The weekend menu.

Mmmmm chicken noodle soup! Nothing is better to warm you on a cold day than a big, hot bowl of chicken noodle soup paired with a thick slice of homemade bread, toasted- or maybe made into a grilled cheese sandwhich. I had a good friend over this weekend, and as the weather was a bit nippy, we decided to make a nice big pot of chicken noodle soup and homemade bread. So, here’s my recipe for both!

Heart Warming Chicken Noodle Soup

• Whole chicken, cut into pieces (I buy a whole chicken and cut it up myself because its less expensive, but you could buy a whole cut up chicken or just by a whole chicken and cook the whole thing if your pot is big enough)
  
• About 6 carrots
• About 6 celery stalks
• About 6 cloves of garlic
• Two small onions
• About 3 tablespoons of fresh chopped flat parsley (not the curly kind)
• Around about 16 oz of wide egg noodles
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups of homemade or store bought (make it low sodium) chicken stock

First, if you have a whole chicken, wash it, and cut it into pieces. Place the chicken pieces into your soup pot, and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Then, cut up 3 carrots into thirds and throw into pot with 3 celery stalks also cut into thirds, your onion, peeled and cut in half or in fourths, and 3 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole. You can also add a couple stalks of thyme or rosemary if you have them handy- basically, keep all the vegetables and herbs at this point cut into bigger pieces or whole. Add some more salt and pepper to the vegetables you’ve thrown in, then fill the pot so it just covers the chicken and vegetables. Put a lid on it, bring it to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let it cook for about an hour or until the chicken is cooked.

Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside to cool. With a slotted spoon, fish out all the cooked vegetables, herbs etc you put in the pot. Simmer the broth on low for about a half an hour to concentrate the broth some- if you need more broth, you can add the 2 cups of homemade or store bought stock you’ve got. Dice the remaining carrots, celery and onions into smaller, but uniform cubes and add to the pot along with a couple cloves of garlic, minced fine. Throw those back into the pot and put the lid back on.

When your chicken has cooled, pull the chicken from the bones, discarding the skin, fat and bones and shredding the chicken. (I like to leave mine in bigger chunks, but you can shred it as small as you want, or cut it up into pieces.)

When the vegetables have almost cooked, throw in the noodles (once again, use as few or as many as you want) and the chicken, and let boil slowly until the noodles are tender. Before serving, throw in the parsley.

Cooking the chicken with some vegetables gives the chicken broth a deeper, richer flavor- which is what you want out of a good chicken broth! This recipe is fairly versitile- I use it for chicken noodle soup, matzo ball soup, and for chicken and dumplings.

Now, onto the bread recipe- I’m sorry if most of my recipes are just approximations, but I cook by taste as opposed to following a set “standard” for a recipe. I believe that most foods you cook can be altered to your own taste, and should be relatively versitile to include or exclude things if you so choose.

Unfortunately my bread recipe is similar to that- my mom taught me how to bake bread, and I’ve developed my own basic recipe from learning how to make hers and then also from trying recipes from cookbooks. This one is pretty much no-fail, and you can make it with white flour, whole wheat flour, or like me, I often use a mix of the two. I don’t know if I’d suggest making this if you’ve never made bread before, since I think a lot of making bread well comes from experience in doing so. Just keep in mind the flour is just an approximation, you might need more, you might need less- I suppose it also has a bit to do with the time of year, how much moisture is in the air, etc etc- so just add the flour bit by bit and when it feels right, stop.

Jessica’s Basic Bread:

• 1 cup hot water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 packages dry yeast
• 2 cups warm milk (or water)
  
• 1/2 stick of butter, melted
  
• 1 tablespoon salt
• anywhere between 6-8 cups of flour (use any flour you like… either all purpose or whole wheat, or do a mixture of half and half.)

Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the hot water in a mixing bowl. At this point, I sit my yeast and sugar mixture on the stove where its warm for a few minutes to make sure it “blooms,” or gets kinda foamy looking on top- that is the indication your yeast is working. Add the warm milk and melted butter. Then, mix a couple cups of flour into the liquid, stirring, and adding more flour until it forms a thick batter. At this point, add the tablespoon of salt WITH another couple cups of flour, and continue mixing. From here out I add only a little bit of flour at a time, making sure you’re also stirring from the bottom so as to incorporate all the liquid and flour.

When your bread dough has reached the point where you can handle it, turn it out on a lightly floured surface and knead it for about 10 minutes. If you absolutely feel you need to add more flour at this point, dont add more than a sprinkle or two- you don’t want to add too much. Now, form the dough into a ball, and place it in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth or saran wrap and put it in a warm place to rise until it has doubled in size, which should take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how warm the spot is you’ve got it.

When the dough has doubled, uncover it and punch it down, kneading for another 10-15 minutes, but do not add any more flour. Now here you can either put it back in the bowl and let it rise a second time, or, if like me, you’re a bit impatient sometimes, you can simply divide it in half and form each dough ball into a loaf shape and place it in a well oiled loaf pan, and leave to rise again. I usually let it almost double- I let it get just barely above the top of the loaf pan.

When it has risen, put it into a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 375 and let bake for about 45 minutes or so- if you tap on the bread and it sounds hollow inside, it should be done.

Then, turn the loaves out on a cooling rack and enjoy!

I use this recipe also to make a cinnamon-raisin swirl bread… basically to do that, after the dough has risen the first time, and after you’ve kneaded and divided the dough, roll dough out with a rolling pin until its about a half inch thick, then make a mixture of about a half a cup of brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, and a tablespoon of ground cinnamon, teaspoon of allspice, nutmeg, and clove and a handful of raisins. Brush the rolled out dough with a little milk or water, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture on the dough, leaving about a 1/2 inch space from the edge. Then, very carefully, roll the dough into a long roll, pinch the seams and the ends well, tuck the ends under and place in the loaf pan to rise. The brown sugar makes it a bit sticky and gooey and ooooh so yummy!

So thats that! Hope you all try these and let me know what you think! Till then, adios!

-Jess