RECIPE: Oodles of noodles

This is my VERY FIRST foodie post here on InsomniMom. Oh, how I love my digital camera, even though this picture looks weirdly blurry. Why is that? I'll have to ask Kayte. She has the same camera I do, only it is her play camera, not her real, serious camera. Anyway, maybe she can tell me why the eggs in this image look like giant cotton balls.

I also want to point out that all of the ingredients for this recipe came from ALDI except for the salt. The book is an old church cook book with the best noodle recipe in the world, which I am fixin' to share with you any second now.

I am really proud of my noodles, ever since the time I made chicken and noodles for dinner one Sunday last winter, having cheated and bought some Amish noodles at the grocery. Those Amish noodles are pretty darned good, coming straight from Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, Indiana, a restaurant at which Carol and I once ate, if by the word "ate" you understand that I mean "stuffed ourselves with as much starchy Amish goodness as we could get our hands on."

My husband took one bite, chewed, swallowed, and then said with a decided lack of an instinct for self-preservation, "What did you do to your noodles?"

I bristled immediately, of course. "Let's see. I COOKED THEM."

"They don't taste the same," Meelyn spoke up. "Your noodles are usually really fabulous, but these are just....okay."

I brightened. "Oh! Well, I can tell you, then, that these noodles? They are not mine. They were made up in Middlebury by Amish hands."

"Well, no wonder, then," my husband said jovially. "These aren't your noodles! They're someone else's noodles! And no one -- let me repeat, NO ONE -- makes noodles with the kind of love you do, SWEETHEART."

I am a total sucker for blatant flattery.

So take that, Amish ladies! I make great noodles by hand, better than yours, my family says, and I watch television while I do it.

NOODLES

2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour

Beat the eggs together in a medium mixing bowl. Add the evaporated milk and whisk until the mixture is creamy. Add the remaining ingredients, stirring with a large spoon until combined.

Divide the dough in half. Place half the dough on a well-floured piece of butcher's paper or parchment paper. Roll it out thin, thin, thin, adding more flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the paper or the rolling pin. Repeat with the second half of the dough on another piece of paper.

Allow the noodles to dry, preferably overnight. I usually transfer them, paper and all, from the counter to two baking sheets, covering them lightly with paper towel. If you can't let them dry overnight, give them at least six hours or so. Or turn a fan on them to help speed up the process.

To cook, drop in simmering stock (about five cups, chicken, beef, or even vegetable) over medium heat, stirring frequently until the noodles puff up a bit and start to float. This usually takes about twenty minutes for me. The noodles will absorb a great deal of the broth, so adjust the heat of the stove down if necessary.

Serve with whatever kind of meat you like to eat noodles with. And mashed potatoes. You have to have mashed potatoes with noodles because that's just the way it is and don't argue with me because I don't make these rules. I just pass them on.