Chicken Noodle Soup - great for the sniffles.

Getting ready to be  eaten in a bowl that I colored! :)

On Wednesday Evan woke up feeling extremely sick.  His head hurt, his throat was sore, and he didn't sound good at all.  Luckily, I didn't get called into work so I was able to take care of him and get him whatever he needed.  I had been waiting for a good time to fix my homemade chicken noodle soup and this seemed to be it.  The thing about this meal is that a couple of years ago, I called my mom to ask her how to make chicken noodle soup and she told me roughly how to do it over the phone. It is definitely simple, but every time I make it it turns out slightly different since i'm not using an actual recipe.  This time as I made it I tried to pay more attention so I could write it down, so this is it.  Also, as a side note, although it is SO SIMPLE every time I make it I can't believe how tasty it is! And Evan loves it too. (Although this time he couldn't really taste it :)).  Another nice thing about this recipe is that you can adjust it very easily to make more or less.  For the amounts I used this time, I'd say it could feed around 4 people. 

Ingredients that go into the soup:

Chicken (2 breasts cut into pieces or 1 can chicken breast meat or 1 rotisserie chicken)	Optional:
Potatoes	Celery
Carrots	Any other vegetable you feel inspired to add
Egg Noodles	Marjoram
Salt	Parsley
Pepper	Bay Leaves
Water
Chicken Boullion Cubes

Recipe if using canned or rotiserrie chicken (notes at the bottom for using chicken breasts)

1. To start off, I put 8 cups of water into my pot and bring it to a boil. 

2. While the water is coming to a boil, I wash 4 medium size potatoes and between 1/4 -1/2 of a 32oz bag of baby carrots. (I know that isn't very exact or helpful but I forgot to count! I like a lot of carrots in my soup so I would suggest just adding how much you like)  To make this soup even easier, I have started using unpeeled potatoes in the soup.  I just make sure to wash the outside of the potatoes extra good.  I cut the potatoes into meidumish cubes and then I slice the baby carrots. 

3. Around this time the water is boiling and I add 9 chicken bouillion cubes to the water. Technically it is one bouillion cube to one cup of water, but I want to make sure my soup is always very flavorful! 

4. After the bouillion cubes have dissolved, add the carrots and potatoes.  Also, add some salt and pepper and if you want, a dash of I'd marjoram, parsley and chopped bay leaves.  Set the timer to around 10 minutes. When it goes off, test a couple of the vegetables to see if they are close to being done.

5. When the vegetables are about done (needing just a couple minutes more) add the canned chicken or rotisserie chicken - shred the chicken a little bit - and the egg noodles (a couple of handfuls seems to be perfect).  Let boil for about 3 minutes more and your good to go!

Here is the canned chicken I used. It was my first time using it ( I got the idea from Evan's mom) and it is easy and yummy!

Here are the egg noodles, or at least the package, that I would highly recommend using. They are located close to the other noodles in the grocery store.

And I made some cheese bread to compliment the meal. However, because i'd never used our broiler before I didn't realize how it cooked. Oops!

Surprisingly still yummy though :)

Evan cut his crust off just like an elementary school boy! ha ha.

*HOW TO ADJUST IF YOU ARE USING REGULAR CHICKEN BREASTS*

Cut chicken into bite size pieces.  Add the bouillion to the water and heat until it is dissoved. Add the chicken to the water and SIMMER the chicken until cooked. The key to non-chewy boiled chicken is to SIMMER the chicken, not BOIL.  Then, once the chicken is cooked, remove the chicken from the water and add the vegetables. Continue previous directions and then add chicken at the same spot as above.  This way your chicken doesn't get over cooked and is still good!

Also, if you are like me and just don't like boiled chicken, brown the chicken in a skillet with vegetable oil while boiling the vegetables etc. and then add the chicken in the same spot as above.

Good luck! And be prepared for a great meal! 

Stroganoff. So easy yet so tasty!

One of my favorite meals growing up was Beef Stroganoff.  My mom never understood why we loved it so much because she thought it was too simple. (She's an excellent cook so she likes more challenging things) Well the other day I was thinking about ideas of things to cook, and I realized I hadn't had stroganoff for at least 3 years. What a sad realization!  With this first attempt, I didn't get to ambitious because instead of making it with beef strips I used ground beef but it turned out amazing! And soooo easy. Oh and it didn't take that long, i think approximately 30 minutes. Which are three things i love in a recipe. (yummy, easy, and quick.) :)

Here is the actual recipe:

Ingredients:

1 (12 ounce) package egg noodles, cooked and drained 6 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced 1 onion, chopped 1/4 cup butter

2 pounds lean ground beef 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour 2 cups beef broth 1 cup sour cream salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:

1.	Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook egg noodles in boiling water until done, about 8 minutes. Drain.
2.	Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. In a large skillet, cook mushrooms and onions in 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat until soft; remove from pan.
3.	Using the same pan, melt remaining butter. Cook ground beef in melted butter until browned. Mix in flour. Stir in beef broth, and cook until slightly thickened. Add mushroom and onion mixture; stir in sour cream. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Continue cooking until sauce is hot, but not boiling. Serve sauce over egg noodles. I did step 1 the same, but steps 2 and 3 I did slightly different because I didn't have any mushrooms on hand.  To be honest, i think the mushrooms would of made it even better but I didn't want to make a trip to the store.  So here is what I did differently...and it was also slightly healthier... I took 1/2 an onion, diced, and about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil  and sauteed them in my saucepan.  Then I added about 1 lb of ground beef and cooked until browned and then added 1 can of Consomme soup. *Note- I have discovered that Consomme soup is more flavorful and healthy than beef broth.  It is located by all of the other soups in the store. Anyway, after adding the soup i added 1 cup of lite sour cream and 3 tablespoons of flour and then some salt and pepper. At this point I let the mixture simmer for a bit until it looked slighly thickened and I called it good. This is what it looked like: I poured it over the noodles, served with some green beans and me and Evan scarfed it all up. Another success! As a side note, I have started to realize that a good majority of the meals I make call for ground beef.  Buying ground beef by the pound each time can get a little pricey. And i find that using the whole pound is usually a little too much for us.  So... Helpful Hint #6: Buy your groundbeef in larger increments,(like 3 lbs.) divide it up into separate bags when you get home (I usually cut mine in 4ths) and call it good. It may not be an exact lb, but it will end up being perfect! I promise! And it is so much easier just defrosting the exact amount you need.

Homemade Mac N Cheese

So me and Evan are pretty fortunate this semester and get to see each other a whole lot more than I thought we would!  However, today he had a big huge yucky test that he needed to take so unfortunately I looked forward to a day and night by my lonesome.  How depressing.  Just kidding. It's nice to have some girl time.  Today I ventured into watching the show Parks and Recreation and I like it so far!  Tonight I decided I'd explore a new recipe, homemade mac n cheese.  I was very excited to cook this, because a couple months ago when i was at Target i came across a six piece CorningWare bake set that was on sale for $19.99 (thats a great deal if you don't know...:)).  I haven't had an occasion to use it until tonight!! I think everything turned out splendid.  Evan hasn't tried it yet, so i'll get his feedback tomorrow.  Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni 5 tablespoons butter, divided 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 cups milk 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese 2 ounces processed cheese food (i.e. Velveeta), cubed 2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs

Directions:

1.	Cook macaroni according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, melt 4 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until smooth. Gradually add milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Reduce heat. Add the cheeses, stirring until cheese is melted. Drain macaroni.
2.	Transfer macaroni to a greased 1-1/2-qt. baking dish. Pour cheese sauce over macaroni; mix well. Melt the remaining butter; add the bread crumbs. Sprinkle over top. Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes or until heated through and topping is golden brown.

This recipe turned out to be a success, and in all reality it is a very simple recipe, yet I wouldn't consider it "unstressful".  At least for a beginner cook like myself.  To begin with, it is one of those recipes where a lot of things end up going on at once.  But I got through it! And i'll happily make it again.  That's right, it's another 2 thumbs up recipe!
So, to begin with the beginning part of this recipe with butter and flour actually has an official name! It is called roux.  This particular mixture is what makes the base sauce thick.  And it's something we should all get really good at doing because it is involved in a lot of recipes (or at least recipes with sauce and gravy). Come to think of it, I've heard my mom talk about it a lot.  It isn't the easiest thing on the planet to do and it needs to be done right.  It can mess up consistency for a recipe (texture and thickness!)  So here is basically a great way of doing it (mine turned out perfect tonight so I think this is worth sharing)
--Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat.  When melted, stir in the flour.  It is better if you have a little more butter than flour (i.e 4 tbs butter to 3 tbs flour).  Stirring constantly is a must!  The next step for this recipe would be to keep stirring for about 2 minutes.  Then remove the saucepan from the heat and pour in lukewarm milk (not hot, not cold)  a little bit at a time while still constantly stirring.  Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, all the while still constantly stirring.  And viola! You have your basic roux.  Luckily, the ingredients are pretty basic so if you mess up you can just start over.  I think the key would be the constant stirring.
Anyway as said before, because of the sensitivity of the roux it gets kind of hectic with needing to add more things and worry about the noodles, etc. all at once. So my next tip would be
Helpful Hint #5:  When making a recipe where a lot can be going on at once, have your ingredients all ready to go and all measured out!
This really saved me because I didn't have to stop stirring when i grabbed the cheese and added it to the mix. I did have to step away quickly to drain my noodles(so they weren't really soggy) but that was A-OK.  I like things cheesy so I used 2 cups of mild cheddar cheese instead of 1.  Oh and breadcrumbs on top is optional.  And that's about it ! Yum yum!