Homemade Egg Noodles & Chicken Noodle Soup

After my first attempt at sticky chicken (and yummy chicken broth) I decided that homemade chicken noodle soup was in order.  One problem: we can't get egg noodles here.  So, I set off to search for egg noodle recipes and stumbled upon this one, which I thought I would try.

 2 cups flour.

 1/4 teaspoon salt.

 1/4 teaspoon baking powder.

 1 whole egg (suggested from the comments on the recipe).

 4 egg yolks.

 A tiny bit of milk or water (also suggested in the recipe comments).  {I opted for the milk.}

 Work the dough together and turn out onto a floured surface.

 Cut the dough in half and roll out (a half at a time).  {I love my Pampered Chef rolling pin.  With all this cooking from scratch it has come in handy!  Next time I will roll it very, very thin.}

 Cut it into desired noodle size.  {A pizza cutter works great for this.  Next time I would make the noodles much smaller.}

 Set the noodles out to dry for several hours.  {If you make long thin noodles you can hang them to dry.  I did not allow enough time in my prep time for very much drying time.  I will try it with the proper drying time next time and see if it makes much of a difference.}

 Heat the yummy chicken broth.

 Cut up some carrots.  (And celery if you have some/want to.)

 And, dice up a small onion.

 Add the veggies to the heated broth.

 Add your pre-cooked (possibly frozen) chicken.

Serve.  Candlelight and place cards optional.

This may have been the world's best chicken noodle soup.  The noodles were good, but need a little tweaking (as I noted above).  The chicken broth was amazing.  Words can't quite do it justice.  Go try it.  No seriously; go put some sticky chicken in the crockpot and then make some broth.  You will not be sorry.

Kind regards,

Linking up with Try New Adventures Thursday at Alicia's Homemaking.

Scrapbooking

I love to scrapbook and so I am combining my love for scrapbooking with my love for blogging into a new site today.  Come on over and check it out!

You can read a little about how I got started (and re-started) digital scrapbooking, see some cards I have made, and check out the cool 52 Blessings challenge I am participating in.

Kind Regards,

*Linking up with Alicia for Try New Adventures Thursday

Organization

This has been one of those weeks where I am running around crazy busy and at the same time feeling like I accomplished nothing at all.  Ever have one of those weeks?

So today I am playing a little blog catch-up.  I love participating in Alicia's New Adventures Thursday and I worked on this project, took the pictures, and never got it posted this week.  So a few days late here it is:

This week I came up with 13 things I want to accomplish before I turn 30 in less then 10 months.  Because #11 on the list is likely to take every single minute of that I went ahead and started working on it right away.  The cabinets in the kitchen in our new house are kind of a joke as has been the task of keeping them organized with the help of three eager Little Sojourners and Amelia Bedelia our sweet and well-meaning part-time house helper. (Have I shared about her yet? I think a little bit, but not the whole story, I'll put that on my "to blog about" list. Trust me on this...having a house helper is not as glamorous as it sounds.) 

So, I came up with a plan which I hope will put us all on the same page.  I pulled everything out, wiped down the cabinets, re-organized everything into it's own place, and then proceeded to label in English (for the Little Sojourners) and the local language (for Amelia) what was on each shelf.

Re-organized cabinets with little labels on each shelf.

I am really not an organized person.  Never in my life have I labeled a shelf before.  It's only pure desperation which brings me to it now.  For my sanity, I sure hope it works!

A close-up with lots of glare.

So now my kitchen cabinets are organized and I am on my way to accomplishing #11!  Sure hoping it stays organized!

Doesn't it look tasty?!

And, since my new adventure of labeling shelves was not so exciting i also decided to throw Sticky Chicken in the crock pot and give it a try along with the broth that Alicia raved about.  I can't wait to try it tonight!

 Kind regards,

Thursday's Travel Tales & Tips: Week 1!

Welcome; so glad you could stop by! Today is the day I take the plunge and start this linky party (hoping there will be others out there who want to come and join me!).  I'm so very excited (yet a tad bit nervous)!  I can't wait to hear all of your travel tales, ponder your travel tips, see pictures of your past trips, and/or dream with you about future trips. 

Don't think it has to be exotic!  It can be anything from tips about car or airplane travel with children, packing tips, past vacation pictures, a story of one of your travel adventures, sharing about a trip you are planning to take, or giving us a glimpse of one of your dream travel destinations.  It can be local sights in your city, something in your home state, cool places to see in the US, or overseas destinations.  Be creative!

The rules:
1.) Make a post on your blog about travel. (Or, share an old post that fits the theme here.)
2.) Put a link in your post linking back here to Mrs. Sojourner's Monologues (or you can link directly to Thursday's Travel Tales & Tips, whichever you prefer).
3.) Share your link below. (Link directly to your post [not your blog homepage] in the "URL" kine.  Put your name/name of your blog and/or the name of your post in the "name" line.  The email is self explanatory.  Pick an image to share in your thumbnail.)
4.) Check out the other links. (It's not mandatory, but everyone loves some comment love!)
5.) Tweet about it another the hash tag: #TravelTales (Optional!)
6.) Have fun!

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Here is my post for this week:

In honor of the beginning of Fall and just how very much I am missing the mountains of NC I am going to share about an amazing trip we took before we left the US in the fall of 2008.  We met some of our best friends at a cabin in the woods (at the time they were between houses and we had already moved out of our apartment so there was no where for us to get together; at least that's how we justified the expense at the time!).  We look around at cheaper cabins that could fir our families and found one we thought would work.  The rental company gave us this amazing cabin for the same price (since it wasn't already booked).  {Sometimes God does unexpected things like that and I am always reminded when I look back at them of His goodness!}  We really didn't realize what an amazing cabin it was until we took the steep windy road up to it and got out of the car.  Wow!

Our "Up Above the World So High" Cabin complete with built in BBQ on the deck.  You better believe will grilled some great meals in the crisp fall air!

The kids had a great time playing in the great big yard.  (Also another view of the house.)

Seriously, the most a-m-a-z-i-n-g view!  Breath-taking.  And a cool lookout to boot.  The view was of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park; so awesome.

It had a fire pit and this is where we spent a big part of our evenings; roasting s'mores with the kiddos.  What could be more fun?!

One day we went for a hike and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors all around us.

I tried to savor every moment knowing this was our last time to enjoy fall for many years.

We got to see a really neat waterfall.  The Little Sojourners really enjoyed all the outdoors stuff we did.

(I had to include this picture of me and Little Sojourner on our hike that my friend took.  It's one of my favorites of Little.)

One day my friend, her oldest daughter and I walked around Bryson City, NC and looked at the shops, ate lunch at a little sandwich place, and had coffee and checked email at the Mountain Perks Expresso Bar/Cafe.  (They made a pretty good mocha!)  It was a fun girls afternoon.

Most days we stayed at that cabin, enjoyed the peace and quiet (besides our munchkins), sat in awe of the beauty that surrounded us, played card and board games, ate my friend's amazing cooking, chatted our heads off, and other such shenanigans.  The day we went hiking we did go to Pasqualino's Italian Restaurant.  The service was great and the food was delicious.

It was a wonderful trip that I will cherish forever.  I am so glad I got to share about it with you!

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Thanks again for stopping by; hope to see you again next week!

Dreaming of travel,

*Linking up with Alicia's Try New Adventures Thursday at Alicia's Homemaking!

Learning a New Language

It sounds glamorous and adventurous.  I thought it would be.  I'm finding it really isn't.  I took 3 years of Spanish in high school.  No problem.  This is not the same.  Living without any English and having to actually function in the language has many challenges.

Some days I understand what I hear and can convey what I want to say.  Other days, I feel like a total idiot.  I like the days where I can function better.

It probably doesn't help to live in a culture that they love to laugh.  Not with you; at you!  Sometimes the sight of a white person (i.e. me!) is enough to make someone break out in laughter.  Other times it is the sound of a white person trying to speak their language (i.e. me!).  Getting laughed at takes some getting used to!  After 1 year and 1/4 I'm slowly getting there.

Some of my favorite language blunders that I know I have made (because I am sure there are many that I don't even know I have made!):

"I washed myself with my house helper."  I meant to say: "I washed the dishes with my house helper."  A slight difference.

"I have to go home and cook a sacrifice for my family." I meant to say: "I have to go home and cook dinner for my family." I had been translating the story of Isaac's sacrifice.  Sacrifice was on my brain.  (I can never spell sacrifice right; thank goodness for spell check.)

"Can you go buy us a fetish (basically an idol) at the market?" We meant to say: "Can you go buy us some charcoal at the market?"  The look on her face was hilarious.  Like jaw dropped to the floor.

In those instances it is really easy to laugh at ourselves!

So, today after a year studying the local language Mr. Sojourner and I were tested.  (Insert jeopardy music here.)

I was super nervous.  I thought I was going to throw up.  (TMI?  Sorry.)  I really had not hit language learning very hard this summer with our normal language tutor working with the Peace Corp., the kids out of school, moving, being burned out, etc.  So, I thought that this was really not the best time to be tested.  I was ready for bad news.

But, alas, God is merciful and good and a help to those in need (and I was very much in need of some help)...we passed!  Sweet.  Thank you Lord.  You are awesome.

Can you believe when we come back again in a few years we will have to learn another language?  What in the world did I sign up for?!

Basking in His goodness,

*Linking up with Try New Adventures Thursday at Alicia's Homemaking.

Cassava Root

This week while we were in the village we were able to try a new food.  For a snack they dug up some cassava roots for us to have.

Cassava root can be prepared many different ways but this time we just peeled off the hard bark-like outside and ate the inner root raw. 

It was very good and even the Little Sojourners like it!

Tryin' new things,

*I'm linking up with "Try New Adventures Thursday" at Alicia's Homemaking.