Thanksgiving is a time for MESSES

Especially in MY kitchen. Let's take an informal poll...are you a "clean" cook? Or are you a messy one? For instance when you're making something does your kitchen resemble this???





I started my Thanksgiving cooking yesterday. I made pie crusts which are currently chillin' in the fridge (pun intended), I also for the fun of it made THESE cinnamon rolls. And I crushed 3/4 of a lb of ginger snaps so I could make a crust for my cheesecake that I'll be making tomorrow. Note to Santa, I'd love a food processor. A GOOD one. I've been good. But, I know I know I got that nice TV already. Maybe next year ok?


Today, I got up and made a second batch of the cinnamon rolls using my own icing instead of the one listed in that recipe. I just used powdered sugar 4oz of cream cheese, a few splashes of milk and some vanilla. Brian loved the rolls but doesn't dig coffee much so I ended up with 3 pans of maple icing and 3 of cream cheese. Then I had just a TEENY bit of dough left and I didnt' want to put it in a pan of cinnamon rolls all by itself so I made up a few dinner rolls. Which miraculously use the same recipe. How neat is that???


FYI: These babies are GOOOOOOOOD. Oh my are they good. I ate TWO with my lunch straight out of the oven. WOW-EEE-WOW-WOW! This is a great recipe for yeast rolls. I had a different one I used to use but I'm switching. Light, fluffy, oh so good!

So, then next on my list is my noodles. Homemade egg noodles. I fix them with some turkey and cook them in the turkey broth with a few spices. Nice. One of my favorites at Thanksgiving. They are super easy to make, the only real pain is you have to make them ahead of time so they can dry. I usually let them dry overnight. They don't have to be SUPER DRY (read: they dont' have to be brittle) but you want them to dry out quite a bit before cooking them. Also, it doesn't take long to cook them when they are fresh like that. Boiling broth, max of 10 minutes. Just keep checking them.

Mix together 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour and a "pinch" of salt. (I use about 2 tsp roughly) Add 2 beaten eggs, 1/2 cup of milk and a tbsp of butter and knead dough until it's smooth. (About 5 minutes) Let rest in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.

Place dough on a floured surface


Roll the dough out flat. (This is a preference thing as to HOW flat. I like my noodles to be like the Raeme's Frozen noodles so that's the thickness I go for)


Now for this part there are TWO ways that work. I recently got a pastry cutter so I've got pictures of this way. However, if you don't have a pastry cutter in years passed I have rolled the dough towards me so that you end up with a log and then just cut off strips, unrolled to let dry. Here's how I did it this year. Cut the flattened dough into strips one at a time.


Then cut those strips into pieces.


until you have the entire pile cut up. Oh another thing I do is divide my dough into two balls before I start so that there is less to work with at once...


As you can see, it doesn't really matter if your size is consistent. Your thickness will be and that's what really matters. I use to try and be perfect in everything I did but my therapist told me that isn't really very healthy. OK, so I don't HAVE a therapist, but I probably need one and IF I had one she'd tell me that my attempts at perfection are futile and I should get a life. Sometimes I hear her talking in my head...

What? Don't you have a therapist in your head too???