Did you know you can make your own homemade super fantastic pasta noodles? And all you need is the ingredients, a rolling pin and a knife.
It may not be exactly “green” to make your own pasta because you still have to buy all of the ingredients in their packages. But I think making your own pasta is far better than buying it out of a box and full of random ingredients and the hidden preservatives. I try and buy the “best for their money” ingredients and then make my own. Most of the time, all of the ingredients are already in your pantry so you don’t have to buy new. Buying the pasta in the box is just another box to recycle!
Or maybe that’s not the “green” I’m talking about! Yes, you can make these noodles green with spinach which is yummo. Just add one cup of cooked spinach to the recipe below and WHA-LAH!
If that doesn’t sell you the flavor of the fresh noodles after they soak up all the broth when cooked definitely will! Or maybe the arm workout from rolling the noodles out entices you?
So here is my favorite egg noodle recipe. Pastas can be made with only flour and oil but I have come to prefer this recipe because of the chewy/aldente texture. Yumtastic! Plus these noodles are much easier to roll out. The versions without eggs and milk are like rolling out rubber. Taste great but you will be working up a sweat. These are fairly easy to roll out.
- 2.5 cups flour
- little pinch of salt
- mix the above
- mix the below together:
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- add all together plus:
- 1 Tblsp of butter (soft)
- Kneed the dough till all mixed and then let sit for 10 min.
- Take pieces of the dough and roll out as thin as you’d like. I prefer them kind of thick for that chewy/aldente I’m referring to.
- cut them with a knife in the length and width you prefer.
The best way to cook these noodles is in a soup or broth. They soak up all of the flavor so just plain water is too boring. My favorite is in my home made chicken soup. You want that recipe? It’s my grandmothers recipe but I have never made it to taste exactly like she did. Her’s was to die for and my moms is a close second. Sorry the recipe you are getting is third from the best, yet I think still fabulous.
Place into a crock pot or soup pot on the stove:
- Chicken – I usually buy a pack of chicken legs – with chicken I definitely buy the organic stuff. After living in Arkansas and seeing chicken farms up close and personal I try and stay away from Tyson.
- carrots – about 3/4 bag of baby carrots – or 3 large carrots diced
- a decent sized piece of ginger root. If you don’t have ginger root the powdered stuff works well too (about 2 tsp).
- 2-3 Tblsp of dried cilantro
- 2-3 chicken bouillon cubes
- salt and pepper to taste
- fill your pot with water. Leave a bit of room for noodles later on.
- THAT’S IT! Keep it simple!
Simmer the above until the chicken starts falling off the bone. Now the rough part. Take the chicken out and pick out the chicken from the waste. Place the chicken back in the pot. Bring back up to a boil and add in noodles to cook. Cook noodles about 5 minutes or until they float to the top.
Here are some pics of the last two times I made the noodles and chicken soup. You can of course make the noodles in whatever broth and eat them with pasta sauce. But, you should make your sauce home made too! Perhaps I’ll post my sauce recipe one day too. You can also put the uncooked noodles in your fridge and keep them for a few days.
Ok onward to work on the publication of mine.
HOME MADE!