We were invited for lunch by our Amish friends, Gerald and Darla.  “Pizza and Amish Noodles,” Darla had told me.  A few months ago, Darla had been telling me all about how much company they had over the holidays in their new home.  They had been fixing a lot of homemade pizzas.  I asked about the noodles – I’d never really put “noodles” with “pizza.” 

“Oh, yes, we serve noodles with everything. There is rarely a meal that is not served without noodles.”  Or maybe she said there is “never a meal,” but the jest was that noodles are served all the time.  That totally intrigued me.  For starters, I could see the sense, as in, “Cents,” in this.  How many times have I had a pizza party and worried that I would not have enough?  So I order extra, just to make sure.  Now, if I had served noodles as part of the meal, I wouldn’t have worried about that.  If everyone got a slice or two of pizza, and then there were noodles to fill everyone up with after that, I wouldn’t be concerned about anyone being hungry, and I would have saved some money, too.

The very next party that I had (Joshua’s birthday party in January), guess what I served?  Yep, you got it.  Pizza and noodles.  I bought Amish noodles; I boiled them, and after straining the water,  I put them in the crock pot.  I added about two cups of chicken broth and a can of Cream of Chicken Soup.  I put it the crock pot on low, just trying to keep the noodles warm until everyone arrived.

Now, if you are like me, you’ve never heard of having pizza with noodles. So, I expected my guests (over thirty people) to be equally astonished (and maybe to think like I did, that pizza and noodles don’t go together.)  But to my surprise when I announced that I had pizza and “Amish noodles,” to eat, Jodi lifted up her eyebrows, and with a big smile on her face, said, “Noodles?”  Yes, she was astonished, but she seemed really pleased that we would be having something besides “pizza.”

Now I can’t say that this noodle dish in the crock pot was anything that impressed me, BUT I got all kinds of people telling me that they just loved my Amish Noodles.  My oldest daughter wanted to take some home, and weeks later she was asking me to email her the recipe.  And some of Rachel’s friends were telling her the next day how much they just loved our Amish noodles.  Surprise!  My Amish Noodles were a hit.

Now, I never have a pizza party WITHOUT serving Amish noodles!  I served them at Rachel’s birthday party (around 35 people) and I got the same response that I had a Joshua’s party.  Try them at your next pizza party!

Authentic Amish Noodles

To make Amish Noodles really good, try making your own chicken broth to make it extra tasty.  If you remember, I just happen to have a freezer full of roosters .  When I want to make a broth, I pull out a few (huge) legs (my roosters were the size of large turkeys), or some other body part of the rooster; dethaw it in a bucket of water, and then I transfer it over to the crock pot and cover it with fresh water.  I throw in an onion, and any other veggies I may have in the refrig (like some stalks of celery), and sometimes I put in a cup (or two) of white wine.  I cook it overnight until the meat just falls off the bone. When that happens, I strain it and chop all the good pieces of meat into small pieces.  (Darla tells me that their Amish Noodles rarely ever consist of chicken meat, just the broth, so you don’t have to add chicken to have authentic Amish Noodles.)  ((Oh, and now that I think about it, I am guessing with a high probability that you don't add white wine to the truly Amish broth. Call this part of the recipe, "Antoinette's Version of Amish Broth" ))

I put the broth back into the crock pot (on high) and stir in a can of Cream of Chicken soup until it looks like I’ve managed to stir it in real good, and then I add the chicken pieces back in, and the noodles.  It’s basically all done at this point, and I just keep the crock pot on low until the company arrives.

Now, to really make these Noodles Authentically Amish you would need to make these noodles from scratch (to which Darla showed me how she did this – they are made from egg and flour) but if you’re like me, store bought Amish noodles will just have to do.