Quick Fix White Vegetable Soup

Today was the day we put the the Amish-Style Noodles that the twins and I made yesterday afternoon to the test, which came out superb.  Originally we were going to have buttered noodles for lunch but their dad came home with some yummy turkey and spinach/feta croissants. So we went to Plan B with a quick vegetable soup to complement the edible surprise.

Ingredients:

• 6 cups water
• 3 vegan vegetable boullion cubes (or equivalent to cook 6 cups of water)
• 1 large potato, peeled and cubed
• 3 carrots peeled, sliced
• 2 small or 1 medium turnip, peeled and cubed
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped cauliflower
• 1 cup Amish-style egg noodles or medium sized egg noodles
• 1 large sprig of fresh thyme or 1/8 tsp dried
• 1/2 tsp dried minced onion
• Fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions:In a large pot, combine water, thyme, and boullion cubes and completely dissolve (If you use regular vegetable broth, disregard this direction). Add carrots, turnips, potatoes, cauliflower, and minced onion. Simmer for 20 minutes or until all vegetables are tender. Add egg noodles and cook according to package directions. If you hand made your Amish-style noodles, cook about 8 – 10 minutes. Remove thyme stems as the herbs should have fallen off by now. Season with ground pepper and serve hot.

Note: You may have noticed that I did not include any salt to taste. This is due that most broth cubes have an excessive amount of salt and none more need added.

End Result:

Amish-Style Noodles With Parsley

My hands are beaten and sore beyond belief.  Not because the below recipe was difficult, rather since I moved to my current home over three years ago, I somehow lost our rolling pin.  The only substitute were my twins’ child-sized one and had to get my whole weight in small batches to really get the dough flat and took about 4x as long to finish the process. I used a couple of modern items such as a pizza cutter and paper towels, but the way it is made is relatively close to what the Amish do.

Ingredients: 

• 3 egg yolks
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tbsp dried parsley 

 

Directions: 
Thoroughly whisk egg yolk and water.  Stir in salt, parsley and flour and work in until it forms a stiff dough, sprinkle cold water as needed to too dry.  Divide into three parts and make balls. With each ball, use a rolling pin and flatten as thin as possible. Use a pastry blade to remove from flat surface and lay on a paper towel or cloth. When near-dry but not sticky, use a pizza cutter to make thin strips of a 1/4″ x 2 “.

Example:
 

Set on a cookie sheet with a paper towel or cloth and let dry completely before use (I advise letting the noodles out in the open overnight to make sure they dry really well). Store in an airtight container.  Makes roughly 1/2 pound.

Cooking Noodles:
Bring to boil roughly  1 1/2 quarts of water with a pinch of salt and olive oil. Cook pasta for 8 – 10 minutes and drain. Serve with melted butter or seasoned olive oil.  Also perfect for soups. 

Note:  Do not worry if  the strips are not perfectly sized, a little variety has a more artisan feel to it.  What is really important is how thin the dough is. Time to go on Freecycle and ask for a rolling pin. In case you were wondering just how small the rolling pin was, take a look at the below photo. The wood item on the far right is a wooden spool, to it’s left is the child-sized rolling pin. I had to make smaller dough balls in order to use the pin.