Muffins and Noodles

Muffins and Noodles

I was cooking up a storm yesterday and made a couple of really great recipes. One was for fresh cranberry muffins and the other was for chicken and noodles. Both recipes turned out great and the food tasted awesome. 

The cranberry muffin recipe I used came from pinterest. They turned out light and fluffy and not too sweet. The recipe originally made 24 but I halved it thinking that there would be no way that I would eat 24 before they went bad. Now after tasting them though I'm a little sad that I didn't make the whole batch, but I guess I can always make more and have them be nice and fresh when I want them. I was very curious about cooking with fresh cranberries because I had never used them before, I'd only ever used dried. The fresh worked so well in the muffins though, I'm so glad that I was able to find fresh berries at the store. They add little pops of tartness all throughout the muffin which compliments the sweet dough so well. The recipe said to halve the cranberries and lightly coat them in powdered sugar before adding them into the batter. The smaller size helps to have smaller bites of berries and the sugar helps to lessen the tartness a bit as well as helping them not sink to the bottom of the muffins. Cutting them in half took some work, most of the berries were fairly small and there were so many to halve.The sugar worked really well, the cranberries stayed dispersed nicely throughout the muffins. I will definitely be making this recipe again.

The chicken and noodles recipe is one that I came up with myself a while back so I can share that recipe with you. Sadly they are not homemade noodles though, they are store bought, I wold like to try it with homemade noodles sometime though. Here's what you need:

A big bag of dried noodles (no yolk brand, or Amish)

1 can of cream of chicken soup (and a can of water)

4 cups of chicken broth (Swanson low sodium if you can find it)

Parsley

Garlic powder

Oregano

Black pepper

Basil

Onion powder 

2 TBS butter

1/2 cup milk

2 large chicken breasts

First you want to get the chicken breasts cooked so season them with some of the seasonings and bake them in a 350 degree oven for an hour. Once they are cooked let them cool and then chop them up into small, bite sized pieces. While the chicken is cooling you can start the noodles. 

Put the chicken stock, chicken soup, and can of water into a large pot and set the burner on high to boil. Once the mixture has come to a boil add anywhere from 3/4 to the entire bag of noodles, depending on the size of the bag and how thick you want your noodles to be.Turn down the heat and let the noodles cook for a few minutes under what the bag recommends. Make sure to stir the noodles every couple minutes so they don't start sticking together. When they're done boiling turn the heat down to low and add in the seasonings. How much you add is really all to your taste preferences, I don't measure these out. I go heavier on the parsley and the pepper, you want to stay lighter on the basil, onion powder and oregano. For the garlic put in a good bit if you really like garlic, or completely omit it if you don't. You can always taste it along the way and add more seasonings accordingly. If you used low sodium stock you may want to add a bit of salt in to help liven up the flavors.

Now you want to add in the chicken pieces. Place them in the pot gently so that they don't splash and then mix them in well. Keep the mixture on a low heat, it will bring the chicken back up to temperature just fine on a low heat. Now add the milk and butter and let them slowly melt in, this will help give a bit of creaminess. You want to let it all cook for at least 10 minutes so that everything blends together nicely, the longer it sets the better the flavors get, but be cautious about overcooking the noodles and making them mushy. The low heat will help this from happening. Also keep stirring every so often while it sits to keep everything mixed and moist. 

When it all seems well heated and well mixed serve it up and a bowl and enjoy. This recipe does make a lot so either have a lot of people to eat it or eat some big portions. It will keep for a few days in the fridge. Freezing it isn't the best thing because the noodles get very mushy when reheated. I've tried to find a way to make a smaller portion of this, but haven't got there yet. That may be because I really like it though so I like to have left overs.

Thanks for reading.

Story Update

Story Update

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a little while, but I haven't had much to post. I have gotten through editing and expanding 7 more pages of my novel, so now I'm up to 30 pages done. I've still got a good bit to go, but I feel like I'm slowly making it better. I've caught a few inconsistencies that I need to clear up later in the story and I've found a few places to expand things so I'm slowly bumping up the word count. It's hard to go through this process though I've found, there are a lot of decisions that need to be made from word choice to if something really belongs to if something can be elaborated more. I'm not the best at decisions, so it tends to take a while for me to decide things. With this it's even more difficult because I want to make everything perfect, so it could take a while to get through the whole novel. Hopefully though through this process I'll be able to get my word count up to a reasonable length, I am really finding that I didn't explain some things very fully. I'll get there though, I really want to get this story published, I know lots of my friends and family want to read it.

I haven't gotten any farther with my other story since I've been focused on my first story. It's a bit too confusing to try and work on them both at the same time, especially since the first one needs a lot of concentration right now. The ideas for the second aren't fully planned out either, I know where I want to take it but I'm not sure how to get there. I will give you a basic idea for what the second story is about though, since I promised to do that a while ago.

My second story is tentatively called The King's Return, I'm really not sure that that title will fit it any more though with were the focus of the story has shifted. I'm not so good with deciding titles. Basically it is a story about the couple that will be the parents of the second King Arthur. So there are characters who are typically found in King Arthur stories like Merlin and Morgan, though I haven't got to writing there parts yet. I don't have too much done on this story really, it's mostly an idea with around 50 pages started. I'm not sure yet which part of the story that I'm going to put the future king's birth yet, I'm thinking more towards the end. This story is really more going to focus on the prophecy of the second king, preparation for him, and the story of his parents.

It's focused somewhere in the late 1800's/early 1900's, I haven't quite decided what time would be best. I need a reason for the second Arthur to be born, so possibly World War I. So far I have the parents who are Lila and Henry, who have been childhood friends and sweethearts who finally get married. Lila has an overbearing mother, a sweet little sister, and an older brother who is Henry's best friend named Mark. They have a big fancy wedding and go off on their honeymoon to a beautiful lake. Lila has been visited by a woman who has told her the prophecy that she had about her being the mother of the second King Arthur. She gave Lila instructions to not tell anyone about this, not even Henry until the time is right. She told her people to watch out for and to make sure that she was careful and to make sure not to name the baby Arthur or his enemies would easily find him. Though now I'm not sure what to name the baby. The woman also said that Lila would be visited by several people after the birth that will help the baby stay safe and learn what he needs to know. Merlin will come to him to help guide him, he will help him get to Excalibur and train him properly.

It is going to get rather complex and many characters from the King Arthur tales will show up throughout the story. I've just got to figure out how to blend everything together and when will be the right time for the baby to be born. Somehow Lila has to explain the prophecy to Henry too. So I have a lot to work out, but I love the idea of the story and I think I have a decently strong start. Though I do wonder if I've went a bit to romance based in the beginning for where the story will eventually go.

For now I'm not going to work much on this story while I'm finishing up the first one, but of course I will update what's going to happen once I get back to working on it. I actually have several novel ideas to work on at some point, I do have another novel with a fairly decent start but I've been stuck on where to go with that one for years. I have so many stories that I want to tell, but I've got to get through this first one first and hopefully get it published. I will keep you all posted and maybe sometime I will give some outlined ideas that I have for other stories. As always, thanks for reading.