Hunger No More, by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington; Homemade Egg Noodles

Today at St. Alban's, we had an Alternative Gift Fair to kick of Advent. One of the tables was for the diocese's hunger fund, which gets money out to feeding programs across the Washington area. I snatched up two copies, because, well, I loves me a church cookbook, and I also contributed a ton of recipes.

Hunger No More: Food & Fellowship from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington was edited by Kimberly Bujak, Lucy Chumbley, and Ann V. Talty, and came out just last month (October 2011). They call it "a cookbook that celebrates food, fellowship and the spirit of friendship and community that abides in the Diocese of Washington."

There's still time to order one if you're looking for a Christmas gift for your favorite cookbook lover--the books are $20 each, $12 of which is tax deductible.

Now, it's the week after Thanksgiving, and you might be in need of some leftovers help. If you've a mind to make turkey noodle casserole, why not try your hand at making your own noodles?

Homemade Egg Noodles

1 egg
cream
salt
flour

This recipe is over 100 years old and was told to me years ago in Colorado by my grandmother. First, you crack an egg into a medium-sized mixing bowl, saving half the egg shell. Measure cream into the saved half-shell and add the cream to the egg in the mixing bowl. Add a pinch of salt and stir with a fork. Add flour and stir until the dough forms a ball, then turn out onto a floured surface.

Roll out the dough to desired thickness and cut into strips. Grandmother used a sharp knife for this and I use a pizza cutting wheel. The raw noodles can be dried for a couple of hours at this point, but it's not absolutely necessary. Grandmother hung the raw noodles to dry on clean tea towels on the backs of her kitchen chairs.

Place the noodles into your pot of chicken soup and let them simmer for half an hour or more before serving. The flour on the noodles thickens the soup nicely.

Donna Courtney
St. Dunstan's

For your casserole needs, you'll want to be cooking these up on their own, not as part of soup. Though, heck, you can cook them in stock--extra flavor is a good thing. I wouldn't go a half hour of cooking time, though. You'll want to test for doneness often, as you don't want them falling to mush in the casserole dish.

A lot of the recipes in Hunger No More have little snippets of stories included, sharing how the dishes show up in the contributors' lives. I don't think I'll be typing out the 4 page recipe for sourdough bread, but knowing that it exists makes me happy -- I like a conversational tone in recipes.