Chicken and Noodles

When Jeff and I had first started getting serious in our relationship, he shared with me that his favorite meal was the chicken and noodles that his Grandma used to make. I'd never heard of chicken and noodles. I asked him to explain. "Chicken and noodles and sauce." Yeah- that really helps. We will now have been married 6 years this October. And I've never cooked chicken and noodles and he's never helped me better understand what it is. We've eaten it together one time and he told me that it wasn't "right." But couldn't tell me what wasn't "right" about it. Yeah- that really helps. So for Father's Day, I decided I was going to figure out this Indiana chicken and noodles phenomenon. I was born in California. I spent my childhood in Kentucky, my adolescence in Ohio, my young adulthood in Ohio, and then on to Indiana. I have connections in the deep South, the mid-South, the Midwest, the West Coast and even the East Coast. My mother, in her growing up, moved every 3 years. She's lived, eaten, and even cooked in many states, many regions. I called her to see if she'd heard of chicken and noodles. Nope. I decided that my best course of action was to turn to Hoosier moms. I am part of a local Moms site- an online community. I did a search for "chicken and noodles." I perused the postings and all of the shared recipes. 20 different versions of chicken and noodles. Some had carrots, celery, onion. Some didn't. Some used cream of chicken soup. Some didn't. So I started pressing Jeff for more info... I found a recipe online that seemed to match his memory. I boiled the chicken in chicken stock. I boiled the Reame's frozen egg noodles in chicken stock (had to be Reame's, by the way). I shredded the chicken. I melted 4 tb of butter. I took 4 tb of flour and mixed in "enough" milk to make it liquid. I added that to the melted butter. I whisked in a can of cream of chicken and herbs soup. I added the shredded chicken and the noodles and about 2 cups of chicken stock. Mixed it all together. Served it up. The kids (eventually) ate it and enjoyed it. I found it to be pretty tasty. I was pleased with it. Jeff? "Well, there's nothing wrong with it." Yeah- that really helps.