Chicken Stock

This is not a very exciting post but if just one person is enlightened to make this, it is worth it.  As I've mentioned before, I roast a couple free range organic chickens each week for Teddy.  They cost quite a bit more than ordinary store bought ones so I use every bit of them.  Teddy can only have the white meat so I freeze the dark meat and use it in all sorts of recipes.  I save the carcass, skin, giblets and all of the juice to make from the roasted chickens to make this stock.

 During the week, as I cook, I bag all of the castoffs from onions, garlic, celery, carrots, etc..  I save the onion and garlic skins as well.  I used the tough ends of my garlic skapes in this pot.

 The ball of jell on the left is the leftover juices from the chickens. Everything goes into the pot along with bay leaves, fresh sage, rosemary, parsley and thyme and peppercorns. I also save all of the stems from any of the herbs I've used throughout the week and they go in too.

 I fill the pot with water to cover everything, bring it to a boil and then simmer it for hours.  Usually around 4 hours. You can see that the carcass is falling apart.

Then I strain it through a fine mesh strainer and refrigerate it until it jells.  At this time, the fat can be scraped off the top and discarded or you can use it to make matzo balls if so inclined.  Often, I put it in ziplock freezer bags and toss it in the freezer for later use.  I use this in everything.  Rice is especially good prepared with this rather than water.  It gives you a rich, flavorful stock filled with nutrients.  So, so much better than the nasty weak store bought stuff and so much cheaper too.  You can see I got almost 4 quarts of this highly concentrated stock using castaways. So, by using 2 organic chickens which cost around 22.00, I got meals for Teddy for at least a week, lots of dark meat chicken for several of our meals and 4 quarts of stock.  A pretty good deal!