Quick Note about Oatmeal

I have no firsthand pictures to support this post, but I did something Monday morning/afternoon that I need to share with the world.

I made oatmeal using half milk and half.... eggnog. That is all.

PS. When I googled eggnog, a bunch of pictures of eggnog showed up and 1 painting of a woman breastfeeding. WTF. Does she produce eggnog instead of milk? I'm confused and scared now.

PPS. When I scrolled down my google results, I saw pictures of pancakes. This leads me to believe that people are making pancakes with eggnog and now I am inspired.

Meghan's World Famous Chicken Noodle Soup That I Made For the First Time

Holy crap, I have not written anything in awhile. But I haven't really made anything worth writing about in awhile, so what are you gonna do. Dennis was feeling sick last week so I made it my business to make him some chicken noodle soup.

Of course I forgot to take pictures even though I had plenty of opportunities. I made a huge batch of soup and ate the leftovers for days, and still I didn't think to pick up a camera. Well lucky for you, I made so much that I had to freeze some of the broth and therefore another opportunity will present itself soon. Byah!

I perused a couple different recipes to help me with this soup but it was mostly to gauge the timing so I'm not even going to dignify them with a link. That's right - I'm taking sole credit!!

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
15ish chicken bouillon cubes
1 bag of baby carrots
1 white/yellow onion
1 bunch of celery
1 bag of egg noodles
salt & pepper to taste

Fun fact: Did you know that celery, carrots, & onions are considered the "holy trinity" of French cuisine? The French term is a "mirepoix," or a mixture of chopped vegetables usually used as a base for soups, stews, and sauces. Fun stuff!

I headed into this endeavor with an open mind for experimentation, so my directions are going to be approximate. I think it is really hard to screw up this soup but maybe you all can prove me wrong. :) First things first... get a big ole pot. I have no idea how big mine was.. it was a large pot about 1 foot tall. I filled it up 3/4 of the way to the top, keeping in mind that I was going to have to leave room for the ingredients.

I brought the water to a boil and put a good amount of salt in it. Well that doesn't really help you at all, does it? A good amount could mean anything. Ever seen one of these doohickeys?

These contraptions dispense my salt and pepper because I am high society. So when I say I put a good amount of salt in the water, I mean I cracked the salt grinder about ten times. You could say I put 10 pinches of salt in there. Where was I? Oh yes, the water.

So when the water is boiling, I dropped 2 chicken breasts in there along with 15 bouillon cubes. I say 15, but that is really just a guess. I had no idea how many to use so I just kept adding them until I felt at peace with my chicken broth. I also didn't cut the fat away from the chicken because well, I'm just that lazy. But don't worry I did it later. I let the chicken boil for 10 minutes, then I took it out and checked it with the thermometer every ten minutes until it read the USDA approved temperature of 165 degrees. Then I removed it from the water and cubed it. THEN I cut the fat away. Twist ending.

At this point, you should bring the water down to a simmer, and there should be some fat or oil floating on the top of your water. Use a spoon or a mesh strainer thingy (like I did) to skim the fat from the water. Then you can put the now-cubed chicken back into the water and add your veggies!

I got a bag of baby carrots because I don't know why. Usually when you see carrots in soup they are cut up in little circles, right? Well, I just now came up with a reason. Dennis doesn't like carrots and I thought it would be easier for me to fish them out if they were in baby carrot form so that is why I deviated from the norm. I chopped up the celery and onions like normal though because I guess in some ways, I am still a conformist.

So I let all of that mess simmer on low heat for about 45 minutes. I kept setting the timer for 10 minutes and then checking the carrots. Once the carrots were soft I felt like my work was done. Oh, this is kind of weird but one website said to put SIX whole peppercorns in there and for some reason I did. I do not recommend this. If you have never cracked open a peppercorn in your mouth, you will have lived a full life. Don't do it, and don't chance doing it by putting whole peppercorns in your soup. Yech! Just crack some pepper in it like a normal person.

Now at this point, you should add the noodles. CAUTION! If you are planning on freezing your leftover soup, do not add the noodles to the broth that you will be freezing! I put half of my broth into a separate bowl and let it cool off. Then I added half of the bag of egg noodles to the big ole pot and turned the heat back to high. Using my same trusty method of checking every ten minutes, I tried the noodles until they seemed to be cooked all the way through. One ten minute interval is probably all the time it took.

Once the noodles were done, the soup was complete! I like my soup spicy so I added some tabasco. Dennis buttered some bread and we ate soup and bread. It was delish. I was really proud of myself.

Once the broth that I wanted to freeze had cooled off, I poured it into 2 ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. The reason you should freeze the broth without the noodles is that sometimes this process can make the noodles soggy or give them a weird consistency. You could thaw your soup and throw the noodles in the same way you did with the other noodles, or you could boil the noodles separately and combine them with the heated soup - your choice! Bon appetit!