Making stock

Garlic,  onions, carrots, celery, chicken bones, a few herbs and spices. Does anything smell better than making stock? It takes me back to my mother cutting up onions and carrots. She would put them in her old dutch oven, which was pitting and ancient looking then. The house would smell and I knew that in a day or two we would be feasting on chicken soup with spaetzle, chicken and dumpling or any number of other tasty dishes my mother would make.

I know that my grandmother and Nana also made stock. It gives me a certain sense of pride to cook like they did besides the benefits are numerous. Always one to save money, I love using up bones and scrapes of veggies that I would otherwise throw in the trash. It is more nutritious. No MSG in my stock, not to mention I can control what else goes into my stock. There are more vitamins and minerals in homemade stock than in store bought. Need more reasons? Check out Why Broth Is Beautiful.

 Today I found this link on Chicken Stock 101. She suggests using chicken feet and even the bones that we have eaten off of. What she says makes a lot of sense and I am going to try tweaking my recipe the next time I make it. A new bag is going to be added to my freezer of chicken bones too!

I do do a few things that work well for me. One is I collect my veggies. I have a bag in the freezer. I add in all my veggie scrapes. Celery that is starting to go limp, trimmings from onions and peppers, carrot tops, tails and peelings. Any veggies that are left over after a meal go into the bag. When it is time to make stock I add in the meat bones and put it all in the crockpot for 10 hour with some water.

After the stock is drained and ready to be used I pour it into ice cube trays. Yup that is right ice cube trays. When my little stock cubes are frozen I put them in a plastic bag in the freezer. So handy to add a cube here and there. I use it instead of oil when I can, add a little extra flavor to rice or pasta.

I look forward to turning my stock into a chicken meatball soup tomorrow. Yummm