We're off and rolling!!

Sister did truly like the idea of a joint-blog about food and adventure and she's off and cooking already this morning and sending me pictures to post as she goes!!

But as you can see by the picture above, I am still eating leftovers from the roast and veggies I cooked over the snowy weekend.  What's different about the way I make this dish, however, is the egg noodles used to "finish" off the broth.

My mother-in-law was a farmer's daughter and became a farmer's wife.  She knew recipes for food meant to stick to you while you labored in the fields and when we went to the farm to visit, she cooked a lot of the same foods for us.  With three rambunctious and growing kids to feed, I figured I'd better learn how to make a few myself!!
To her mind, her roasts and chickens were not really worthy of serving unless there was a side dish of "noodles" and some mashed potatoes.  I watched her countless times as she mixed, rolled, and cut the noodle dough, but I never quite got the hang of it.  Thankfully, Reames sells a nice frozen version and if you have a rich broth and let them cook long enough, they're a sorry replacement for Ginny's, but you can eat 'em!!  And if you ladle them onto some good southern mashed potatoes, you can almost believe they're Ohio-farm made.

Ginny's Egg Noodles
2 well-beaten eggs
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk
lump of lard about the size of a walnut
3 cups all-purpose flour

Mix flour, salt and baking powder into large mixing bowl.  Cut in lard.  Add eggs and milk.  Dough should be stiff.  Roll out very thin - Ginny cut a brown paper sack open and used it for rolling out her dough.  She was generous with the flour and once the dough was almost paper-thin, she cut it into long strips about a half inch wide.  Then she rolled the whole thing up and stuck it in the freezer for about an hour.
Bring four cups of broth to a boil.  Drop noodle dough by the handful into boiling broth and stir.  When broth comes back up to boil, reduce heat to low simmer and cover.  Stir frequently to avoid sticking.  Serve over mashed potatoes with meat and vegetables.