Tackling Mom Recipes

This past week, I got to try something very scary.
Making someone elses favorite recipe. One that their mom makes!
Yes, we all know OUR mom is the best cook, ever. ;)
So you can imagine the pressure.

Ryan's good buddy has started joining us for dinner on Wednesdays so I asked for his favorite dish.
Chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes, he said.
Of course Ryan and I started in with 100 questions because we have never heard of that.
It's basically chicken and teeny, tiny dumplins served over mashed potatoes (for us midwesterners).
I was sold, I had to make it.
So I asked him to get his moms recipe for me.
And then it was on like bing bong, Jack.

His mom makes her own noodles, which I have never done.
I was also informed that the text message recipe she sent was one of her first texts ever sent, so I had to do some research to clarify what I was getting myself into.
Surely she did not need me to buy "8 billion cubes".
That's a lot of cubes!  :)

I found a similar recipe for homemade pasta on Pioneer Woman's site.
So I combined the two recipes and it turned out great.
I sent the boys to happy hour, turned on some music, put on my apron and got to work.

The chicken and mashed potatoes part was a breeze.
The noodles was also relatively easy, just time consuming.
When the boys got home, I was knee deep in cutting my noodles.
C made fun of my precision cutting.
He said his mom just gets the pizza cutter and is done in seconds.
I told him that her recipe warned me to keep them as thin as I could, and I was not messing around!
20 minutes later, I finally had my noodles cut!
Slow and steady, right?


Chicken and Noodles and Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

Noodles
4 Eggs
2+ cups Flour
Salt & Pepper to taste

Chicken
2 Cans Chicken Stock
8 Chicken Buillion Cubes
3 Bone-In Chicken Breasts (We only like white meat, you can use dark if you prefer)

1. Beat 4 eggs in a large bowl. Add salt & pepper.

2. Add flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is stiff. Like so:

 

3. Kneed the dough until it is smooth, this took me what seemed like forever.

   ( PW is very good about showing pictures of what it looks like when it is ready versus not)

 

4. At this point, I let the dough rest for about 20 minutes.

 

 

4. Once it has had a nice little siesta, it's time to party. Roll it as thin as you can get it.

 

5. Use a pastry cutter or pizza cutter to cut long thin noodles (about 1/8 thick).

 

6. Put the noodles in a bowl with flour and shake around to coat them.

 

7. Let them rest while you prepare the chicken. (These are some lazy noodles).

 

8. Bring your chicken stock and buillion cubes to a boil.

 

9. Add your chicken and cook until done.

 

10. Start your mashed potatoes.

 

11. Remove chicken breasts when cooked through and start deboning.

 

11. While you are deboning, add your noodles to the pot. Use a fork to keep them from sticking to the bottom of your pot.

 

12. Add the chicken back into the pot. Keep stirring.

 

13. Finish up your potatoes.

14. Serve!

 

 



An Update

It seems I might be turning my blog into a food blog, and I don't mind it.
I love food, I love a new recipe, I love perfecting an old recipe, I love when someone asks me for one of my recipes, I love making people happy by making something they love.

But despite the appearance of my blog, cooking and eating is not all we do here in Hawaii.
So here's a quick run down of what's going on:

- Zach is crawling! Not creeping, not scooting but CRAWLING (this is craaaazy)!
- Ryan starts the last course of his college (at least for now) career this week.
- Ryan should be getting his orders sometime this week (or maybe next - thanks Army).
- Murphy has been shaved due to a recurring skin rash (poor Murph).
- We love watching Duck Dynasty, Jack.
- We have been going on family jogs most nights.
- Zach is sleeping through the night!!!!!
- Janette comes to visit in less than a month :)
- We have mastered the art of being a one car family.
- We are on season two of the West Wing.
-  Zach has started to enjoy baby food.
- I am getting pretty good at making baby food.
- We are hating not being able to watch most Thunder games.
- Ryan passed dunker training, so that's a big relief for him (I knew he would do fine).


Well, I think that sums it up. The only other thing of note is that we have a lot of friends going through a lot of hard times and we would love prayers that we would know what to do and say to comfort them.

Love you all!

I love Pinterest!

Sundays are family shopping day for us.

After Church we head over to Hickam and have lunch at one of their restaurants and then Ryan and Zach go walking around the PX (or BX as they call it) and I head over to get groceries.

I LOVE grocery shopping, Ryan does not. So this set up works out great for us.

I like to walk down every aisle and imagine things I could cook up with new found ingediants.

However, this week I was on a mission.

I had a whole list of Pinterest recipes that I have been dying to try and so I was good and filled my cart with items on my list (mostly).

 

When Zach woke up Monday morning I told him it was time to get busy.
So I set him up in the kitchen floor with pots and pans and spatulas and he played me music while I worked.

 

We made a Blueberry Crumb Bar and a Crock Pot Chicken.

Both were a hit! (According to Ryan)

 

Crock Pot Chicken (as revised by yours truly):

Ingredients:

 

Rub Ingredients
4 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper

 

3 1/2 to 4 1/2 lbs roasting or fryer chicken
1 cup chopped onion, approx 1 medium to large onion
4-5 carrots, scrubbed, no need to peel, chopped in halves or thirds
4 celery stalks, cut in thirds

10-12 Fingerling potatoes
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

Directions:

1. Combine rub ingredients in a small bowl.

 

 

 

2. Remove chicken from packaging and remove neck and pouch with organs. Rinse chicken and pat dry with paper towels.

 

3. Rub garlic all over outside of the chicken. Put garlic inside the chicken. Rub the rub all over the outside and inside the chicken.

 

4. Place onions, carrots and celery inside the slow cooker.

 

 

5. Place chicken on top of the vegetables. Cover slow cooker and cook chicken on low for 4-8 hours.  Cook until the internal temperature of the leg is at 160 degrees F (Do not be alarmed by the black potatoes, they are meant to be that way - they are actually purple).

 

 

6. Remove chicken and place in a 9x13 glass baking dish. Place baking dish in the oven under the broiler for about 4-5 minutes. Allow chicken to rest after removing it from the broiler for 5-10 minutes.

 

Afterthoughts:

 

- I almost chickened out of using the cayenne pepper but I am glad that I didn't the rub had a wonderful flavor. BUT if you don't like spicy, I would definitely omit it!

- The carrots were Ryan's favorite, he says double the carrots.

- I added extra garlic, I minced it and rubbed it on the outside of the bird.

- The potatoes did not absorb the flavor very well, maybe next time I will poke fork holes in them or just cut them in half to help them out.

 

 



Blueberry Crumb Bars

 

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup cold unsalted butter

1 egg

1/4 tsp salt

Zest and juice of one lemon

4 cups fresh blueberries

1/2 cup white sugar

4 tsp cornstarch

 

1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  Grease a 9×13 inch pan.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly.

3. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

4. Bake in preheated oven for30-45 mins, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

 

 

Afterthoughts:

 

- It is a thin line between getting the blueberries cooked enough and burning the crumble. I think next time I will cover it with foil for the first fifteen minutes to allow the blueberries to cook longer.

Zuppa Toscana

My mom and I are slightly obsessed with the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana, so when I saw a copy cat recipe on pinterest I knew I had to try it while she was in town. The recipe is really easy and the soup tastes a lot like the real thing!

 

 

Zuppa Toscana

Make about 10 servings

Ingredients

1 lb. Italian sausage
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup white wine
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
2 russett potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch chunks
2 cups fresh kale, torn into bite size pieces
3 cups chicken broth
2.5 cups water
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Place a large stockpot over medium heat. Crumble the sausage into the pan and cook until well browned (you might want to attempt to make the chunks of sausage a little large, mine were tiny and while it was still yummy, I think larger bites of meat would have improved the soup). Remove the cooked sausage from the pot with a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl; set aside. Add the onion to the pan and sauté until tender, about 7 minutes.

2. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes to the pan and cook for one minute. Add the wine to the pot and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any browned bits. Add the potatoes, kale, chicken broth and water to the pot. Return the sausage to the pot. Increase the heat to medium-high, bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer on medium-low. Here is where the recipe I found said to cook for twenty minutes and serve but I think that would be a mistake. At this point I transfered the soup to my slow cooker and allowed it to cook on low for a few hours.

3. When ready to eat, stir in the heavy cream and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

 

Things I learned from this recipe:

- The soup taste even better heheated the next day.

- Do not be tempted to put more heavy cream. It makes it a little too strong.

- I added extra kale because I love it. It didn't change the taste of the soup.