Chicken Noodle Soup From Scratch

Happy first day of fall!  While I'd love to start wearing my flannel shirts, Charleston thinks it's still summer with temperatures in the 80s expected all weekend.  However, I've been dreaming about fall cooking for weeks now, so I decided to crank up the A/C and just go for it last weekend.  During the fall, I love slow cooker recipes and meals that take hours to cook over the stove that have tons of flavor.  My mom has made homemade soup my whole life, but I've never tried it.  When we bought a rotisserie chicken last weekend to use for buffalo chicken dip and chicken lasagna, I had a bunch of meat left over.  Mike suggested soup, and not only did I make the broth from scratch, but I also tried homemade egg noodles for the first time.  Let me tell you, while it's time-intensive, they're so worth it!

Ingredients:
For the soup:
- rotisserie chicken (at least one breast of meat intact - chopped/shredded)
- 4 quarts of water (enough to cover the chicken in the pot by 1-2 inches)
- 8 carrots (4 only peeled, 4 sliced and peeled)
- 8 stalks of celery (4 whole and 4 sliced)
- 1 chicken bouillon cube
- 1 beef bouillon cube
- 1 teaspoon rubbed sage
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 yellow onion (peeled and halved)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 2 bay leaves
- salt and pepper (have a couple tablespoons on hand to divide and use throughout cooking)

For the noodles:
- 3 cups flour (separated into 2 cups and 1 cup)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 whole egg
- 1/3 cup water

Directions:
1. Place the rotisserie chicken (everything except the breast meat), 4 whole carrots, 4 whole celery stalks, bouillon cubes, dried herbs, and 1 tablespoon of each salt and pepper in a large pot and cover with water.
2. In cheese cloth, combine the onion, garlic, and bay leaves and tie together.  Place in the soup pot.
3. Bring the pot to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to simmer for one and a half hours.
4. While the soup is cooking, begin to make the noodles by combining the flour (2 cups) and salt.
5. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the egg yolks and egg.
6. Mix together the dough, by hand, until it is combined evenly (it will be very dry).
7. Add water to the dough mixture 1-2 tablespoons at a time, until the dough sticks together to form one ball.
8. Use some of the reserved flour on a flat surface to roll out the dough.  Make it as thin as possible, and use a pizza cutter to slice noodles to be 1/2 inch wide by 3-4 inches long (depending on preference).  Place the cut noodles in a bowl that is well-floured so they do not stick together.
9. After the soup broth cooks for an hour and a half, strain everything out.  There may be some chicken that falls off the bone that you want to add back in.
10. Bring the broth back to a boil.  When it's boiling, add in the sliced carrots and celery and cook for 8 minutes.  (If you use the same celery and carrots from making the broth, they will be very over-cooked, so I suggest using new ones for the final soup.)
11. When the vegetables are tender, add in the shredded chicken and start to cook the noodles by dropping them into the soup a few at a time.  Make sure to shake off excess flour before dropping them in.
13. Stir to make sure no noodles stick together, and allow them to cook for 4-5 minutes in the boiling soup.
14. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with chopped parsley.

From start to finish, this recipe takes about two and a half hours, but if you're watching football and looking for something to do on a Sunday afternoon, trust me, this soup is amazing.  It made enough for us (2 people) to enjoy that night as well as bring to work each day for the next week.