Noodles and Memories

January in Pennsylvania...cold !   And the perfect time for soup.  You may remember in my October post I talked about how I cannot throw out the bones from a Costco chicken...the memory of my mother never wasting anything compels me to make soup.  If you missed that post, you can read it here .       

Yesterday was another bitter cold day and I planned soup for supper.  As you can see from the list of blogs I follow on the right side of this page - I stopped in at 320 Sycamore and saw that Melissa had a great post about making home made noodles for chicken soup.   I love reading her blog - when I first found it I was thrilled with the "It's A Wonderful Life" themed title as that is our favorite movie.   When I read the post about noodles it took me back to visiting my aunts....Annie and Katie.  Especially when my Aunt Katie would make her wonderful homemade noodles.    I am not sure WHY I never attempted to make noodles before this time.  And I don't know why I did not corner Aunt Katie and have her teach me how to make those delicious noodles.

  

Here is a photo of my mom and her sisters - 

The Elencik Girls!

That is my Aunt Katie on the left, my mom Mary in the middle, and my Aunt Annie on the right.  I get a kick out of how they all seem to have the same glasses...and every time I see a rerun of All In The Family I think of them...I swear my mom had a dress just like Edith Bunker.  They were all fabulous women...my mom was the baby.  My mom was a FABULOUS cook and baker, but I don't remember her ever making noodles.   We would visit Aunt Katie and her husband, Uncle Johnny, for some delicious soup and noodles.   So yesterday, while making the noodles, I was sending a little prayer of thanksgiving to my mom, my aunts, and all the generations of women in my family who made great soup and noodles.   

Were they easy to make ?  YES !  Here you go...

Start out with a cup of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, a beaten egg, and 3 Tablespoons of milk.  I did not have milk in the house, so I used half&half and that seemed to work fine.

Put the flour and salt in a bowl, mix well, then make a little well in the middle and pour in the egg and milk.  Mix to make a dough...add a little more milk if needed.  

Mine looked like this when I used my hands to form a ball, kneaded a little, then formed a ball.

On a floured silicone pad I rolled out the dough to a very thin layer.  Then according to Melissa's recipe you should let it rest for at least 20 minutes.  If you read her blog you will find she often lets it rest for 2 hours while her soup is cooking.  Since my soup was made last week and was stored in the freezer, I let the dough rest while I took the soup out of the freezer, put it in a pot and slowly defrosted and brought to a simmer.

Using a paring knife I cut out the noodles...and tried to make them very thin.  I was not too successful and then I remembered that Aunt Katie's were not very thin, so I went with it!  I think I probably could have used more flour under the dough as some of the noodles stuck to the pad.  But most came up easily and I was surprised at how fast the whole batch came together.

I popped them in the soup and let them cook for a few minutes until tender.

It was cold outside, the wind was blowing, and I had two big bowls of soup for us to enjoy !

Thank you, Melissa....my meal was a success!

I served the soup with some bread, butter, and a glass of white wine.

Our little snowman butter spreader seemed to approve!

What great memories that meal brought back...I remembered all the time my mom and aunts got together.

We are enjoying a cozy winter and all the snowy decorations scattered around the apartment...

Our front door

In the foyer

The coffee table

A cozy chair to lounge in...

And our favorite spot...a table between our chairs to hold hot tea and a treat while we read the winter away.

Thank you so much for stopping by Our New Vista - please leave a comment below.  Let me know if you decorate for winter, or do you go right to Valentine's Day ?  How about noodles...are you a noodle maker?  What is your go to winter comfort food?

Whatever is may be...take the time to burrow into the coziness of winter !