Hearty Midwestern Chicken and Noodles

Still waiting on the refund from my broken camera.  I'll have a picture of this sooner or later...

3 chicken drumstick-thigh pieces (about 2 pounds)
4 cups water
1/2 cup chopped celery leaves
2 tbsp snipped parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried thyme, crushed
1/4 tsp pepper
1 bay leaf
4 medium carrots, sliced (2 cups)
3 medium onions, chopped (1 1/2 cups)
2 stalks celery, sliced (1 cup)
3 cups packaged dried wide noodles
2 cups milk
2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1. Skin chicken. Rinse chicken; pat dry with paper towels.  Place chicken, water, celery leaves, parsley, salt, thyme, pepper, and bay leaf in a large Dutch oven.  Bring to boiling; reduce heat.  Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.
2. Add the carrots, onions, and sliced celery.  Simmer, covered, about 30 minutes more or until chicken is tender and no longer pink.  Remove from heat.  Remove chicken; cool slightly.  Discard teh bay leaf. Remove chicken from bones; discard bones.  Chop chicken and set aside.
3. Heat vegetable mixture to boiling.  Add noodles; cook for 5 minutes.  Stir in 1 1/2 cups of the milk and the peas.
4. Combine the remaining milk and flour in a screw-top jar.  Cover and shake until smooth.  Stir into noodle mixture.  Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly.  Stir in chicken.  Cook for 1 to 2 minutes more or until heated through. 

Recipe from Better Homes and Gardens One-Dish Meals.

THINGS I CHANGED:

• I didn't have parsely or thyme, so I substituted Italian seasoning.
• Directions!  You are my nemesis!  I didn't skin the chicken before cooking it, so I did that after the chicken was cooked.  Once again, I am foiled by the very first step.
• I rinsed the chicken, but I didn't dry it with paper towels.  To me, this seemed like a waste of paper towels because I was just going to put the chick into more water. 
• Medium onions must be very small wherever this recipe was written.  I used one onion and had more than 1 1/2 cups of chopped onions.
• Instead of big carrots, I used baby carrots.  I used the 2-cup measurement as my guide.
• The noodles I used were called dumplings.  They were perfect.   We all loved the big noodles.
• No bay leaf.  I rarely use bay leaves, and they're kind of pricey, so I skipped it entirely.

THINGS I LEARNED:

• When a recipe has a ton of ingredients and relatively consuming instructions, allot more time than you think you will need.  For example, if you think you will need about an hour (like I did for this recipe, totally ignoring the fact that the cooking time alone is more than one hour), allot at least an hour and a half.  We were a little late to rehearsal because the food wasn't done on time.  Oops.
• Always read through the ingredient list.  Just because it's long doesn't mean it's not doable.  I have virtually all of these items on hand all the time. 
• Enlist the help of your family if time is running short.  Bill chopped the chicken for me, and Emma shook the jar of flour and milk.  Very helpful, indeed.

OVERALL OPINIONS:

Bill: Loved it.  Had seconds.

Emma: Loved it.  Would have had seconds if we had not had to run out the door to get to play practice.

Georgia: Tried one bite, burned herself, and refused to eat any more.  She likes chicken and noodles, generally, so I'm hoping to get her to eat some leftovers.

Me:  I liked it a lot.  It will be perfect this winter on cold, dreary afternoons when I want to be in the kitchen over cooking food!  :)

Farmhouse Loaf Bread

No photos. 

scant 1 cup water
3 cups unbleached white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1/4 cup wholemeal bread flour
1 tbsp non fat dry milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp butter
3/4 tsp rapid-rise yeast
water for glazing

Assemble ingredients except dusting flour and water for glazing in pan; set bread machine to basic cycle.

Ten minutes before baking time commences, brush the top of the loaf with water and dust with a little flour.  Slash the top of the loaf once with a sharp knife.

THINGS I CHANGED:

Nothing.

THINGS I LEARNED:

• Opening the bread machine before the baking cycle doesn't ruin the bread!  I did the little dusting technique, and it worked well and looked cool.  Yay!
• Bread doesn't need a lot of fancy or unusual ingredients to be really, really good.  This is a really basic loaf, and it's delicious.  It's also very weighty. 
• My bread machine will probably support a medium loaf.  This was the small loaf, and it was perfect for the evening we used it, but there was definitely room left in the machine for more bread.  Then again, it didn't rise up over the top of the pan, so maybe small is just perfect.  I'm still working it out...

OVERALL OPINIONS:

Bill: Liked it.

Emma: Liked it a lot.  She had two pieces.

Georgia: LOVED it.  Had two pieces and another for breakfast the next morning.   The girl loves bread, to be sure, but she really loved this bread.

Me:  I really liked it.  I served it with Pork roast from the crock pot (with carrots, potatoes, onions, and celery). It's a very heavy, thick loaf, and it's quite filling.  Great with a little butter.  Mmmm...

Guests: We had guests over for dinner the night we had the bread, and they liked it, too, I believe.  Their son who is Georgia's age had two pieces.

Chocolate Zucchini Cookies

Still no photos. I'll take some when I make these again and have a camera again!

1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups grated zucchini

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.

2.  In a medium bowl, cream together the shortening, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Fold in the grated zucchini. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.

3.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
 
Recipe from http://www.allrecipes.com/.  Search chocolate zucchini cookies.
 
THINGS I CHANGED:

• I added some chocolate chips.  I have no idea how many because I just used the partial bag I had, but I'm guessing it was around a cup.  This was a very good idea.
• I did not grease my nonstick cookie sheets.  No problem.
• Baking time was insufficient.  I think I baked each sheet of twelve cookies for twelve minutes.  Huh.  Funny how that worked out.
• Whole wheat flour: I used 1 cup whole wheat flour, and 1 1/4 cups regular unbleached flour. It makes me feel like I'm making health food.  :)

THINGS I LEARNED:

• A cookie does not have to look good to taste good.  And these cookies do NOT look good. 
• The reviews are not alwys correct.  Several reveiwers said that their cookies spread out badly on the cookie sheet.  So I packed the sticky dough into my medium-sized scoop in hopes that having it packed would keep it from spreading out too much.  Instead, they stayed almost entirely in the ball shape.  They were like little chocolately cake wads.  Good ones, but they are very odd looking.

OVERALL OPINIONS:

Bill: Liked them, but I don't think they're a favorite.

Emma:  Liked them a lot.

Georgia: Liked them enough.  The girls also had one each as part of breakfast the next morning.  Georgia ate half, then ate her breakfast, then returned to the other half about an hour later.

Me: They aren't the sweetest cookies in the world.  I wouldn't make them without the chocolate chips, which added a little burst of sweetness to each bite.  My friend Christa, who doesn't like things especially sweet, would love these cookies even though they're really soft.

Bill's co-workers: Did I mention I made these for a carry-in at Bill's work?  They were celebrating one of his co-worker's birthdays with a carry-in, and I've been giving Bill a hard time that I enjoy baking and cooking for other people so much but for every carry-in he buys bags of chips or picks up sliders at White Castle.  It makes me look bad!  :)  Anyhow, they agreed that the cookies look awful but taste good.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Still no photos.  My camera is on its way to Texas where I hope they will determine it's a lost cause and send me a gift card so I can buy a new one.  And not a Kodak.  Ever again.


1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in bananas and chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Recipe from http://www.allrecipes.com/.

CHANGES I MADE:

• I used butter instead of oil.  One of the comments on the website suggested that, and I'm low on oil.
• The recipe calls for plain yogurt, but I never have plain yogurt in the house.  Instead, I used vanilla.  It was a very good substitution.  I may try using banana or mocha yogurt sometime.

THINGS I LEARNED:

• Muffins are terrific.  Okay, so maybe I already knew that, but I have renewed my love of muffins with this recipe.
• Muffins are easy.  And fast.  And terrific.  I may have mentioned the terrific part already.
• Melt the butter if you decide to subtitute it for the oil.  Otherwise, it's all lumpy and doesn't incorporate as well as you might think.
• A little extra banana and a few more cocolate chips never hurt anyone (except, perhaps, people allergic to bananas or chocolate).

OVERALL OPINIONS:

Bill: Loved them.

Emma: Really liked them a lot. 

Georgia: Big impression.  Georgia wanted to eat these muffins for every snack and dessert until they were gone.  Granted, she's a sweets-loving kind of gal, but that's a pretty darned good reaction even for her!

Me:  Loved them.  Loved, loved, loved them.

Georgia's preschool class: Overall favorable opinion.  I was reminded the day of the Halloween party that I was supposed to bring the snack for the party, so I ran home, threw the batter together and baked the muffins in record time.  They were still warm when I served them to the class.  The only kid who didn't seem to like them was the kid who doesn't like chocolate chips.  I know.  I thought it was weird, too.