Almost Grandma’s Chicken Noodle Soup

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Almost Grandma's Chicken Noodle Soup with Butterballs

Chicken soup recipes inspired by her childhood visits with

grandparents By Glairon, Longmont Times-Call

Nanette Goings remembers making butterball dumplings with her

grandfather every summer at her grandparents' farm in Ordway.

The two would roll the sticky mixture in their hands while her

grandmother boiled and cut up the chicken and made the soup.

Goings' grandfather, Conrad Grasmick, was such a perfectionist that

when his pastor gave his eulogy many years later in 1986, he spoke

about how Grasmick insisted his butterballs be perfectly round.

" He always said mine looked like footballs, " said Goings, 48.

Goings said the butterball recipe came from her ancestors, who moved

from Germany to Russia and later to America.

While she was growing up, butterballs were a family favorite,

especially during Thanksgiving, when all her cousins would count the

number of butterballs in everyone's bowls to ensure fairness.

Today, it's still a family favorite. Goings' 19-year-old son, Seth,

always asks for the soup for his birthday dinner, even though his

birthday is in the warmer month of May, she said.

One summer when Goings was a teenager, she asked her grandmother for

her recipes. Since the recipes were only in her grandmother's head,

they cooked the foods together, and Goings wrote the recipes down as

she watched. Over the years, she modified them to fit her own tastes

and to make the cooking easier.

Her grandfather was an onion farmer, so her grandmother's soup always

had plenty of onions. Today, Goings uses dehydrated minced onions

because it saves time. Her grandmother also made her own noodles;

Goings uses packaged noodles.

Goings also decided to use boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the

soup instead of the whole chickens her grandmother used. It makes

cooking easier — she doesn't have to debone the meat — and the soup

also has less fat. Unlike her grandmother's recipe, she also adds

basil to the soup.

Goings usually serves the soup with homemade bread, carrot and celery

sticks, and fruit. The breadcrumbs she uses in the butterball recipe

come from the heels and crusts her family won't eat. She freezes them

until it's time to make butterballs, then defrosts and grinds them in

a food processor.

And when a member of Faith Community Lutheran Church comes home after

a stay in the hospital, she often drops by with a pot of steaming

chicken noodle soup.

" It's a nice meal if someone has gotten out of the hospital, " Goings

said. " It's not spicy. Even if they get chicken noodle soup from

somebody else, everyone's soup tastes different. "

Recipe Ingredients

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

4 quarts water

2 Tbsp. chicken bouillon. Try bouillon with no monosodium glutamate

3 Tbsp. dehydrated minced onion

1 Tbsp. dried basil

1 or 2 bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 12 oz. package dry Kluski noodles (or any thick-cut egg noodle)

1 batch Grandma's Butterballs (recipe below)

Instructions

Bring first eight ingredients to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer,

covered, for about two hours. Remove the chicken from broth and cut

into bite-size pieces. Return chicken to pot; bring liquid to a boil.

Add noodles and butterballs. Cook until noodles are tender and

butterballs have come to the surface, 10 to 15 minutes.

Grandma's Butterballs

Ingredients

4 cups fresh bread crumbs (not dried)

2 eggs

6 Tbsp. melted butter

1/8 to 1/4 tsp. salt

Instructions

Mix ingredients well and chill the mixture in the refrigerator for

half an hour or more. Form into balls about the size of a walnut. If

not planning to serve in chicken soup right away, place the

butterballs in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze. When

frozen, remove butterballs, place in a plastic bag and keep frozen

until ready for use.

http://www.timescall.com/food/food_story.asp?ID=6038