Homemade Egg Noodles for Chicken Soup

What did I say about the weather in my very last post?  We went from spring to Alaska force winds and snow yesterday...it was snowing sideways for a good portion of the day.   Sideways snow and chicken noodle soup is just a great partnership. 

Even better are homemade noodles.  I love, love, love how fat and chewy they are.  Yes, fat and chewy.

I won't start with a chicken soup recipe here...mine is essentially boxed broth (yes indeed), carrots, celery and chicken cooked through.  I have no issues using boxed broth...obviously.  Homemade is way better of course. 

The noodles are where the magic starts.  

You can roll them much thinner than these obviously and they'll still puff up quite a bit.  This thickness made some pretty thick noodles.   If you like them more noodle-like and less dumpling-like, definitely roll them thinner than these. 

What is is about chickie noodle soup that is so wonderful?  It just is right?!

Homemade Egg Noodles for Chicken Soup

makes heck of a lot of noodles

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup water
1 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
½ tsp pepper
about 3 ½ cups flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, beat eggs and water
2. Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Pour out onto floured surface and knead well for 5 minutes.  
3. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes
4. Flour surface and roll out dough to desired thickness
5. Toss noodles with fingers to separate. 
6. Add to hot soup broth and cook for 8-10 minutes depending upon thickness

Parmesan Kale Salad

The longer I've been away from the blog, the harder it is to get back on here.  Same excuse as always...it's been crazy busy around these parts.

Denver has had its typical pre-spring weather....snow, 70 degrees, snow, sunshine, melted snow, 70 degrees.  I have to admit that I'm actually a fan of changing weather....the variety of the 4 seasons is precisely what I missed so much when I lived in Vegas for a year.

The sneak previews of spring warmth just call out for a nice big salad for dinner.  I never thought it would be a Kale salad in my house though.

For someone who adores produce so much, it hurts a little to admit I don't like Kale.  I've tried it in salads, in my smoothies and always, yuck, yuck, yuck.  I think it reminds me of all the times I had to break down the salad bar when I worked at a restaurant in high school.  We'd save the decorative Kale full of slop to decorate the salad bar the next day.  Yum.

My friend invited me to meet her for lunch at True Food Kitchen in Cherry Creek a few weekends ago.  Other friends had told me that True Food could turn me into a Kale lover...I was so not convinced. Aside from the little fact that parking in Cherry Creek is about as fun as a trip to the dentist,  I'd have to say that I loved True Food and their healthy whole foods menu.  The carrot ginger lemonade was pretty awesome too.

And as it turns out, my friends were right.  I will eat kale now if I dress it exactly like True Food's Tuscan Kale salad.  Apparently, kale salad needs to be massaged to soften it up.  Who knew?

I have visions of high school here. 

The dressing is a pretty basic lemon garlic vinaigrette.  Simple and yummy.  I get so excited when food is simple and pure. 

The secret here is to toss.  Assertively and aggressively.  I used the tongs to squeeze and mash as much as possible.  Kale is pretty tough stuff.  

After about 1/2 hour, the dressing breaks down the kale to a tender lemony garlic delight.  It still tastes like kale, but good kale.   

The best part of this salad is that it refrigerates well which makes a perfect weekday office lunch.  What other green salad can you dress and pack away in the fridge only to find it the next day exactly as you left it?  I'm a bit of a convert. 

Parmesan Kale Salad

adapted from Whole Living

Ingredients
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 bunch kale, ribs removed and leaves sliced into 1/4-inch shreds
1 tbsp homemade garlic croutons, crushed

1/4 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Directions

1. Add lemon juice, oil, garlic, salt, and pepper flakes. 
2. Add kale to a large bowl, top with dressing and toss well to coat.   Let sit at room temperature for 10 to 30 minutes tossing periodically.  
3. Add grated cheese and breadcrumbs and toss before serving.

Homemade Hawaiian Rolls

I haven't been sulking after Denver's Super Bowl loss.  All that much.  Actually, if you've been a Denver fan long enough to remember the heartbreak of Denver's Super Bowl losses in the late 80s and early 90s, well you've probably learned to effectively cope with the grief.  It's really all about compartmentalizing.   After you get past the initial shock that the team has lost it within the first 12 seconds of the game, you begin to the road to acceptance that it's going to be another one of those.  It get's easier with each blowout.

So homemade Hawaiian rolls.

There are a bazillion recipes out there for Hawaiian rolls--I found this recipe that the blogger said were the fluffiest rolls she'd ever made.  That's just a recipe begging to be made in my book.  Seriously, these are the fluffiest, softest rolls I've ever made as well.  They are not as sweet as the store bought ones but that's a plus in my opinion.  

The sweetness in these comes from brown sugar and pineapple. That's definitely a good start to any recipe. 

I adapted the recipe to use coconut oil instead of olive oil because I am swimming in Costco sized coconut oil over here.  Knowing that there's dough rising on the counter almost ready to bake makes be absolutely giddy.  Is there any kitchen smell that's better? Okay, maybe cinnamon rolls.

When I make rolls I pull the dough around and pinch tightly at the bottom to make a ball shape.  I think I learned once that this forms a tension on the top of the rolls that helps them keep their shape (as opposed to just rolling them like you are rolling cookie dough).  

You can already tell just from the rising that these are going to be super soft and fluffy right?

These rolls are pretty fantastic filled with Hawaiian pulled chicken, but really, they're pretty fantastic straight out of the pan as well.  Try to eat just one. 

Homemade Hawaiian Rolls

adapted from Yammie's Noshery

Ingredients:
1/3 cup milk warm milk
1 packet instant dry yeast
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted coconut oil, plus additional 2 tsp for bowl and pan
4 tbsp butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup pineapple in juice
4 cups bread flour (all-purpose would also work)
1 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

For the tops:
1 egg
1/4 cup water

Directions:

1. Heat milk in a small saucepan until warm to the touch or about 100-105 degrees.  Add yeast and let rest for 5 minutes. 
2. Add the oil, butter, pineapple, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and milk mixture to a mixing bowl and mix on low until combined. 
3. Add flour and knead for 10 minutes on medium speed and using dough hook. This dough should be  a bit sticky.   
4. Grease a large bowl with melted 1 tsp of coconut oil.  Add dough and turn to coat dough with oil. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled (about 45-60 minutes depending upon your kitchen temp). Punch the dough down and divide into twelve equal balls. 
5. Grease  9x13 inch pan with 1 tsp coconut oil, roll dough into balls and let rise again until doubled (45-60 minutes). 
6. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Beat together the egg and water for the top and brush the tops of the risen rolls with the egg wash. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the tops are golden browned.

Super Bowl Sunday Orange Super Smoothie

Brooklyn's ready, are you?  Super Bowl Sunday is always happy but today is a day that makes a girl squeal with delight.  

The Super Bowl is a lot like Thanksgiving and Christmas in that it's just so much food and eating.  I haven't recovered from all of the Holiday baking so the blue and orange baking, while so much fun, has left me less than excited to eat any of it.  I bake the sweets and force them on others.  

What I can definitely get on board with is an Orange Super smoothie in honor of the game of games (and let's face it, the team of teams) tonight.  

This smoothie starts off innocently enough...1 orange peeled and chopped in half, one large handful of pineapple,  and a handful of mango.  The standard unit of measure for smoothies is indeed the "handful."

To get that orange though,  you need something extra orange.  Enter 2 handfuls of carrots and.........eeek.....deliciously beautiful orange beets.   You can leave the beets out of course.  I often add red beets to my smoothies if I'm using spinach because spinach and berries makes an ugly brown color, but a bit of beets keeps it all looking red and fresh.  I'm not going to lie to you here though, while spinach doesn't taste like spinach in a smoothie, beets do taste like beets.  Use sparingly or if you don't like beets, leave them out.  For this smoothie I also added a glop of honey, a quick pour (2-3 tbsps) of red cherry juice concentrate, 1 tsp chia seeds and 1 cup of ice cubes.  

I used about a quarter of an orange beet to get a kick of color...love those natural produce colors. 

If you are not so much on board with the Super Bowl smoothie and need some sugary goodies for your festive orange and blue table, it's not too late if you have a box of cake mix and some food coloring. 

Homemade Broncos whoopie pies are of course phenomenal,  but more time consuming.  The ones I made earlier in the season are more cookie like but if you want it fast and quick and more cake like,  you can make them with cake mix...this version worked well for me when I made these a few weeks ago.  I bake faster than I blog it seems. 

I couldn't bring myself to smoosh that much canned frosting between such little cakes though so I made a marshmallow buttercream instead (recipe below). 

Whew.  And thus comes the end of orange and blue food for another 7-8 months.   Unless you are this kid. 

Marshmallow Buttercream

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter room temp

1-2 tbsp milk
1 small container of Marshmallow Fluff
2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

1. Beat together butter and Fluff  on med until smooth 
2. Slowly add in powdered sugar with mixer on low.
3. Add in 1 tbsp milk and beat until combined, add additional milk if needed. 
4. Spoon into piping bag, cut tip and fill one half of whoopie pie on flat side and top with additional cake/cookie. 

Broncos Cake Batter Puppy Chow

There's something about all those food dye concerns that goes straight out the window when it comes to food during football season.  Call me a hypocrite, but during the football season and especially during January football, I need food in Broncos colors.  If you are watching January football and see your team, I think food coloring is understandable. 

I made the funfetti cake mix puppy chow last year which was a pretty big hit with the group I served it up to, but who doesn't love puppy chow really?  

In truth this is just one batch of regular cake mix puppy chow with orange sprinkles and one batch using blue candy melts and blue powdered sugar.  I received quite a few e-mails from readers of the Broncos cake pops and Broncos popcorn post asking where to find navy blue candy melts and I have to tell you, I feel your pain.  These are Make'N Mold brand which I purchase from Hobby Lobby.  During the year I was in Vegas, I only found them once and proceeded to buy all three remaining bags.  I've had better luck here in Denver but it's still hit or miss.  You can also buy them directly via Make'N Mold's site but as of now, they are the only makers of navy candy melts that I've seen.  I guess that makes them the official supplier of candy melts for Super Bowl XLVIII foodie needs. 

I used white chocolate for this but you can also use almond bark.  My anti-white chocolate mind doesn't really differentiate.  I think it's really just the glue to hold the cake mix and powdered sugar on. 

I added orange sprinkles here, because when I made the funfetti cake mix version, I found that sprinkles didn't stick so well to the puppy chow when they were in the cake mix.  Turns out, sprinkles really don't stick all that well regardless.  They are fine here but fall off when mixed into the cake batter mix.  

Coloring powdered sugar and dry cake mix is kind of a funny thing.  It worked well here but next time I think I'll take my chances with regular white cake mix and powdered sugar.  While the coloring dries, I was forever concerned that fingers would turn blue if people licked their fingers. I left out the colored cake mix in the recipe below but it's really just adding the cake mix and powdered sugar to a mini food processor and slowly adding food coloring by drops and processing until you get the color you want.  I've found the Americolor food coloring (Hobby Lobby of course) dries faster and more thoroughly for this purpose than the Wilton gels. 

Crazy stuff right?  I would contend that this is more of a Denver blue than a Seattle blue. 

Since the sprinkles didn't stick all that well, I called an audible here and added orange Reeses Pieces.  This was definitely one of the easiest ways to get team colors on the party table.   And I'm guessing I don't have to tell you how addictive puppy chow can be. 

Broncos Cake Batter Puppy Chow

8 c Chex cereal

1.5 c chopped almond bark or white chocolate, melted

1.5 c navy blue candy melts

1 1/3 c dry cake mix

2/3 cup powdered sugar

1 cup orange Reeses Pieces

Directions:

1. Pour 2/3 c. cake mix and 1/3 c powdered sugar into gallon size baggie and mix well
2. Measure out 4 c Chex into a large bowl
3. Pour melted white chocolate over Chex mix and gently stir well to coat all cereal. 
4. Add cereal to gallon baggie, seal and shake well to coat.  
5. Spoon out coated Puppy Chow onto a baking sheet and allow white chocolate to fully harden
6. Repeat above steps with remaining ingredients and using the blue candy melts in place of the white chocolate.
7. When Puppy Chow is fully dry/hardened, combine in large bowl and mix in Reeses Pieces.