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!

Chicken Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce

For a special occasion this week, D & I decided to use the pasta machinery that D1 got for us... I posted pictures on my old blog but it is some tricky machinery so I will gladly repost!

So! Here's a little romance for ya - back in the ole 2009, D & I were in Rome, Italy for our 1 year anniversary. We went to a FANTASTIC restaurant and had amazing food... Dennis ordered the pumpkin ravioli and he was never the same again. He talks about it all the time. So we decided to try pumpkin ravioli.

At this point you might notice that the title of this post is chicken ravioli. Yea. The grocery store was OUT OF PUMPKIN! Not even real pumpkin, just canned pumpkin - that's all I wanted, and I was denied. So I had to improvise. I knew we had chicken at home, so I grabbed parmesan and sage for the sauce and then I peaced out.

I looked up some chicken filling recipes when I got home and found one that looked pretty easy with the ingredients I already had at home.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

1 small onion, finely chopped

8 ounces boneless chicken breast, cubed

2 tablespoons Chianti

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

Salt and pepper

Sauté the celery, carrot, and onion in butter for about 3 minutes, the add the chicken and sauté for 3-4 more minutes, until the chicken starts to brown. Add the Chianti, cook for 2 more minutes, then remove from heat.

Put the whole chicken mixture into the food processor and pulse to chop. It should look kinda like chicken salad when it is done. Pour it into a bowl and add the egg yolk, cheese, salt and pepper. Then use the mixture to fill the ravioli.

We lay out the pasta in sheets and use cookie cutters to make a circle, then put a little lump of the mixture in the circle and fold it in half. Press the edges down to seal them, then cut the edges with a ravioli cutter.

The finished ravioli... one of MANY.

Once you have all of your raviolis, drop them in boiling water for 6-7 minutes. It takes a long time to make each individual ravioli but it's satisfying to eat them knowing how hard you worked, and it's also really rewarding to hear your guests tell you how awesome your meal is. 

Plate sans salad. Note the Boh.

Now for the Sage Butter Sauce.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter

8 sage leaves

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/4 cup grated parmesan

I'm going to post the directions exactly as posted because I kind of just tossed them all together and hoped for the best since I was in a huge rush. It was still really tasty!

Melt butter in a 12 to 14-inch saute pan and continue cooking until golden brown color ("noisette") appears in the thinnest liquid of the butter. Add sage leaves and remove from heat. Add lemon juice and set aside. Drain the pasta, but leaving some cooking water, and gently pour into saute pan and return to heat. Add the cheese, toss to coat and serve immediately.

The spread. Note the sage butter.

ENJOY!

Here are the links for the chicken filling recipe & the sage butter recipe.

Red Beans and Rice

For my brother's 27th birthday this year, Dennis and I decided to try something really different (for us). We knew he had made Red Beans and Rice for himself before so we thought we would give it a shot.

Warning: This takes a LONG time to make so if you're going to tackle it make sure you allot yourself the proper amount of time. We were forced to rush a little bit and serve it up before it was technically ready. It still tasted amazing, so don't fret if you don't fulfill every minute of the recipe - it just tastes better and better as it cooks. You should give yourself around 4 hours to cook, and that doesn't include prepping the ingredients.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups chopped onions

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped bell peppers

Salt and cayenne, to taste

4 bay leaves

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 pound smoked ham hocks

1/2 pound boiled picked pork meat

1 pound dried red beans, rinsed & sorted over, soaked & drained

3 tablespoons chopped garlic

10 cups chicken stock, or water

4 cups cooked white rice

1/4 cup chopped green onions

If you are like Dennis, you will want to emulate Emeril (who is to thank for this recipe) and prep your ingredients in little bowls for lovely presentation.

Another warning about time - as you can see in the ingredients, the red beans need to be "rinsed and sorted over, soaked and drained." Sometimes there are stones or damaged beans in the lot that need to be removed, so make sure you sift through and find any of those. Rinse them in a colander and then soak them in a large bowl or pot (if you look closely you can see that the beans in the picture are soaked in water). We let them soak overnight because it helps to shorten the cooking time. It is not absolutely necessary to soak them for that long so if you don't have 8+ hours, there are other methods of pre-soaking that you can find on the packaging of the red beans.

Some of the ingredients are a little odd sounding - not stuff you would normally have around the house. Ham hocks for example... what are those?! Well in the above picture, the ham hocks are picture at the bottom left on the red plate. They are known as "pork knuckles," to give you a better idea of what in the world it is. It doesn't have much edible meat on it, so it is just used to cook in the mixture for added flavor. They should be in the meat section at the grocery store - not too hard to find.

When looking for the ingredients in the grocery store, we misread the "boiled picked pork meat" as "pickled pork meat" so we left the store without any! Looking back, it seems like pulled pork would work well in this situation. However, we weren't sure what to do at the time, and my mom told us to substitute bacon. Bacon is good on everything so we were happy to oblige.

The list also calls for bell peppers, but doesn't specify which color. We are partial to red peppers to snack on at home, so that is what we chose. It was a good taste, but I wouldn't rule out the less sweet green pepper.

Instructions

In a large saucepan, heat the oil. When the oil is hot, add the onions, celery, and bell peppers to the saucepan. Season the vegetables with salt and cayenne. Saute the vegetables for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables start to wilt. Add the bay leaves, thyme, ham hocks, and pork meat (in our case, bacon) and saute for 5 to 6 minutes. Add the beans, garlic, and stock or water. Bring the liquid up to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook for about 2 hours, uncovered. Add more stock or water if the mixture becomes dry and thick. Use a wooden spoon to mash 1/4 of the mixture. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the beans are tender and creamy. Add more liquid if it is too thick. The mixture should be soupy, but not watery. Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. To serve ladle into bowls with rice. Garnish with green onions.

Those are the directions from Emeril Lagasse's website. When it describes the beans as being "creamy," it is a little hard to understand until you try the mixture. The beans will literally melt in your mouth once they are cooked well. This is what your finished product may look like:

Now the website says the recipe yields 8 servings.. they must be serving ogres or something. This makes a TON of servings. You would be better off freezing half of it for later or giving portions of it out to friends. It reheats really well and tastes just as great as it did fresh off of the stove.

Here is the original link from Emerils.com.