Its Raining That Means Homemade Chicken and Noodles Robins Favorite

When I was a young bride, 50 years ago, I learned to make homemade chicken and noodles from a wonderful old lady named Ila Hanson. I have never varied from her recipe and its been a favorite for family, friends and many, many functions.  Now please don't tell me you don't have time to make homemade noodles!  It takes 15 to 20 minutes to make a pan full and you will never buy noodles from the store again.

Take a bowl, I love to use real, clear, glass bowls, they just feel better. Put two eggs and 1/2 tsp salt in the bottom and stir with a fork. Dump in 1 1/4 cups of flour (these measurements are all approximate once you get the feel.......you don't have to measure) Stir this all up with your fork til you have a sticky dough. I remember Ila saying to me,  "Don't worry about it being to sticky, you will be adding more flour as you go."  Throw some flour out on the counter and smear it around. Take half of the dough out and just knead enough to bring it all together....just a min. then roll real thin. You will have to add flour to the top and underneath to keep it from sticking. Once you have it rolled real thin and not sticking on bottom or to the rolling pin. (I love my heavy rolling pin, Misty) Sprinkle the top with more flour, smear it around, now fold it up by folding it over and over again.  Gently. Take a cookie sheet and place a nice clean tea towel on it. Start cutting the dough into small thin noodles. Pick up and shake to open up the folds.........now you have a long noodle.  Place on the towel on the cookie sheet to dry. Continue til all are on the cookie sheet.  You can pick up a bunch at one time and shake. Just be sure they aren't in a pile on the cookie sheet.  Now, take the kids to school, or go to work or just go about cleaning the house.........these can sit anywhere from a couple hours to all day.......even til next week if you want to.

Now the chicken.  Just take the little bag out of the chicken and throw the whole thing into a big pot of water with lots of salt. Bring to a boil, turn to simmer. After its cooked awhile add some chopped onion and celery.  Needs to simmer a couple hours or more. Then with a big slotted spoon remove the chicken, it will fall into pieces, to a pan. When its cooled enough, take the chicken off the bones and return the meat to the pot. Bring it back to a boil to add the noodles. Just lightly boil until the noodles are soft.  The flour left on the noodles with help thicken the soup.  And there it is, folks, really easy and sooooooo good.  Remember you can use the noodles for lots of other dishes.........its just best for chicken and noodles.  While this is cooking, especially on a cold day, it smells so good.........Bob says to me......"I am emaciated, if I don't eat soon, this will be the end of me, I'll never make it to the end of the day, please hurry, I need to eat NOW!"  I just ignored him and made some "spoon rolls" to go along with the dinner. We'll talk about those another day. Quick and easy.