150th Goldsboro Bridge& Chicken Noodle Soup

This past weekend, I went to my first weekend event since April. Whew, had it been a while! I was cooking for one of the military groups, which ended up being about 6 people, plus my buddies the Old South Blacksmiths. Since the rain moved in Saturday night, I didn't cook on Sunday because most of the event was called off.  Saturday's breakfast was eggs, fried potatoes and biscuits. I had cooked the biscuits ahead of time, and then warmed them in a dutch oven.  Sadly my camera batteries died, but I was able to snap only 2 pictures.

Me taking a break from cooking & talking to my good friend Matt! 

 Lunch on Saturday was a Chicken Noodle Soup. While the recipe I used does not come first hand from any books I have found, it is supposed to be a period family recipe from Elizabeth Stewart Clark . I started with a whole hen, and boiled it until it was falling off of the bone. While the chicken boils, make your noodles with flour, egg, salt & pepper. Roll the dough very thing, and make long slender noodles- the noodles "plump" a lot. Set these aside to dry for a while.

Noodles  & Carrots Ready for Soup.

While the chicken was cooking I also sliced some carrots and potatoes to add to the soup, just to make it a little more hearty and filling.  The chicken got pulled out to be de-boned, then went in the noodles & veggies. I also added a bit more salt & pepper (This was about 3 gallons of soup after all). By the time the chicken was cooled enough to handle, and the meat pulled off the bones, the noodles were almost done. I added the chicken back in and stirred the whole pot to mix it well.  The soup was served with fresh bread & butter. With pumpkin bread for a little sweet after the soup.

Bowl of warm soup and fresh bread

This really was an excellent soup! It was very tasty and was great for feeding a crowd!! I will defiantly make this again!

An Early Gift

So my DH surprised me last night with an early Christmas Gift! He had bought me a reproduction spice tin!  It is so cute!! It is a round brown tin with six small labeled tins inside and a nutmeg grater! It has containers for Mustard, Ginger, Cinnamon, Allspice, Cloves, Mace, and the nutmeg grater! I was so excited to get it that I filled it up right then, well everything except the Mace, which I will have to buy.

All the spices in their containers

Weekend Plans

So this weekend I am finally getting to camp! I have not been to a weekend event since April, and well, I'm so excited for this one!  On top of that I'm cooking for everyone! And while that is exciting, I am a little nervous since I will be doing it all by myself. No worries. I have done all of my baking, and I have a nice, easy menu for the weekend. It includes chicken noodle soup, eggs, cabbage, and beans, along with other things, but I am not going to give it all away yet!  Check in Monday or Tuesday for the weekend wrap-up and see all the yummies from the weekend! 

Bread Dough ready to rise before baking

Vegetables all in their basket for the weekend! 

Common Jumbles

So I had my first recipe request, and it came from none other than my DH. He requested I make Jumbles. Jumbles are cookies, seemed pretty basic.
The recipe I chose for this cookies comes from Domestic Cookery and Useful Hints to Young Housekeepers, 1859.

Small hands helping Aunt Amanda

Using modern conversions  the recipe calls for 4 cups of flour, 2 sticks of butter, and 3 cups of sugar with 3 eggs. So following the recipe mix the butter and sugar together. Then add the flour & eggs. It does not instruct you on when to add the flavorings or how much to add.  Well, I didn't have any Rose Brandy, so I opted for a little regular Brandy! I added about a teaspoon or so of nutmeg, and about 2 tablespoons of Brandy. The added liquid helped to soften the dough. Then you "mould them in rings." This means that they are going to look similar to doughnuts. For this I rolled them into a ball then gently worked a hole in the center rolling as I went. They looked pretty good, very much like doughnuts ( I did not get a picture of these). Then, into a slow oven of 300 for about 15 minutes.  Well, that was easy! Right? No, no it wasn't. The cookies turned into a sheet of cookie, they didn't stay together at all, just ran all over the pan. I really have no idea what caused this. The mess still tasted good. Luckily, I did have dough left. This time I just rolled the dough into 1" balls, like you would most standard cookies, and baked them at 300 for about 20 minutes. The results were much better! The taste was about the same. Very sweet. They could have baked for 15 minutes, that probably would have eliminated the brown edges. But, other than the runny dough mess from the first batch, the cookies were pretty good! 

Jumbles on the pan.