I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately, cooking traditional foods that our ancestors and grandparents cooked, in fats that our grandparents and ancestors cooked with. (Not the same fat, lol).
Well, it has finally turned out to be a good decision for me. I didn't think the chicken stock would ever turn out right. I have made so much of it that didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to. Everything turned around when I started cooking it in a stockpot instead of the crock pot. The crock pot is my favorite way to cook most things. The stock eventually makes its way to the crockpot after it has been strained through a strainer and put in my storage container in the fridge.
One of the things I found out, the first time I cooked the stock in the stock pot was that it gets a lot of the nutrients out of the chicken bones and organ meats that, when refrigerated, turns to gel.
I was good and ready to throw away my container of chicken stock I made when I looked in the refrigerator and found it full of gelatin and no liquid. Where did the stock go? I thought I had done something wrong with it, like not put enough filtered water into the pot with the chicken.
I googled it and found out the gelatin I was looking at was the most important part of the stock. I was so glad I googled that right before I threw it all away. Cooking is a learning process. I am so motivated because I have been doing a lot of reading and following the improvement of my daughter and my own self as well, using the traditional foods and getting away from the processed foods.
Well here is my wonderful discovery. Besides being a wonderful drink that improves digestion, stock can be used for all these following things, for each meal each day:
It seems that potatoes are such a favorite in our house but they are not good to consume for our individual dietary needs so much. They tend to be fished out with a slotted spoon and they do not stay in the crockpot long enough for the flavor to combine with the diced carrots and squash.
Stock combines the tastes of the vegetables so well and these are so much better and delicious than canned carrots and potatoes you can pick up at the store. I do use sea salt in the stock but not a lot.
I dilute the stock I give the cats with some filtered water. They drink a lot more than they ever did before and cats are known to be not the best at getting the water they need.
This cooks for a day and a half or more and soon the bones are soft. That means that the goodness is out of them and into the liquid. I tear the bones apart and spoon out any marrow I can into the liquid in the crock pot. I save this and pour it over chicken scraps for the cats outdoors. They love it. I don't leave it out on hot days but there is nothing left anyway. I have become very popular now that I am dealing with cooked chicken all the time. The cats have it made. The vet said they could have a reasonable amount of boiled chicken. Of course, the dogs get scraps too..
However, even though I cooked a whole container of chicken livers in a pot of stock and only the animals enjoyed them, I feel they still have a lot to offer. Perhaps they would be better fried in butter, but they look so gross if my family sees them they will never touch them.
I am so proud of the chicken stock and how it has worked in so many wonderful ways. One of them helping me to get off so many cups of coffee a day. I am not really limiting myself, it is just that with each meal, I have 1 cup of Minute Maid orange juice, one cup of almond milk, one cup of filtered water and one cup of stock before I even eat the meal. That leaves very little room for coffee, as much as I love to drink it.
Well I hope I have shared some things that are helpful to someone else who might be interested in cooking their own homeade stock. It has been a really wonderful experience for us. I used to buy the ones at the store but we went through them way, way too fast.
This page contains the following solutions.
This is a relatively inexpensive recipe. It's also very easy. I usually make this up on a day off work and freeze for later.
When I fix chicken breasts and I do fix them often, I cut the meat off to use in boneless recipes. I leave a small amount of meat on the bones and freeze 6 or so of the boned out breasts in a freezer bag.
When de-boning and skinning chicken breasts, put an extra pot on the stove with the scraps (including bones, skin, fat scraps, etc.), adding water to cover, some onion, a carrot and celery tops plus a whole peppercorn or two.
Make your own chicken stock instead of buying it. A great use for leftover chicken bones and skin.
Once you have eaten most of a rotisserie chicken, its time to make chicken broth. you can remove most of the leftover meat. Then either roast the bones first or just add the bones to a pot of water and make a broth.
Chicken stock is not hard to make and it creates a perfect base for endless soup variations. This is a page contains an easy homemade chicken stock recipe.
