Chicken Noodle Stew

I love making soup when the weather turns cooler and this is one of my favorite soups to make. It is so delicious. I made it last night and couldn't wait to have the leftovers for lunch today. It is one of Zach's favorites too. If you like a good chicken noodle soup you will love this!
I am going to give you the recipe and then I will give you my modifications to it. Here is the actual recipe:

Chicken Noodle Stew

2 chicken breast - 1/2" cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup white onion (minced)
1 cup chopped celery leaves
2 bay leaves
1 cup chopped celery stalks
2 cups sliced carrots
3 quarts water or chicken broth
chicken bouillon cubes
homemade noodles (or store bought)
pepper to taste
pinch of red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons cornstarch in 1/2 cup water

Combine first 4 ingredients in a large pot. Cook over medium-high heat until chicken is done and onions are clear. Add bay leaves, the other celery, carrots, water, and bouillon cubes (if used water instead of broth); boil until carrots are crisp-tender.  Add noodles. Add pepper, red pepper flakes, and enough bouillon for a strong chicken flavor. And 2/3 of the cornstarch mixture, stir and simmer to thicken. Add more for desired consistency. Remove bay leaves and serve.

Chicken Noodle Soup Noodles

3 tablespoons cold water
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups flour
Combine the cold water and salt with the 2 beaten eggs, add about 1 cup of the flour. Roll out to desired thickness while adding the last of the flour using a rolling pin. Cut into think strips using a pizza cuter and put into boiling soup.


*My Notes:
- I cook my chicken separately and shred it. I add it to the soup at the very end. I do it this way because I prefer shredded chicken to chunks of chicken. So I just cook the onions and celery stalks with the carrots and celery.
- I never have bay leaves on hand so I just leave those out.
- I like lots of veggies to I normally add a little more than it calls for
- If you don't have red pepper flakes it's not the end of the world but I think that is my favorite part of the soup. It gives it a little kick. Just don't add too much!
- I always use the homemade noodles, they are so good! They are a bit tricky at first. You don't want to add too much flour to them or they will be too stiff. The problem is, they are going to stick to the counter if you don't have enough flour and then you can't peel them off. Here is my solution, keep adding flour underneath them as you roll them out, and add flour on the top so the rolling pin doesn't stick. Roll a little and then stop to add flour underneath, and keep repeating. Also, yesterday I rolled them out on wax paper which seemed to help. Don't be scared, once you get it down they are super easy to make. Also, I don't like them so long so I cut them in half.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Yesterday was the first day that it has felt like Fall so I decided to do some fall cooking. First on the list: pumpkin bread. Last year I made pumpkin bread for the first time and it was just alright. This year I found a new recipe and gave it a try. It was delicious. It was super easy too. Give it a try!

*Note: This bread tastes best when it has cooled completely for a few hours and tastes even better the next day.
*Makes 2 (9X5-inch loaves) or 3 (8X4-inch loaves)

2 ½ cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1 cup canola or vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2/3 cup water
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9×5-inch loaf pans or three 8×4-inch loaf pans.
In a large bowl, mix flours, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together canned pumpkin, oil, eggs and 2/3 cup water until well combined and stir into dry ingredients, just until the dry ingredients are moistened and no dry streaks remain. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter in prepared pans.

Bake the bread for 60 to 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the bread from the oven and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Run a knife gently around the edge of the bread and turn the bread out, right side up, onto a wire rack to cool completely.

This bread freezes beautifully. After cooling, wrap the bread in a layer of plastic wrap and then a layer of tin foil. Freeze for up to 2 months


Notes: * I didn't add quite so much sugar and it still tasted great
           * I used 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

Zuchinni bread (or muffins)

I got this recipe off of one of one of my favorite cooking blogs "Just cook already" (check it out). My husband will vouch for me when I say this, these are SOOOO good.  I've only made them in muffin form, so the only difference is you use muffin tins instead of a bread pan and you cook them for about 20 min. I also put in a little extra zucchini. Anyway, try them, you will love them.
1 large zucchini
 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil or applesauce 
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs 
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan with cooking spray, and set aside. Grate zucchini on the large holes of a box grater (to yield 1 3/4 cups); set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together sugars, oil, vanilla, and eggs.

Into a small bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add flour mixture to egg mixture, and stir to combine well. Stir in grated zucchini.

Pour batter into prepared pan, spreading evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes; invert onto a wire rack, then reinvert, top side up. Cool completely before slicing.

Roasted Veggi Lasagna

I found another gem of a recipe to make with your fresh garden picks... this is the best veggi lasagna I have ever had, I will definitely be making it again.  I didn't take a picture of it, but here is the link.
Roasted Vegetable Lasagna
I made a few changes d/t what I had in my kitchen: I only had the noodles you boil so I boiled them and used them anyway and it turned out fine (my noodles were whole wheat which was also tasty), I used yellow squash instead of egg plant, and I also didn't turn the vegetables over in the middle of roasting, I only had time to roast for 30 minutes, but it turned out just fine.  So There you have it... I hope you all get to try this recipe, I L-O-V-E-D it... the roasting just gives it a great flavor.

Super Easy and Delicious Browned Butter & Mizithra Pasta

We had this at Spaghetti Factory awhile back and Brandon & I both really liked it.  It's so easy and really good - what wouldn't be good with that much butter & cheese?  We found this copy cat recipe on All Recipes but it tastes exactly the same.


1lb spaghetti noodles
1cup butter (I think we did less butter, it really doesn't need that much to still taste good)
3/4 lb Mizithra cheese (we thought this would be hard to find but it was at Winco & Safeway)

Cook noodles al dente...  While noodles are cooking melt butter over medium heat.  Stir the butter constantly until it turns golden caramel brown.  Watch it closely, it feels like you've been stirring forever then all of a sudden you look down and it's caramel and you don't want to burn it.  Let it sit for 4 minutes then put a paper towel over a bowl big enough to hold the butter and pour the butter over the paper towel - you don't want the butter solids.  Grate the cheese on the finest grater you have and mix everything together.   I hope you like it.  Not exactly a 'healthy' meal but totally worth it :)

I think it would be good with some garlic added, maybe some little chunks of bacon (yeah, we're going for health nut over here :)  )  Next time...

Blondies

Super Quick, Easy and Delicious!

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Butter (melted)
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla
1 Box Yellow Cake Mix
1 Cup Choc. Chips

Preheat oven to 350. Bake for 15-20 minutes. I like them to turn out to be soft almost gooey, so I bake them for about 15 minutes.

Mix together melted butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla. Then mix in yellow cake mix. It will mix together thicker like a cookie dough rather than cake batter. Lastly had the chocolate chips.

Whole Wheat THICK Pizza Crust

Really this is my mom's french bread recipe but I use it for Pizza crust and if you like thick yummy pizza crust, you'll like this.  This recipe makes a LARGE and FILLING pizza... it fits in big 18 x11 (or so)jelly roll pan with 1 inch sides.

So here is the RECIPE:
2 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp yeast (or two of those little packets)
Instructions: in large bowl let yeast, water and sugar dissolve for 10 minutes.
Then add:
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp oil
3 cups flour (you can use white flour but I always use whole wheat)
Instructions: stir together well in your mixing bowl, I have my kneading hook on my kitchen aid that I use for this part.
Then add:
3 more cups flour and stir and knead together until all is mixed.
Instructions: Then let rise for 20 min in a warm dry place, punch the dough down and stretch dough out to spread across your GREASED (I just use spray stuff) and then I bake my crust @ 350 degrees for about 10 minutes to give it a head start, then take it out... add all your ingredients and bake for another 15 minutes.  And your done!  It will be really lumpy... and thick but it is sooo good and really one piece fills you up. (for French bread I let it rise twice for 20-30 minutes and then just make a big ball and set it on a cookie sheet and bake it for 45 min or so.)
Topping suggestions: 
-Your favorite kind of Spaghetti Sauce (I use this because then I get all the flavors that are already in the sauce)
-Cheese (duh)
-Grilled Chicken pieces
-Spinach
-red pepper slices
-tomato slices
-and then season with garlic salt and oregano... yum.