Homemade Chicken Soup

My inner chef has been quite ambitious lately. It all started when I made Regis' roast chicken the other night. My friend Jamie told me to save the carcass and make chicken broth with it, which I've never done; I usually save the bones for awhile, never get around to making the broth, and then throw them out. So this time I decided to go for it. I used Ina Garten's recipe for chicken broth from one of her cookbooks, but scaled it down by two-thirds because hers called for three whole chickens, and I just had one.

So now I had all this broth. I've now made two big dinners and still have some leftover. Let me tell you, it is SO GOOD. It tastes amazing. Mom says it's because it's still got all the fat in it, which Swanson's takes out before they put it in a can. That may be, but I have to say it was worth the little bit of trouble it took to make this to get these results.

I decided to make Chicken soup, which seemed logical. I had all the stuff except the egg noodles,

and I was too lazy to go to the store, so I thought I'd try making some from scratch. Makes sense, right? It actually was pretty easy and it was really cheap. Here's the recipe I used:

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

2tbsp. milk

Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Beat egg and milk in another little bowl or a measuring cup. Make a little well in the middle and pour in the egg and milk.

Stir until it becomes a stiff dough.

Roll it out onto a floured surface until it's really really thin. I read online somewhere that if it's too elastic-y you can let it rest for 20 minutes to relax the gluten.

Then, cut it into little strips. (I had trouble getting the dough to get thin enough, and I ended up pressing each noodle flat individually. I didn't make that many, so it didn't take too long to do this. I would stress that the thinner the noodle, the better.)

Let the noodles rest and dry on paper towels for about 45 minutes. Drop them in your simmering soup and allow them to cook for about 8-10 minutes. (I put the noodles in after my veggies had simmered and cooked, and before I put in the cooked chicken pieces.)

Here's the final product. It was quite delectable. Definitely worth the little bit of extra effort!