"Let's go get a bottle of everclear and a chicken!"

You never know what you're gonna hear come out of my mouth!  That all came about yesterday because it was cold outside....yes it was below 70 degrees in San Antonio in October, which makes it cold out.(yeah did you catch that? I said October and today is a few days before Thanksgiving...that's what happens when you forget to finish your blog post and never publish it.) I was in the mood for some really good home made chicken noodle soup so I hit the Google monster to try and find one...but what to my wandering eyes did appear, a freakin Kahlua recipe.  Totally confused how that even happened, but it did.  It was like a sign or something, "Brady, you should make Kahlua!"

Do you know how to make Kahlua??? Easy, it's everclear and and coffee with some sugar and vanilla thrown in the mix. Now let me take a moment to vent about people who would rather google the answer vs. just think about it for 5 seconds and figure it out.  The blog I found the recipe on said to use a bottle of grain alcohol (750 ml) and add to that 12 cups of coffee, a cup being 6 ounces on most coffee pots. And throw in 2 lbs of brown sugar.  So at this point we have 72 ounces of coffee and 750 ml of liquor which don't really work together without a conversion, so since we're going to be pouring this back into liquor bottles we will go with the metric system. A quick google conversion lets me know that's about 2.8 liters of fluid.  So here's where the stupid people part comes in, there were numerous questions in the comment section asking how much kahlua this recipe yields so they would know how many bottles to buy. Hmm.....here's your answer enough to fill two fifths, a liter, and make me one White Russian.

750ml Everclear
12 cups coffee double strength
2lbs brown sugar
4-6 Tbsp vanilla

Brew coffee extra strong, then boil it for about 10 minutes. Somewhere in that process dump in the brown sugar to dissolve it.  Let it cool to room temperature then add the vanilla and grain alcohol. Done. Put it in whatever container you like to store. You can be all cute and decorative if you'd like or just put it back into some empty liquor bottles you have sitting in a cabinet somewhere...not that I'd ever have an empty liquor bottle or anything...uh, yeah so we're done here.

For the chicken noodle soup I mentioned I found a great recipe, and then I didn't follow it...of course. Those of you who have read my blog might have a good guess as to where I found the recipe that I modified..the pioneer woman herself.

What I did instead is this...

1 Chicken
1 bag of baby carrots
3 stalks of celery
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
2 Tbsp parsley flakes

Cut up a chicken and boil the parts till the meat is shreddable(That's a very technical term, I know.) You want as much water in that pot as you can without it overflowing.  ( boil for maybe 20-30 minutes,then again maybe not...just trust your heart it will guide you in the right direction.)

Keep the pot simmering while you pull all your chicken out. Remove the meat from the bone and return the bones to the pot for another 45 mins-1 hour  If you like stringy chicken in your soup then shred it, if you prefer chunky chicken, then chunk it. This is really more of a suggestion then a recipe. (If you haven't noticed by now that's how I roll.)

This is a good time to make your noodles.  For my noodles I used my great grandmothers recipe for egg noodles, unfortunately I've never actually measured out the ingredients to see how much of everything you need to add so I can't tell you what the recipe is...you know you just keep adding stuff till it feels right. So instead I'm sending you over to the pioneer woman to let her tell you how to make them...she has pictures and everything.

After you boiled the bones for a long time and your house is smelling like a boiled chicken, remove the bones from the stock and throw them away. No, don't feed them to the dog because you're not supposed to give dogs chicken bones.

Now dice up a couple stalks of celery and a couple carrots (I used a bag of baby carrots) and throw them into the pot. Use however much you think for the soup you really have in mind. Add a tablespoon of onion powder, tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp white pepper, 1/2 tsp thyme, 2 Tbsp parsley flakes

Let this all simmer for about twenty minutes(i hate celery so i had to make sure it was boiled into a nondescript mush) then throw in your noodles and chicken for another 15 minutes or so, depending on the noodles you made.  If you like the big fatties like I do, then you'll have to cook much longer or you end up with raw noodles.  Just sample a noodle here and there till they're done.

Ok you're done! It's freakin awesome!