I love writing about food. Everything in my life should be appended by a footnote reading, “oh, and by the way, here is a recipe.” What can I say? I find it energizing, in a restful kind of way. Or maybe vice versa.
This might account for the . . . shall I say, bipolar attitude of this blog. Half the time I write about spirituality, self-care, parenting — deep stuff. The other half is recipes. Not as deep, but twice as delicious.
Currently, I am drawn to the topic of making kitchen staples from scratch. Since our move to the Santa Cruz area — capitol of DIY everything and the local, organic, sustainable food culture — I have gotten more serious about making food from scratch that I used to buy at the grocery store. There are a lot of reasons for this, but mainly it’s because it is fun. I enjoy the cheap thrill I get when I make something awesome that I used to pay a mega-corporation to make for me.
So get ready for a series of “DIY kitchen staples” blog posts. I’m talking stuff like homemade soup stock, yogurt, bread, peanut butter, and granola. Easy, delicious, and cheap.
Homemade chicken stock is very forgiving of mistakes. If you don’t have one or another of the following ingredients, it’s no big deal. It will still taste better than anything you buy at the store. Here’s how I do it:
- Whenever I buy chicken for dinner, such as a rotisserie chicken, I save the bones in the freezer. When I have a few carcasses, I throw them in a big stock pot. (It really does help here to have a stock pot. However, if you don’t have one, you can make a smaller amount of stock using just one chicken carcass and fewer vegetables.)
- Gather together the following:
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 1-2 onions
- 2 carrots
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 green bell pepper
- some fresh herbs: parsley, thyme and sage are all wonderful. Rosemary might be a bit strong unless the soup you are going to make from the stock has rosemary as a component.
- A few bay leaves, either fresh or dried.
- My “secret ingredient” is about 8-10 whole cloves. They add a wonderful spicy something to the whole mix.
If you don’t have one or another of these ingredients, don’t sweat it. Look carefully and you’ll see in the picture above that there are no garlic cloves. I forgot them! A cardinal sin, I know, but the stock that resulted is delicious nonetheless.
- Peel the onions and carrots, seed the pepper, and chop everything into big chunks. You can peel the garlic cloves and throw them in whole.
- Put everything in the stock pot and fill it with water so that most everything is covered. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat so it comes to a gentle simmer. Let it simmer for anywhere from one to three hours.
- Put a strainer inside a big bowl and empty the stock into the strainer. After the stock has drained, throw away the chicken and veggies. Refrigerate the stock overnight, then in the morning, skim off the fat that has risen to the top.
- That’s it — your chicken stock is now ready to go. You can use it in a soup such as my Pumpkin-Lentil soup, or you can freeze it. Then, on some cold winter day, you’ll pull it out and make a soup that warms the cockles of your family’s heart.
is the recipe for pumpkin-lentil around, even your soup hating friends would like that recipe!r
Yes, I linked the recipe in the post. Just click on Pumpkin Lentil soup there at the end of this post.
Yum! We actually buy those Rotisserie chickens from Costco, just to make soup/stock with the carcass…will look forward to checking out the Pumpkin Lentil…two of my favorite things.
yum! we throw in the onion skins, too–for color and a little bit of extra flavor.