I like to use beef chuck. Cut into stewing sized pieces & brown in a bit of olive oil in the pressure cooker. Then I add some stock (2-3 cups--beef or chicken) and pressure cook the meat for 12 minutes. Let the pressure drop naturally. (No pressure cooker, then the meat needs to simmer for however long it takes for it to be tender.)

After the beef is cooked, I add chopped celery, celery leaf (ground celery seed will work, too), parsley, garlic, minced onion, sliced carrot, black pepper and continue to simmer, adding stock as needed. Sometimes use a little BV or Kitchen Bouquet to beef up the juice. Also, a teaspoon or more of Vegemite really helps if you have any of that.

Continue cooking until the veggies soften up, then add noodles & 1 large can of evaporated milk. Taste to see if you need more garlic. Cook until the noodles are done.

Here's the noodle recipe that I use. It makes thick chewy noodles. Unfortunately, I can't get it to work in my pasta rolling machine so end up having to roll them out by hand:

Egg Noodles Source: "Linda" Allrecipes.com

2 1/2 cup flour
pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 T. butter

In a large bowl, stir together the flour & salt. Add the beaten egg, milk & butter. Knead dough until smoothe, about 5 minutes. Let rest in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.

On a floured surface, roll out to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired lengths and shapes.

Allow to air dry before cooking.

Note: I use the dough cycle on my bread machine. Just dump everything into the machine & let it do the work. (I don't like to knead.)

I don't have a noodle cutter so, after I roll out the dough to the desired thickness, I roll up the sheet of dough like you would roll up jellyrolls or cinnamon rolls. I cut off slices (using a knife) the desired width. With this recipe, the noodles plump up when you cook them, so make cuts a little more narrow than what you want the cooked noodles to be.

Also, I have to cook low sodium for DH so I didn't include salt. Vegemite is pretty salty anyway, so if you use that, sneak up on any addt'l salt that you add.

This is pretty much the way that my mom always made Beef n' noodles except that she made a more eggy noodle. I like a more toothy noodle for Beef n' Noodles. Also, I double the noodle recipe. (Leave any leftover uncooked noodles to thoroughly air dry & then pkg. them up & either freeze or store in the pantry.)

Very helpful! Thank you. And perfect for the 15 degree weather we are having.

Yup, perfect cold weather comfort food. Now you've made me hungry for noodles even though we just had beef stew last night!

I use a recipe from the Iowa State Fair's Blue Ribbon Cookbook:

Ingredients:
2Lb Boneless Beef Chuck, cut into 1" cubes.
1 medium (About 1.5 Lbs) Beef soup bone. In Iowa, these are from the leg shank.
1 Carrot, pared & quartered
1 Celery Stalk with green leaves attached cut in half or thirds depending on the size.
1 Medium onion Quartered
1 Bay Leaf
1 Teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
About 8 cups water
2 Cups home made beef stock or 14.5oz store bought beef stock.
12 ounces egg noodles. NOTE! Store bought noodles just don't work well with this recipe! I make my own using 1 egg, 2 cups flour, pinch of salt & 1/8 teaspoon white pepper. (see Below)

If needed for thickening:

2 Tablespoons Flour
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water

Method:

In a large,heavy bottomed stock pot or ceramic lined cast iron pot, add the first 8 ingredients: beef cubes, salt, pepper, bay leaf, soup bone, celery, carrot, water to cover (about 8 cups).

Cover the pot and heat over high heat until it reaches a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the beef cubes are fork-tender about 1 hour 15 minutes.

Remove from the heat and using a slotted spoon, remove the beef cubes and place in a bowl. Remove the soup bone and trim any lean meat, cut into bite-sized pieces, and add to the beef cubes.
Discard the bone. I usually remove the marrow and add to the stock or give the whole bone to a worthy dog.

Cover the bowl of meat and refrigerate.

Strain the remaining stock with a sieve into a bowl or Large measuring cup discarding the vegetables and bay leaf.

Measure the liquid and make a note of how much you have.

Pour the liquid into a large mixing bowl and refrigerate.

When cold, use a tablespoon or large spoon to skim the congealed fat off the top of the broth and discard the fat. Cover the remaining broth and refrigerate.

All of the previous steps can be done ahead of time, even the day before.

30 Minutes before serving:
In a large pot, add the reserved broth, and enough other stock to total 10 Cups of liquid. stir to blend.
Cover and bring to a boil over high heat.

Add the Noodles to the boiling stock/broth. boil uncovered until slightly soft (about 8 minutes) add the beef cubes, boiling briefly until heated through.

If the broth looks thick enough, like a thin gravy, you are done. If it is too thin, make the thickening out of the ingredients listed above. By adding them to a seal-able jar, cover and shake vigorously until smooth and all clumps are gone. Add this thickening sauce to the pot and simmer briskly until the broth thickens. (About 2 minutes) Serve immediately. In Iowa, they are served over mashed potatoes, but are delicious by themselves.

Egg Noodles:

On a large surface, put the 2 cups of flour in a mound, making a well in the center. Break the egg into the well, and using a fork, stir the egg only until well mixed. add the salt and white pepper to the egg. Continue stirring more and more of the flour into the egg until a dough ball begins to form. Knead until smooth, and roll out thin, dusting the board with flour to keep from sticking until the dough is about 1/8". Cut the dough into 4" strips, placing one on top of the other adding a light dusting of flour between each layer. Once all the strips are stacked, turn so you can cut the 4" side into the desired thickness. (I like about 1/4 to 3/8" thick noodles.) The finished noodles will be 4" x 1/8" x 1/4". Place the noodles on a large cookie sheet and dust well with flour to keep them separated until they are dried out, about 2-3 hours. Shake the majority of the flour off before adding the noodles to the broth.

Thank you, Brad. Still haven't tried these. Hubby has never even tried the pasta maker. NOT ONCE! LOL

We received a pasta maker years ago as a gift. I think I tried it twice. The first time didn't go so well, and the pasta ended up bland and gluey, the second time was better but was still not quite as good as the refrigerated packages of "fresh" pasta that you can buy for $4. For me, the results I was able to achieve were not worth the hours of effort it took. After that we gave the machine away and my only regret is I forgot to also give away the expensive pasta flour we bought with it.

I also have used my pasta maker only twice. It was sort of fun, but the end product was no better than store-bought fresh pasta. I remember my mother making home-made noodles and they were just awesome but I think the ready made stuff you could get in those days was far from excellent.

Today, it is hard (maybe impossible) to make pasta that tastes any better than what you get at the supermarket.

I find the texture of home-made pasta much nicer than shop-bought.

Yeh, I love the toothsome texture of home-made pasta. Also, the versatility--add some whole-wheat if you want. Did you say that you would like garlic-flavored noodles??

I wanted to update on my noodle recipe issue with the pasta roller. After a few more attempts, I've managed to get it to 'roll' in my pasta roller. A.--I needed to use smaller chunks of dough and B.--Roll it slowly. Also note that I'm using Aldi all-purpose flour which, no doubt, isn't the best flour for this application. (Nor the fact that the recipe uses only 2 eggs) I keep meaning to experiment with other flours but...

But, that leads me to another reason why I make my own noodles...

It's what you do for dinner when it's too freaking nasty outside to do anything else....and that includes getting in the car to go buy some other flour OR go out to buy 'fresh' store bought noodles.

That and the boyz get positively gleeful when I mention that noodles are what's for supper. To include the four-legged boyz. (The Lab loves to try to snitch noodles as they're being cut with the Atlas--and the thought to use a wooden clothes drying rack for drying noodles was not one of my better ideas...the Sheltie joined in the snitching fun on that occasion!)

Homemade pasts noodles (KitchenAid pasta attachment - makes the sheets and hand cut to noodle size). 3 pound Boneless Chuck Roast roasted (covered) in the oven for ~ 3 hours. Coffee/Red wine/onion broth used as cooking liquid for roast. Makes a fantastic gravy.

Slice roast (against grain) with electric knife.

So yummy...

The fresh, store bought, pasta .. is it in the refrigerator section? Frozen? Favorite brand?