Old-Fashioned Beef and Homemade Noodles

Today's a sort of 'throw back Thursday' recipe even tho it didn't come from the new/old cookbooks I've been using lately - it's an old recipe tho so I'm counting it hahaha. Cathy and I did a very fun thing together - we facetimed making her mom's beef and noodle recipe which was even better than just following the recipe because I got to see the steps in real time with her talking me thru it. It was like watching a cooking show on TV but I could ask questions hahahha which was so helpful. Funny how even tho she was telling me what to do, and I was watching her, we ended up with different sizes - in the end it didn't matter because I don't think you can mess up the recipe by cutting the meat in bigger or smaller chunks (mine were way bigger) or rolling and cutting the noodles different (I had weird little triangle pieces and she had long strands! Also she rolled hers much thinner - Dave said mine were very similar to his moms and he liked them thicker so he was happy. See, can't mess it up!) 

I took lots of pictures, don't let that freak you out about this being hard or very time consuming - I just know it helped me to see exactly what Cathy was doing and what each step was supposed to look like, so I'm including photos of each step. 

2.5 pounds chuck shoulder english roast
onion cut into chunks*
1 can beef consume*
1 can water
flour
salt and pepper

Note, Cathy doesn't use consume, just a cup of water, and adds a packet of dry onion soup mix but I didn't have any so used an onion and consume to boost the gravy flavor instead.

Cut the roast into cubes. Put some flour, salt and pepper in a large ziplock bag, add the beef and toss around until the meat is coated with flour. Remove the meat from the baggie, put in a crockpot along with onion, beef consume and water. Cook on high for up to 4 hours until the meat is cooked and tender.

Homemade Noodles:

A few additional notes:

• Cathy cut her roast into smaller cubes and it only took a couple hours on high for the meat to be done. Mine were bigger pieces and cooked for 4 hours. 
• I questioned why the folding of the dough into wedges and slicing on the angles (which is how I got all the little triangle pieces), why not roll out into a big triangle and fold into smaller triangle and cut straight across which would produce more uniform strands? Cathy didn't have an answer so next time I make these I'm trying just straight folding!
• after you cut and dry the noodles, bring 32 oz. beef broth to a boil in a large deep skillet like the black pan in the picture above. I thought I was going to use the stock pot to the left, but Cathy makes hers in an approximately 4" deep skillet. Add the dry noodles along with all the flour on the cutting board, boil the noodles until fully cooked. Don't drain. The flour on the noodles and the board help to thicken the sauce. 
• add the beef and gravy from the crockpot (I had about 3 cups) to the noodles and broth. Simmer until the gravy thickens, mine was soupy but after it simmered for a while it thickened up. 
• we served this in shallow pasta bowls.