How's the turkey day holiday going?

[which_chick]

It's going. I am getting some things done and dragging my feet on other things.



I have processed the very best leftover of all into soup-to-be. (The very best leftover of all is the turkey carcass which one renders into stock so that there can be delicious soups all winter long.) Bagged stock, chilled it to "gel" in fridge, then froze. Everything is labeled and dated because I'm trying to do better on that. #strugglebus

I put down all the plank flooring *that I have* in the room remodel project. I need twelve more pieces to be done. It'll be OK to have it 3/4 done for a few months, no worries there. I did not install any of the baseboard trim yet, tho.

I moved all the hay for the coming week for the boys (they are horses).

I got started on making noodle soup (with turkey for me, without turkey for Lala) last night until I discovered that I was out of eggs. I got some eggs this morning over at Lala's when I re-upped the hay for Bird and Finn (the boys) so I can proceed with that for lunch today and also for travel food for Laur. She's going to watch her friend Terri's senile mother next week for respite purposes (for Terri, not for Lala) and it's nice to have a taste of home while doing that.

Noodle soup recipe! (Lol, not a recipe, more of a process.)

Make noodles: 2/3 cup flour to one egg. Add an eggshell of water and some salt. Mix into a dough that you then knead until it's smooth-ish.

Freshly mixed dough that is NOT READY YET:


Dough that has been properly kneaded (slightly blurry, I had yuck on my hands):


(Make as many noodles as you need, following this recipe. It is OK to scale it up. I usually do 3 eggs worth, as I did here. It's OK to add a dash of oil, which I find makes the dough a little more compliant, about 1 teasp. per egg. It's OK to add more water if your eggs are small or your flour is super dry. This is an extremely flexi "recipe" for noodles.)

Allow noodle dough to rest while you chop up onion and celery and carrot. One onion, two celery, about two medium carrots. Smallish pieces, as for soup. Sautee this in butter (about 2 Tbsp) until onions are soft.

Add Stock to the veggie/butter. I use two quart ziplocks of stock. (I do not fill my ziplocks clear full because they tend to split along the seams if I do that.) Drop in two or three bay leaves. Heat to boiling. Taste and pre-salt/pepper the stock. Do not be afraid of the salt, soup takes a fuckton of salt to taste OK. But also, salt in *stages* because it's hard to take out once you have too much. Just be aware that you'll be going back to that well a couple of times before you're done.

Meanwhile make noodles. I used to roll these out by hand but if you have a pasta machine that's a lot easier. Once they're rolled out thin enough for you (I like sorta chunky noodles) cut them into noodle-size with a pizza cutter. The noodles will expand when cooked so if thin, small noodles are important to you, spend some time cutting them about half the size you want them to be.

Here are (some of) my cut noodles rolled out to "between 5 and 6" on my pasta machine. I don't dick around trying to make them machine even. You're going to eat them. Do what you can, it'll be fine.:


Drop noodles, a smallish handful at a time, into boiling soup broth. Do not grab and clump noodles, they will stick together and that is disappointing. Kind of dribble them into the soup broth a little at a time. Stir when adding noodles to ensure that they do not stick to themselves or the pot.

Boil noodles until done. I generally do a little underdone as my noodle soup will be reheated and slightly-underdone holds up better to reheating. Taste for salt/pepper and add if needed.

This is the done soup sans turkey (I eat the turkey in soup, Lala does not, so I take hers out first before I turkey it up.). It is a pretty chunky soup because I like a pretty high solids-to-liquids ratio in my soups. If you want a less-chunky soup, add fewer noodles.



If you eat turkey in your noodle soup, chop turkey fine and stir in. If you add a boatload of turkey, you may need to adjust seasoning a final time, but for a moderate amount of turkey you should be fine.

I did not put the plow on the truck yet. That's a project for today. Ugh. I do not love it, but I love having done it so that we're ready for winter. I will get on it.

I talked to Lala about no-buy (or not-much-buy) holiday gift ideas for the M. We all have too much... stuff. We all need less stuff. So, mostly adults in her family get giftcards this year. I don't give Lala things beyond food items (grapefruit, apples, peaches, assorted baked and cooked goods) throughout the year, so that's not a problem. But the M. is a bit young for giftcards and he'd blow it on stupid electronics shit which tbh he already does enough of in his life.

Lala and I are making him an art-ing toolkit for art. (He already has markers and crayons and stuff like that.) Since he is interested in modeling and building models, we'd like to do clay but Trys can't have that in her house and her husband literally would lose his shit over the mess. But wire and yarn and pliers and wire cutters and a hammer and things of various sorts and textures and ... junk stuff that he'd find interesting, all in a painted-green toolbox of his very own (so that he's not moving or touching his dad's tools and so that he has a place to keep his stuff), he might like that. I have a suitable large metal craftsman toolbox. It's in good shape and I don't need or want it for anything so it can totally leave my house and go... elsewhere. One can of green spraypaint should do it.

(dragging self out of the rabbithole)

Laundry. Some done, some remains to be done.

Meal prep for the week (see above, turkey noodle soup)

Horse riding (Lol, the pumpkin army is out in force and Now With Sunday Hunting, so yeah no.) not this weekend. Perhaps next, if things settle down a bit. We'll see. Fucking deer season.

I also watered the plants and I have to do something about the fungus gnat issue, which is infuriating. I have ordered some products to help with that, should be at the office on Monday. Progress on flower spike of the flowering orchid continues. The xmas cactus looks better (with repot and better growing conditions including indirect light and no-cat-damage) than she has in years.