Chicken Stock Made Easy

Yes... I'm cheap. Today I had a master plan. I'm making another batch of Tomato and Black Bean Soup for lunches and knew I was going to need to purchase some chicken stock. No way... I'm going to save $2.98 and do it the old fashioned way, getting another meal or two out of the deal in the process. I cooked and carved a Rich's Famous Roaster (see previous recipe), found a better recipe for stock here, and got to work. Thanks to the Unemployed Chef and his blog for this simple recipe.

I am completely sold on making my own broth. I can make it taste however I wish and one batch of broth will save me about $10 in the long run. No sense in throwing out all those chicken bones and skin if you can put them to good use, eh?

Looks like something went wrong in the picture but it didn't. It only went right.

Recipe (mostly copied from the Unemployed Chef):

Ingredients:

• 1 roasted chicken carcass with the skin
• 8 cups of water
• 1 chopped large carrot
• 3 celery stalks chopped into thirds
• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 rosemary stalk, whole
• sea salt
• whole peppercorns
• two handfuls of Italian parsley
• a handful of green onions, cut into thirds

Bring everything to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 3.5 hours. Strain and enjoy. You can keep it in the fridge for about 5 days or freeze it for a few months.

Oh hey... I opened the fridge this morning and discovered that the stock had turned to jelly. I thought for sure I had just invented the world's worst Jell-O flavor imaginable. Turns out that this is supposed to happen. Where as chemical laden store bought stock stays liquid in the carton, you can watch the real stuff jiggle.