Grilled Vegetable Basket

In case you missed this when I shared it over at Tales of a Ranting Ginger...here it is for you!

We eat a tonne of vegetables at our house.  We are incredibly fortunate to live in a region that produces a lovely variety of vegetables for us, and we are able to purchase all a nice variety of vegetables at our local supermarkets - it seems we always have great selection to choose from!

One of our most favourite things to do, especially in the summer - though we do use our BBQ year-round, is grill vegetables.  We have a grilling basket for our BBQ that I think is the absolute best thing we've ever purchased for our BBQ.  We've bought these grilling baskets for people as gifts, we just LOVE ours that much!

Every time we do a Grilled Vegetable Basket, our "recipe" changes.  In fact, there is no real recipe, just "guidelines".  Or, more like, "What vegetables do we have on hand to chop and grill?".  Here is an example of one of our recent grilled vegetable baskets:

Cut up your vegetables into nice chunky pieces.  Here I used:

Red Pepper
Onion
Snap Peas
Orange Pepper
Gren Pepper
Zuchini
Yellow Pepper

Place your vegetable in a bowl, pour olive oil on top (just enough to coat, no need to overdo it), and sprinkle Montreal Steak Spice (as much or as little seasoning as you desire).

Preheat your grill, place your grilling basket on the BBQ.  When warmed, pour the vegetables from the bowl into the basket.

When the vegetables are cooked, pour them from the grilling basket into a serving bowl.  Be careful, that grilling basket will be VERY HOT!

And now, they are ready to serve!  And BEAUTIFUL!  Great colours, great taste - and like I said, one of our favourite ways to prepare our vegetables.

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Chicken Vegetable Soup with Homemade Noodles

When I made or meal plan for this week I decided I wanted to try to make another soup from scratch.  Since my Hearty Ham & Split Pea Soup went over so well, I figured, let's try round 2 with a new one!  I've been wanting chicken noodle soup, so I thought about what I would put into it, researched how to make my own noodles, and here is what I came up with.  The egg noodle recipe I found at allrecipes.com, the rest of it, I made up as I went along.  Here is the recipe:

Chicken Vegetable Soup

Oil

2 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and cut into small pieces
3 slices of bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled
1/2 onion, sliced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1/2 cup cauliflower, cut into small florettes
1/2 cup broccoli, cut into small florettes
1/2 cup green beans, cut in half (ends cut off)
4 cups chicken broth
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
Fresh homemade egg noodles (recipe follows)

In a frying pan, coat with a small amount of oil.  Heat, and cook chicken until cooked through.  Remove chicken from frying pan and set aside.  Add bacon to the pan and cook until crispy.  Remove from pan and set on paper towel to remove excess grease.

While the chicken is cooking, in a large pot, coat witha small amount of oil, heat over medium, and add onions, carrots, celery.  Cook until they start to soften.  Add in cauliflower, broccoli and beans.  Continue to cook, around 5 minutes.  Add in chicken broth, chicken, garlic, parsley and pepper.  Simmer at medium-low for 10 minutes.  Add bacon and continue to simmer for 5 minutes.  Add fresh pasta and simmer until pasta is cooked to your liking (approximately 5 minutes).  Serve, and enjoy!

Homemade Egg Noodles

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter

In a large bowl, stir together flour and salt.  Add the eggs, milk and butter.  Knead together until a smooth dough is formed, about 5 minutes.  Sit in bowl, covered with a tea towel, for 10 minutes.

After the dough has rested, roll it out to your desired thickness.  Cut into lengths (or shapes).

Leave the noodles to air dry after you've cut them.

*Notes 
- I made my egg noodles around 10 am and left them to sit on the counter until I started making the soup at 12:30 pm.
- I found that this recipe made enough for 3 batches of noodles, so I have packaged up the other 2 batches and will freeze them until the next time I make soup.

VERDICT:
Of course the baby decided he was hungry just as I was about to serve the soup.  So I dished up bowls for my husband and our oldest, and they ate while I fed the baby.  My husband's first reaction was "This is SO good".  He ate his bowl of soup really quickly and went back for more.  Our oldest wasn't in the taste-testing mood, he was tired after a busy day yesterday (swimming lessons, birthday party, babysitters so that Mom & Dad could go out for a grown-up only dinner) - so he didn't actually try the soup, he went for a nap instead.  Finally, I got to try the soup, and it was declicious.  I really enjoyed it.  The variety of vegetables, the fresh noodles, oh my.  It was yummy!  This is a keeper in our books!  To top it off, we have two nice sized servings leftover, already packaged for lunch tomorrow...can't wait!

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