Chicken Soup from Scratch with HOMEMADE Noodles or DUMPLINGS!

Are you interested in making homemade chicken noodle soup? It is somewhat time-consuming, but the taste and texture of this soup will make it all worthwhile.

First you need to obtain some chicken meat and broth. You start by placing a 2 pound chicken in 8 cups of water and add 1 bay-leaf, 2 tablespoons of garlic salt. You'll bring it to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer and cook it for up to 2 hours. Once the meat is tender and falling off the bones, you'll need to drain the meat, saving the liquid and remove all the bones from the chicken.

I use a shortcut sometimes: you can cheat by using frozen chicken breasts - place in a frying pan with a stick of butter, and put your onion and celery in with, and steam until the chicken is tender, then mince the chicken. You can use canned chicken broth, but I still like to add chicken boullion cubes.

Once you have your meat and broth together, you'll start adding the rest of the ingredients. I like to add frozen vegetables to my soup. The mixed vegetables are the ones I use most generally, with carrots, peas, corn and green beans. I like onions and celery, so I mince a whole onion and 2 stalks of celery and ¼ cup of Worchestershire Sauce.

Once your soup has cooked for a few hours, you can thicken it with flour, but I like to add a packet or two of turkey gravy mix. I like to add homemade noodles to mine or homemade dumplings, so, depending on my mood, I'll add one or the other.

Noodles are fairly easy. You mix the ingredients together, squish them, make sure they are fairly 'dry' meaning you add flour so they aren't so sticky on your cutting board, and cut them with a pizza cutter and toss them into boiling water. I like to use chicken boullion in my boiling water. It flavors the noodles. The thinner you cut them, the thinner they'll be; however, you will not end up with anything super thin. They will puff up when the egg in them contacts the boiling water. I have found that you do not have to 'dry' the noodles, just mix them up, squish them, roll them if you must, and cut them.

For homemade noodles, I mix the following together: 3 eggs, ½ tsp. salt, 2 T. milk and

3 c. flour. Put them on a cutting board covered with flour. Roll them out, cut into pieces or strips. You'll then place them into boiling water and let them cook until they float. Once they float, you can add them to your soup.

Dumplings are also just as easy. The basic ingredients for dumplings are: 1 beaten egg, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ c. milk and 1 1/3 cup Softasilk Flour. You mix them up and drop 'glops' onto the top of your soup. When you have all your dumplings 'dropped' into your pan, cover them and simmer for 20 minutes.