Food. I love food. I love cooking food. I love creating things from scratch. I love making things that we buy at the store and canning it to put in my food storage. We started making salsa in 2010 when we lived in Meriden, KS. We continued that in Iowa and made 7 gallons of salsa in 2012. We have not bought salsa in over 6 years! If you are anything like us, that is a huge savings in salsa!! And yes, everything that we used to make the salsa came from our gardens. We only had to purchase the jars.
On top of creating food, I am constantly trying to find ways to save my family money. Another way I do that is by making broth or stock with scraps that we would normally throw away. I know, sounds gross, but it works!
Why am I telling you this? I am sharing this because you can do it too!! It's not hard!
I have had several people ask to me "How do you do it?" "When do you have time?". Being a stay-at-home mom with a 6 year old and twin 3 year olds, I get it! It can feel like you can't do anything. The best thing about making broth/stock is that you don't need a lot of time.
So let's think here. How much does a can of chicken stock cost? $1.27-ish? It's over a dollar, I know that. I can make it for free!!! Ok, plus the cost of the Ziplock bags or glass jars that you have purchased to store the broth/stock.
**Difference between broth and stock. Broth is made with just the bones. Stock is made with bones and veggies. Stock has a richer, deeper flavor.**
Let's walk through this, step by step.
1. Gather all your ingredients. I do this over a period of time. Every time we have chicken, I save the bones. I put them in a gallon bag and stick them in the freezer. I also save all of my veggie scraps. Onion tops & bottoms, carrot shavings and celery tops & bottom. I put them in a separate bag in the freezer.
2. There are 2 ways that you can make stock.
A. Put bones and veggie scraps in crock pot. Fill with water and cook on Low over night. This is my favorite way to make stock. I don't have to do anything until the next morning.
B. The next way is to cook it is in a big pot. I make stock like this on days when I will be around the house so I can keep an eye on my pot as it simmers.
Put bones and veggie scraps into a large pot. Yep, there it is. A pot with bones and veggie scraps.
Add water to pot. Just fill it up.
Cover and let simmer for 4-5 hours. Some recipes call for 30-45 minutes, but I like the long simmer time to draw out more flavor from the bones and veggies. Here they are! Simmering away!
After they have simmered for 4-5 hours, strain out the bones and veggies. I use cheese cloth in a colander and pour it into another pot.
Now that you are at this point, you have a couple of choices: to skim fat or not to skim fat AND to can or freeze in baggies. If you want to skim fat, let pot completely cool. Skim fat off the top. If you don't mind the fat, then don't skim it off. ;)
If you are a canner, and want to can the stock - get going! I am not going to cover that in this post. Here are my jars of Chicken Stock. They are cooling after I pulled them out of the pressure cooker. Beautiful!
If you are wanting to freeze the stock - Let pot completely cool. Write date and amount (cups) of stock on baggie. Fill with amount, lay flat and freeze! That's it! You are done!
Now the only thing to do is grab it out of the freezer when you need some stock for your delicious soups and meals! It is so good and healthier than store bought with all the sodium!
These methods will also work with a whole chicken that you made for Sunday Dinner.
I have also used these methods to make turkey broth. I just use the bones after we eat the Thanksgiving Turkey. I stick them straight into the crock pots (I use 2 crock pots due to so many turkey bones and scraps) and cook them over night. I have broth the next day! This past Thanksgiving, I got 30 pints of turkey broth! 30 PINTS!! I use it just like I use chicken broth. No one has noticed a difference...yet...(He he!!)
YOU CAN DO THIS!!!
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