Last night I was tired and didn’t have a plan for dinner.  I enjoy working in the kitchen and cooking from scratch.  I’m feeding my family, my hands prepared the food, and the results are right in front of us for our benefit.

Last week I canned almost 20 quarts of organic chicken stock.   The tradition of rich, homemade bone broth is why people suggest you eat some chicken soup when you’re sick.  If you eat Campbell’s chicken soup from the can when you’re sick, well, you just might get sicker.  However, the nutrients in homemade bone broth pack a punch that can boost the immune system and help your body fight off just about anything, not to mention it is absolutely delicious.

I had a quart bag of shredded chicken in the fridge so I decided to make chicken soup.  I originally wanted to make chicken and dumplings, but decided to make homemade noodles instead.  The kids love helping me make homemade pasta.  Our recipe is super simple:

2 cups of whole wheat flour (sometimes I do half wheat flour and half white flour)

3 eggs

a pinch of salt

I mix and knead the dough until it’s pretty stiff, but not dry.

I have a small, manual pasta machine.  We tear off a piece of dough, about the size of a plum, and begin cranking it through the pasta machine.  Slowly, the pasta gets thinner and thinner as we adjust the knob on our machine.  This is what it looks like at the end of the first step:

These are just long sheets of pasta that need to dry a little bit before we run them through the fettuccine attachment.  If we were making lasagna, this pasta would be ready to use!  After drying for 15-20 minutes, we run the pasta strips through the fettuccine attachment.  It’s really a pretty simple, fun process.

These are our leftover noodles after making chicken soup last night.  I’ll leave them out to finish drying and then put them in the pantry for another meal.

Dinner was very simple, but it was delicious.  Everyone had at least two bowls of soup.  It’s amazing how your body craves more when you’re consuming rich nutrients.  I ate the last bowl for lunch today.

Don’t be afraid to try making things like pasta at home.  You’d be surprised how easy it is to make your every day food items from scratch.  It just takes a little time and a few simple ingredients.