The Holidays are Here!

The holiday season is finally here. At the Obi house, we kicked Thanksgiving off with four out of five kiddos home with their families.

We had SO much food. And yes, those are paper plates. They make cleanup so much easier.

This was the first time since last Christmas I got to see our two youngest grandchildren together.

And these two little mischief makers...

Had quite a time.

Going so far as to commandeer their uncles' laser tag game.

It's always a treat when our kids bring us flowers. But these apple roses my youngest son made were an even bigger hit. Aren't they pretty?

Then Friday rolled around and everyone went home, leaving Grammy with a big box of tissues. Not because they were gone, but because she woke up with a cold. Fortunately, there was plenty of leftover turkey to make some turkey noodle soup.

Actually, it was a turkey and chicken noodle soup since I had some leftover chicken breast in the refrigerator, too. I used my favorite recipe (you can find that here), except instead of starting with raw chicken/turkey, I simply chopped up the cooked meat and added it to the sauted onions and garlic, then continued with the rest of the recipe as usual. It was exactly what I needed to clear out my sinuses and set myself on the path to feeling better. Because it's time to get ready for Christmas! 

So how was your Thanksgiving? And what are you up to now?

Three time Carol Award finalist Mindy Obenhaus lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, the youngest of her five children and two dogs. She passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. When she's not writing, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her grandchildren. Learn more a mindyobenhaus.com.

Wintertime Comfort Food: Homemade Noodles

The weatherman promised us an El Nino winter this year. Mild temperatures and not much snow. And until February 2nd, he was right.

All through January, our weather was amazing. We even went hiking at Custer State Park and enjoyed our Black Hills car wash compliments of the local bison!

But on Groundhog Day, our weather changed. The El Nino in the Pacific had cooled down and our winter became wicked. Yours did, too! The Polar Vortex was fun, wasn't it? And since then we've had temperatures hovering around zero (except for an occasional warmer day between cold fronts.)

And the wind! We got about six inches of snow on Friday and Saturday, enough to cover everything with a beautiful frosty layer. Then Saturday night the wind picked up and the snow blew. Our front yard is down to bare grass, but there's a two-foot drift in the dog's pen.

When Mindy shared her chicken soup last week, I knew I had to make a batch. Hubby and I had both been fighting a cold bug, and chicken soup sounded perfect.

The only problem was that I didn't have Bohemian noodles on hand and neither of us wanted to get out in the weather and snow-covered roads to head over to Walmart to buy the noodles for our soup. But I had an alternate plan.

Homemade Noodles, Bohemian Style

ingredients:
2 cups flour
3 eggs
3 tablespoons water

The thing about noodles is that you can make them any way you like them, and the possibilities are endless - starting with the dough. This dough cooks up thick and puffy. I have another recipe from my grandmother that has only one egg to two cups of flour, and the noodles are much more flat. You can even make them with no eggs, but using flour, water, and olive oil instead.

Then when you add in the possible shapes...wow! Fat, thin, long, short. Filled with meat or cheese. Squares or ribbons, or even sheets. And don't forget tubes! Shells! Tortellini!

And the beauty is that all of these can be made in your kitchen with a bit of patience and a lot of practice. Missy even took a class on making pasta. Do you remember that blog post? Here's the link for a refresher.

Don't forget - I was making these noodles to use in the chicken soup recipe Mindy shared with us last week (here's that link - the soup was delicious!)

But even though the noodles Mindy used looked wonderful, I don't want a lot of pasta in my soup when I'm fighting a cold. I crave something much lighter. So I made itsy-bitsy thin noodles, almost like the ones you find in Lipton Instant Noodle Soup.

Enough talking! Let's make those noodles!

Mix the flour, eggs, and water in a medium sized bowl until well combined. Divide the dough into three mostly equal sized balls. Cover the bowl with plastic or with a plate, and let the dough rest in a warm place for 2 or 3 hours. The house was very cold the day I was making these, so I warmed up the oven to about 100° and let the bowl sit there.

I used my pasta machine to roll the dough. If you don't have one, or an attachment for your mixer, you'll have to do the rolling by hand. By the time you finish rolling out the dough, you'll be thinking your grandmothers were stalwart women!

For the thin noodles I wanted, I rolled the pasta to the next to the last setting - #5. After rolling out the dough, dust it with flour and let it dry for about 10-20 minutes. You want it to be almost - but not quite - dry for the next step. By the way, these two sheets of pasta are from one of the three balls of dough.

With a sharp knife, cut the almost dry sheet into strips. I wanted my noodles to be about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long, so that's how I determined the length of my strips.

Now to use the other side of the pasta machine to cut the noodles.

Run each strip through the machine one at a time, and let the cut noodles drop into a bowl. My pasta machine has two width settings, and I used the "spaghetti" width for these little noodles.

Dust the noodles with a small amount of flour as you go. When all the pasta strips are cut, lay the noodles out on a floured towel to finish drying.

I used about a third of the noodles in our soup on Thursday night and put the rest in a storage container. Over the weekend, I used them for a quick batch of chicken noodle soup for our lunch.

By the way, these thin noodles cook in only 2 or 3 minutes, so don't add them to your soup until you're almost ready to serve it!

Meanwhile, we dream of spring. I love winter, but by Valentine's Day, I start looking for the first signs of the changing season. Dripping water... Pasque flowers blooming... The first Robins returning... Migrating geese headed north...

*sigh* It isn't happening this week! Although by the middle of the week our temperatures are supposed to be in the mid-20's!

How is your part of the country faring? Are you still frozen in the depths of winter? Or is spring just around the corner?

One more thing!

My latest release is now available at Walmart and everywhere Love Inspired books are sold!

Order here!

Chicken Soup, the Cure for the Winter Blahs

Are you snowed under, iced under, or simply dealing gray skies? Have you got the sniffles, a nasty cold or the flu? Then have I got the recipe for you.

This chicken soup recipe came from my SIL. It's fairly easy and the actual cooking time isn't long. However, there is some prep work, so plan on about an hour and half  from the time you start chopping until the time you're sitting down to eat.

Here's what you'll need:

• 4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 5-6 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 lb. carrots, peeled and sliced
• 4-5 stalks celery, sliced
• 2 quarts chicken broth
• 1 quart vegetable broth (or use 3 chicken)
• 2-3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• 1-2 dashes red pepper flakes
• l large bay leaf (optional)
• 3-4 cubes (or equivalent) chicken bouillon
• 1 package Kluski or Bohemian noodles

I like to chop and gather everything for this dish before I actually start cooking.

Once that's done, place a large Dutch oven over high heat and add your olive oil. 

When the oil is heated, add the chicken, onions and garlic.

Cook until the meat is browned.

Okay, so it doesn't exactly brown because there's a lot of moisture in there from the onions. The main thing is that you don't want to see any pink meat.

Next, add your carrots, celery, broth and all of your seasonings.

Stir and bring to a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until veggies are tender.

Boy, oh boy, does the house smell yummy. Talk about whetting your appetite.

Add noodles and simmer for an additional 20-30 minutes.

This is one lean meal with loads of flavor. It'll also warm you up and help clear those sinuses. But what a delicious way to do it.

Here on the coastal plains of Texas, we've been dreary all week. Cool, drizzly--or as my husband says, cold and wet. But while the skies may be gray, it sure makes for some good writing weather. Not to mention great soup weather.

What are some of you favorite meals on a cool, dreary day? Are you a soup/stew person like me or do you prefer a warm, hearty casserole? What's going on in your neck of the woods?

Three-time Carol Award finalist, Mindy Obenhaus lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, the youngest of her five children and two dogs. She's passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. When she’s not writing, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her grandchildren. Learn more at www.MindyObenhaus.com 

Chicken Soup to Combat the Flu

Mindy here, in for the Belle today. And unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you know that the flu and other forms of the creeping crud are running rampant. Both Jan and Cate talked about ways to fend off the dreaded virus. One of our favorite, not to mention most delicious weapons, is chicken soup. A hearty, heart-warming, good-for-what-ails-you comfort food that's oh so good whether you're sick or not. 

This chicken soup recipe came from my SIL. It's fairly easy and the actual cooking time isn't long. However, there is some prep work, so plan on about an hour and half  from the time you start chopping until the time you're sitting down to eat.

Here's what you'll need:

4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

5-6 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 medium onion, chopped

1 lb. carrots, peeled and sliced

4-5 stalks celery, sliced

2 quarts chicken broth

1 quart vegetable broth (or use 3 chicken)

2-3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

1-2 dashes red pepper flakes

l large bay leaf (optional)

3-4 cubes (or equivalent) chicken bouillon

1 package Kluski or Bohemian noodles

I like to chop and gather everything for this dish before I actually start cooking.

Once that's done, place a large Dutch oven over high heat and add your olive oil. 

When the oil is heated, add the chicken, onions and garlic.

Cook until meat is browned.

Okay, so it doesn't exactly brown because there's a lot of moisture in there from the onions. The main thing is that you don't want to see any pink meat.

Next, add your carrots, celery and all of your seasonings.

Bring to a low boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until veggies are tender.

Boy, oh boy, does the house smell yummy. Talk about whetting your appetite.

Add noodles and simmer for an additional 20-30 minutes.

Delicious.

Now that's one lean meal with loads of flavor. You can even up the garlic and red pepper flakes, if you like, to clear those nasal passages. 

Nothing like ending the week with an armada of weapons to get you through this flu season. From Jan's tips and vitamin C packed Orange Smoothie (recipe here) to Cate's natural remedies (find those here) to a flavorful chicken soup, the Yankee-Belle Café has got you covered.

So what's on your agenda for this weekend? Cleaning? Shopping? Football playoffs? Perhaps a Hallmark Channel movie marathon (I wish)? We want to hear what you're up to.

Mindy Obenhaus lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, the youngest of her five children and two dogs. She's passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. When she’s not writing, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her grandchildren. Learn more at www.MindyObenhaus.com