One of the things that happen when you live alone is that sometimes – in days when there’s not much to do (no work, no shopping, no cleaning, no school) – you get bored. The house seems too quiet, the day too long, and everything on TV either too bland, or too dense, or generally a genre you are not interested in watching at all.
What I do then is cook. I don’t cook things that are too extravagant either, most of the time it’s recipes that are simple and I can make while listening to a podcast or an audio book. My mom has always been a “semi-homemade” kind of cook and so, I became one too. I call recipes like that my “cheat versions,” but when I’m in this particular kind of mood I like to cook from scratch. This year, as one of my “new year challenges” I bought a recipe book and challenged myself to make every recipe on the book before the year was over. I have wanted to try that since I watched Julie & Julia years ago – it seemed to me a good way to spend your time, learn new things, and try things I would’ve never even considered otherwise (some in the book are going to be a real challenge, I admit.)
So there I was, bored out of my mind while sitting on my couch and feeling slightly sorry for myself as my family had just gone back home after a week sharing my apartment with me. And so I decided to cook.
I chose to try the “Chinese Egg Noodle Soup” first, for no particular reason other the fact I had chicken broth on my fridge.
While I will not talk about the actual recipe for the soup (because of the possible project with my friends I previously mentioned) I will admit that I did not feel like walking down to the grocery store and buying noodles. So I made my own. “Smart,” you might be thinking. “Choose the most time consuming way just because you don’t want to walk down to the store.” Well, my excuse is that I didn’t want to put on shoes. Plus, it really wasn’t all that time consuming. It took about an hour and a half start to finish.
The recipe was pretty straightforward, and it only called for a few ingredients: flour, salt, an egg, and some water. You mixed them all together until you had a little ball of dough, covered that in plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes. Then you flattened it, rolled it and generally played around with it for a few minutes before forming it again into a little ball and letting it rest for another 30 minutes. Then comes the fun part. You roll your little dough ball into the thinnest layer you can make it, cover it in flour and fold it over a few times. Then you cut it into thin noodles, unroll the noodles, stretch them, and cover them in flour so they won’t stick. Then you cook them in salt water for about 7 minutes or freeze them.
All in all it was a pretty simple and fun process. It took a few tries until I perfected the unrolling and stretching of the noodles, but once I got that down it got easier. Next time, I will cut them thinner, and use a bit less salt but all in all, it was a good first try.
Feet on the Stars 