Chicken Soup Really Does Heal, Right?

Good Wednesday morning! I hope everyone had a great night last night and is feeling fine this morning. Here in our household, I am nursing back to health 3-year olds with the stomach flu. Not a whole lot of fun, but a necessary motherly duty. It is also at times like these that I recall a conversation that I had with my mother only about a week ago in a dressing room with my sister. She was commenting that before I got pregnant she just wasn't sure how I would do with kids. "You were just never the maternal type like your sister," she shrugs as she zips my sister into another dress. "What's that supposed to mean?" I ask as I begin to get a bit defensive. "I'm not saying you're a bad mom, I just wasn't sure what you would be like when they got here. You never liked kids when you were a teenager." At this point I'm beginning to wonder exactaly where this conversation is going, but once again, with my mom it's always best to not read to much into a comment as it's often hard to tell the difference between a criticism and a stray thought. "Ok," I reply a bit baffled at the turn of conversation since just a few minutes before we were discussing how fast time has gone by and pretty soon my babies will be 4. She offered no further comment after that, which only leaves me to wonder what exactaly my mother pictured when my husband and I announced we were having twins. Not that it should matter, but as it is with most daughters, maternal approval is often sought after. Please don't misconstrue this as anything other than the playful banter that my family and I often engage in. While she has no problem offering "tough love," I couldn't ask for a more loving and wonderful Mother, or a more perfect Mimi for my kids. Love you mom! However, I still feel the need to prove her orginal thoughts about me wrong!

I digress. My real reason for my post this morning was to prove what a rock star Mom I actually am. Ok, I really just need to pump myself up with false confidence every now and then; especially when I've been up all night cleaning vomit off of a very tired and cranky child and doing, yet another, load of laundry. Anyway - here was my solution to healing my small brood - Chicken Noodle Soup. Now in the past I wouldn't have hesitated to grab the nearest can of Cambell's Soup, pair it with some Saltines and call it a day, but this the new me! I decided to try and make my own soup - from scratch! Sound scary? Not really. I found a very simple recipe (albiet time consuming) that I started yesterday and that we will feast on tonight. This is great if you are a stay-at-home mom or if you work from home as the chicken has to simmer for 4 hours as you make your chicken stock. I got this recipe mainly from my "Simply Organic" cookbook by Jesse Ziff Cool (a great cookbook and I highly recommend purchasing it!). I made a few modifications and added my own noodle recipe to finish it off. Here is what I came up with:

Chicken Soup
1 whole 3-4 pound Chicken
2 large onions
3 large carrots, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
5 peppercorns
2 large sprigs of fresh dill
3 large sprigs of Italian Parsley
1 parsnip, chopped (you knew I'd get that one in there!)
1 t. salt
1/2 t. black pepper
noodles (see following recipe)

All you do is dump the whole chicken into a large stock pot and throw in 1 onion (I just quartered mine), 1 carrot, 1 celery rib, and the peppercorns, dill and parsley. Cover the chicken with cold water and add about another 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let simmer, covered, for around 4 hours.
*This makes your house smell like you're mother of the year. It is the best!
After simmering, pull your chicken out of the pot and set aside. It will be so tender that it will literally start falling off the bones. Just make a little pile of all the meat, bones and skin on a plate and let it cool a couple of minutes. Place a strainer over a bowl and pour the rest of the contents into it. Discard the remaining soilds, cover the stock and stick into the fridge overnight. After doing this, go through your chicken pile and seperate the meat from the skin and bones. I kind of shredded/seperated the meat as I went to make it bite-sized. Throw away the skin, fat and bones and stick the meat into a ziploc baggie and into the fridge.
The next morning, uncover your stock and scoop up the layer of fat that has formed on the top and discard. It will all be a little jelly like at this point, but no worries, it's reliquify when we heat it up later!
It's at this point that we make the noodles!

Noodles *Make about 2 1/2 hours before you want to serve the soup!
2 egg yolks
pinch of baking powder
flour to make a stiff batter
1/2 C. half-n-half
Salt to taste

Combine it all into a bowl and keep adding flour until the batter is no longer sticky. You really get to get your hands dirty on this one! Seperate the dough into two balls and roll them out seperately. Cover your countertop with flour before starting this and also make sure your rolling pin is covered. You really can't use too much flour in this recipe. Just keep adding the flour as you roll them out so they don't get sticky. After you have rolled out both balls of dough rather thinly (they do plump up quite a bit when they are cooked), let them sit for about 2 hours to dry. After drying, roll them up (like you would a newspaper) and then start to slice them into thin strips with a sharp knife (like you would cut cookies off a roll of cookie dough). At this point you can either drop them into the hot broth, or stick them in a ziploc and freeze for a little later. It's up to you!

Final step!
Chop the remaining onion, 2 carrots and celery rib. In a large stock pot add these veggies to the stock, the parsnip, salt and black pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for about an hour covered. About 15 minutes before you want to serve your soup, throw the noodles into the broth so they can cook along with the soup. Test a noodle before you take it off the stove to make sure they are cooked through. Otherwise you'll have chewy noodles! Enjoy!

I tell you, I am not a good cook, but I'm trying. I was a little intimidated by this recipe, but turns out it's really easy, just a lot of steps. Try it out if you're curing ills in your household, or if you just really like chicken and noodle soup! It tastes devine and it proves what a real supermom I am - right? Kiss kiss to my wonderful mother!