of mushrooms, or French-fried onions on top of it.  You could easily make the balls smaller and serve them at a party on toothpicks.  Throw them on bread with whatever sort of veg you want, add some cheese, make a sandwich. Make the meatballs, make the soup, make meatball soup.  Add to pasta.  Meatballs are good.  Make your own cream sauce for these, if you prefer.

These are good basic pork meatballs.  Not the sort of dish I get overly excited about, but am rarely disappointed to be served.
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*This recipe is part of a red spiral bound book that was originally the Iowa State College Freshman Handbook that was presented to the Class of ’53.  The pages have been pasted over with recipes.