Easter Noodles--This one runs deep!

Making noodles from scratch has long been a tradition on Todd's side of the family. It started with mom's mom's family. He remembers helping his grandma, then his mom, make noodles as a kid. Now Todd is the noodle maker and is passing it on to our own kids. 

And of course, Todd has added his own spin to it, because he can never just let a recipe be. The original recipe involved noodles and chicken. Now, he makes a chicken soup with vegetables and spices and combines it with the original noodles.

(You can buy and use 24 oz frozen egg noodles, if you want to do it the easy way. Or, you can opt to make your own noodles which is the authentic way to go about it. We'll outline that here.)





The mini chefs are ready!







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Let's get to it!

THE SOUP

Ingredients: 

• 1 whole chicken 
• 1/4 cup Better Than Bouillon roasted chicken base (optional)
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 3 ribs celery, thinly chopped
• a handful of celery leaves, chopped
• 1 t thyme
• 2 t parsley
• 1-1/2 t tumeric
• 1 t coarse black peper
• 1 t salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 T all purpose flour (optional)
• splash half and half (optional) 

THE NOODLES

Ingredients: 

• 3-1/2 cups flour, sifted
• 4 large eggs
• 1 T water
• 1/2 t garlic salt

Instructions:

Cut the chicken into 11 parts: 2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 wings, the back, 2 upper breasts, 2 lower breasts.

Add them all into the Dutch oven (DO). Fill the DO with water so that all the chicken is covered. Add the roasted chicken base to the water. Bring to a soft boil for 45 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking it's time to get the noodle process started. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl.

Add the eggs, water, and garlic salt and mix on low for about 30 seconds. It should be in crumbles.

Switch out the flat beater for a dough hook on the mixer and mix for 2 minutes until it is a nice dough ball.

Take out the dough and shape into a loaf. We did three loaves: one daddy sized, one big sister sized and one little sister sized. 





Slice the loves into 1/2 inch slices and run through the pasta roller ("the flattener") on settings 1 then 2 then 4. That's right. Run each slice through three times progressively thinning them each time. 

They are now about linguine thickness. We will run them then through the linguine cutter because we like our egg noodles thick! Flour your counter and spread those newly cut noodles around. 

They need to rest there for about 30 minutes to dry. 

Let's get back to the soup. Remove the chicken legs, thighs and breasts from the DO and let them cool in a pan. Leave the wings and the back in the DO. 





Time to turn it into delicious stock. Add all the veggies and all the spices. Simmer for 20 minutes, covered.

 

Take the leg, thigh and breast meat off the bones. This is the step where your dog starts offering to help. This house smells GOOD! 

Remove the chicken wing and back and the bay leaves from the DO. Add the meat from the legs, thighs and breasts to the DO and stir in. 

 














Let's bring it all together now. Add in the noodles and "nestle" them into the stock. Let them cook at a light simmer for 20 minutes.

*At this point, you can be done! That is, if you are wanting a watery delicious chicken noodle soup. It's amazing for when someone at home is under the weather or you're looking for warmth on a cold day. 








But we're not done. We are turning this into a Stoup (Stew + Soup = Stoup). So we're going to mix the flour with half a cup of the stock.

Then add it to the soup and stir it in.

Stir in the half and half and let it simmer with the lid off, stirring occasionally.






When we plate (or bowl...) it, we garnish it with parsley.

Then it's time to enjoy every little bite. This is one dish that warms us through, our hearts and souls and tummies. We hope it will do the same for you. Your turn! Time to get cooking. Tell us what you think!

Jambalaya- The start of the cooking Journey

This is the recipe that got Todd into cooking. When he went to college, he was capable of making Top Ramen, grilled cheese and Nalley chili and he thought that was enough. One day he got sick and tired of making Top Ramen, so he decided it was time to cook. He turned on the cooking channels. The first host he watched was Emeril Lagasse and he was making jambalaya. That was 23 years ago. Todd used all his savings at the time to buy the ingredients and he made Emeril's jambalaya. It was a flavor explosion that changed his life and he decided he would learn how to make delicious food and pass it on to his children some day. 

Todd's jambalaya has evolved every time he's created it. His influences include Emeril Lagasse and John Besh and his own preferences. That's the thing about jambalaya. It is pork products and rice and preferences. Here is the masterpiece he is making today:

JAMBALAYA 
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Serves: 10-12 people 

The Players:

• 4 slices Bacon, diced to 1 cm squares
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 lb chorizo sausage
• 1 lb andouille sausage
• 3 ribs celery, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 tsp liquid smoke
• 2 1/2 cups (uncooked) long grain white rice
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 15 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
• 1/2 cup sweet white corn
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp cajun spice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp coarse black pepper
• 3 bay leaves
• 3 green onions
• 1 tsp Bacon fat

How it's done: 

Start by chopping the onion, red pepper and celery first (because he prefers to use one cutting board and cutting vegetables then raw meats is the safe order to do so). 

Then, chop all the andouille by cutting them first down their length then slicing into half-rounds.

Now it's time to chop the raw meat. Dice the Bacon (we honor Bacon with capitalization... because it's Bacon) into 1 cm squares. 

Let's get heated! Must have: Dutch Oven (we'll make our recommendations about Dutch Ovens soon!) Warm the bacon fat in the Dutch Oven (DO) over medium heat. Drop in your Bacon morsels. Cook them until they are crispy. This is your one chance to get it right with the Bacon. No soggy Bacon! 

When they are just right there, take them out and set them aside in a bowl. 

Leave that Bacon fat right where it is in that DO. Get those onions ready. Drop them into that Bacon fat and listen to the sizzle. Those onions are so happy in that Bacon fat! Stir those babies around! You're using those onions to deglaze the bacon fat off the bottom of the DO. Cook the onions, stirring, until they are translucent. 

The next layer of flavor is the chorizo. Break it up and drop it in with the onions. Once it is in the DO, stir and fold it in with the onions. When the chorizo is cooked through, add that liquid smoke and the andoille. Don't over-stir it. Let that maillard effect work--let it sit for a while and get that little bit of char going before you give it its first stir so you can deglaze it later.

Talia says, "Dad, are fats basically juices so basically flavors?" He says, "Yes! Fats equal flavors! We call that 'rendering'! We are rendering the fats!"

Those meat juices are cooking to the bottom. Time to deglaze! Add the peppers and celery and stir them in, deglaze that DO and enjoy those flavor scents! Cook until the celery gets a little soft. 

Taste it as you go. Check for that celery softness. 

When the celery is soft, it's time to add the rice. Add it, uncooked, straight into the DO. Stir it in so every grain gets coated in those oils from the Bacon, andouille and chorizo. It will smell like nutty popcorn when you know that rice is starting to get happy. 

When the rice is happy and you are "officially nutty" (says Todd), add the chicken stock. 

Then, add the fire roasted tomatoes and corn.

Next, stir in the smoked paprika, cajun spice, thyme, salt, pepper and bay leaves. Put the lid on it. Let the magic happen. Set a timer and go fill your soul for 25 minutes. 

Whatever you do, Do Not Open That Lid. 

After 25 minutes, return to the pot. If you're smarter than us, you put the bacon in that bowl somewhere safe. If you're like us...you didn't and you find this.

And you know who did it. 

So you quick have to do this, again. 

Then, you're back on track. Open that lid and remove the bay leaves. Then, using a fork, gently fluff the rice and stir everything together so what simmered to the top is spread throughout. 

To serve, put one cup of jambalaya in each bowl. Sprinkle with bacon and garnish with green onion. 

Todd says: "This is a recipe that is near and dear to my heart. I encourage you to find what recipe is that for you."

What is the recipe that warms your heart, soul and belly?" 

 

This Gift That Didn't Look Like One

In our family we have some mottos or mantras. We say, "You win some; you learn some" there is no lose unless you don't use it. We also try to replace the words "problem" and "challenge" with the word "opportunity." Try it. You can change almost any sentence with those first two words and infuse it with hope by replacing with that last word.

THE PROBLEM

Todd and I are high school teachers. About one month ago we were given about 24 hours to say goodbye to our students (at the time we though it would be for 6 weeks), pack up our personal belongings and anything we might need to try teaching online from home and leave our classrooms. That was hard! Our classrooms are sacred, ordained spaces to us. They are places where we pour ourselves out for kids and watch them light up with confidence, new knowledge and skills, find inspiration and lean on us and each other for support. I was in a whole mix of emotions that I was able to identify as the beginnings of grief when I went to school that last day, knowing it was suddenly a last day. Teaching content wasn't that important anymore and the paramount priority of what we do was all that mattered--love these young people. Meet them where they are today. Leave them with some answer to the most pressing question: "What am I even supposed to do?"


So that's what my heart took into my classroom that morning. And I decided to share it and give it to these young people I had come to love and hope that they could find a way to do it. To see this problem, this sadness as an opportunity.



I have to be honest, I have struggled! I've gone through all 5 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) more than once and back through a couple of them a couple more times. Grief is not linear. And with each stay-at-home order extension and now school closure extension through the end of the year...I go back through the stages again. I know there is some hidden, unexpected opportunity in this, but I've struggled HARD to find it.

I'm not happy we are not going back to school this year. I'm actually pretty devastated about it. I couldn't really talk to anyone for several hours after that new knowledge yesterday afternoon. I've been robbed before a couple times. Once it was my purse. It felt like a loss over and over again over the following days as I recalled yet another important thing that had been in that purse that I now didn't have but was held by a malicious stranger now. It might have been something personal that was irreplaceable or just felt like an invasion of privacy, something valuable and expensive to replace, or something inconvenient to replace but each realization made me live the loss again. That's how it felt yesterday and today. Each event lost, each beloved student's face that I won't finish out with who is different this loss, each exciting thing my own kids were looking forward to was another assault on my heart.

THE OPPORTUNITY

But I'm thankful to know finally and not wonder if and when that announcement would be made. We know what we're dealing with now, so I can move fully into acceptance and seize this as an opportunity.


That's the shift I'm making today. Today I'm finding the gifts. There has never been a time like this in my life. Yes, I remember 9/11 clearly but even in some of its similarities it didn't offer some of these gifts. The world has slowed. The world understands that each of us is grieving and having feelings and prioritizing health and wellness and family. There is so much comfort and relief in that!






Some of the gifts are small. I get to wear my slippers all day long! I love my work and "my people" (students), but in the fall I sometimes lament that the hardest part of going back to school is putting on real shoes again. I get to work with my dog right next to me. He has a calming secure sort of influence on my heart.






I get to listen to worship music all day long and talk freely with my kids about our loving God! My kids get to hear all day about our loving God!! That's no small gift! One of the great opportunities during all of this is to be filled with the calm and love and hope of Jesus as we lean on Him to navigate this part of the journey for which there is no map. But we do have a Compass and we do have a Guide!



This comes at a strange time in the life of my oldest daughter. This was to be the end of her elementary years. This summer she transitions to middle school. She's not the daughter that wants to snuggle and be tender most of the time. I was starting to dread the middle school transition because it feels like a time when the distance between she and I could easily grow as she starts to look to her peers more for influence and my voice becomes less powerful to her. But no! I get three and a half bonus months with her to love and invest and guide her as she transitions to middle school. OH MY GOODNESS! What at gift. We have walked and talked just the two of us. We have written journal entries back and forth to each other and we have snuggled many times because she has initiated it. She is looking to Todd and I to fill her emotional needs and we are so, so privileged to get to do that. I think being "stuck at home"--NO "SAFE at home"-- during this period of life for her that is often an unsettling transitional time will change the trajectory of her growth and our relationship from what it would have been in so many good ways.


This time is asking us to really make our priorities primary. To let the things most important to us rise to the top and all other things fall along the wayside. It is redirecting our hearts to what matters most and pruning the unnecessary and unhelpful things from our lives. It is forcing us to sit with the quiet in a world usually so noisy we've forgotten how to listen to our own hearts (noise and hurry are the enemy of a spiritual life). It is forcing us to sit with ourselves and learn more about who we are and what we are about. That is one gift I want to intentionally choose to pick up and never set back down.



I have decided to look at this time as a weird gift filled with opportunities that I never would have had otherwise and seek out ways to make it count as much as I can. That's one of the reasons I'm reading and writing and creating and planting and calling and walking and laughing and responding when my kids show they need it and dropping everything to take care of myself and my family and shutting out the noise and seeking God deeper.

This is a gift and I'm done wasting gifts!! What gifts are you realizing during this time? Comment below!