Chicken Broth

One of my favorite things to make from scratch is chicken broth. It makes me feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Honeybear likes to make fun of me for being a "Doomsday Prepper" but he's really very thankful that we have 37 quarts of homemade chicken broth because you just never know when the store...might...run....out.....??? What? That's probably not likely but it's better for us because I know exactly what I put into it. And I'm very comforted by that. :) The Doomsday Prepper nickname may or may not be in reference to how many pounds of dried goods we have in the garage or how we could probably survive for several months on the food in the garage/freezer/pantry combined. And he doesn't even know that my mom is bringing 10 more pounds of dried stuff over this weekend. Woohoo!!! Oh, I got side tracked. Sorry. Broth. Here we go...there's no real recipe which might scare you if you are new to cooking, but don't let it. It's just going to taste different depending on what you put in it. I save chicken bones from every rotisserie chicken I buy. (And why buy 1 rotisserie chicken when you can buy 2 for twice the price! I pull all the meat off and throw it in a separate freezer bag for a quick meal when I need it. It is SO handy) I throw the skin and wing tips and all the bones and extra fat into a freezer bag and freeze it until I have several bags of carcasses (what a NASTY word) to work with. I throw the bones into the biggest pot that I have and cover it with water. Now for the fun part...clean out your fridge! That celery that's not so crunchy...give it a rough chop and throw it in! Bendy carrots? Throw those in! (Don't use anything rotten or moldy...just limp) I usually put celery, carrots, onion, garlic, & peppercorns into the water and bring it to a boil. Once it boils, lower it to a simmer for a couple of hours. Depending on how much meat was left on the bones - you may be able to strain off the broth and refill the pot again. I like a nice rich broth so I don't usually do this. Strain your broth through a fine mesh strainer so that you're left with just the broth. I just made broth this last weekend and had enough carcasses (yuck!) to make 23 quarts of broth. That made me happy. I used to pour the broth in ziplock tupperware containers and freeze them. But then Honeybear's mom bought me a Pressure Cooker and I've been on cloud 9 ever since. It's soooo great! If you are serious about canning or making broth and things like that I think it's a good investment. Easy for me to say since I didn't have to actually make the investment. You can get a large one for about $80. Mine fits 7 quart sized jars at one time. It takes a LONG time from start to finish but I don't do it until I have lots so that it's worthwhile and I just work it in between laundry & cleaning the house on a weekend day. If you just want to try a small batch first put it in a few tupperware containers with lids and freeze them. You can defrost them or just throw the frozen block into soup as you need it. If you do buy a canner - read the instructions carefully and follow them closely.

Here's my broth bubbling on the stove in 2 big pots:

And here's my 21 jars of finished broth! I used 2 jars immediately in some soup I made.

Happy Canning!!!