Homemade Chicken Stock

With preparations for Thanksgiving dinner getting underway, I am making a batch of chicken stock.  Several of the recipes that I am making for Thanksgiving call for chicken stock or chicken broth.  I have been making my own stock since we began raising our own meat chickens.  I view it as a way of "honoring the sacrifice of the bird" by using all the usable parts.  I don't adhere to a strict recipe, so each batch is unique. 

A rough breakdown of the ingredients are as follows:

2 chicken carcasses  We throw all the bones from a chicken in a gallon ziplock bag after the meal and freeze it until stock time.
2 sets of chicken organs and 2 necks  We freeze these when the chickens are butchered so that I can just grab a bag out of the deep freeze.
4 chicken feet  Two chickens equals four feet.  The feet are high in collagen and great for stock.
3-4 carrots, thickly sliced
3-4 celery stalks, thickly sliced
1 medium to large onion, roughly chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 sprigs of rosemary
4 sprigs of thyme
4-6 sage leaves
1 Tablespoon peppercorns


Throw all the ingredients in a large pot and cover completely with water.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn the temperature down to low, cover, and simmer for 2-3 hours.  I usually add water periodically as it evaporates. 

 

After it cooks, strain out the solids and discard.  I use a slotted spoon.  Then pour the stock through a fine mesh sieve and you are ready to go!  I usually don't need all of the stock at once so I have taken to freezing it in ice cube trays, then I pop out the cubes and put them in a freezer bag for future use.  Sometimes I only need a half a cup and it's easy just to grab out a few cubes.  Each ice cube is approximately 2 tablespoons, so 8 cubes makes a cup. 

 

Our family has really enjoyed the flavor of homemade chicken stock.  It is much richer than the broth that I used to buy.  I love that I know exactly what goes into it. It is wonderful to make something delicious out of bits of chicken I would have at one time dismissed and discarded!

An Unexpected Bounty

The heat and lack of rain this summer had wreaked havok on our garden.  We were fortunate to receive 5 inches of rain from Hurricaine Isaac and fairly consistent rain since.  Our lawn was the first to respond by turning greener and lusher than it had been all year.  It was too late for most of the garden.  Before the rain, I was just hoping that my herbs would live to make it through another winter and be more productive next year.  I had given up on having any extra to dry and use over the winter.

To my delight, the herbs responded as well as the grass did to all the rain.  Last month, we harvested all of the basil.  We had more than enough to dry, plus I was able to make 5 meals worth of pesto to freeze.  The dill and parsley died early on in the summer, but the thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano and chives started to thrive.  Last week I was able to harvest herbs to dry for winter.

Clockwise from the top-left: chives, thyme, oregano, rosemary and sage.

To dry chives, I snip them finely with a pair of scissors and spread them out on a paper towel or paper plate to dry.  They are usually ready to put in a jar in about 3-5 days.

The rest of the herbs are hung by clothespins on cotton string along the soffit in our kitchen.  It can take up to a month or more for them to dry completely.  Once they are "crunchy" dry, I will take them down, remove the leaves, discard the stems and store them in sealed containers.  Herbs can be dried in a food dehydrator much more quickly than hanging, but I think they make nice decoration and make the kitchen smell "herby."

I love being able to open a jar of herbs from the garden in the middle of January.  The herbs have more flavor and fragrance than factory processed herbs.  It is also a cost savings over buying herbs, especially with the plants that are perennial.