Tasty...Wednesday?

Ok, ok, I have been really bad at blogging lately, stop yelling at me.  I'm trying!  It's a slow process getting back in the groove.

So even though it's a day late, I wanted to post this anyway instead of waiting a whole 'nother week.  Capish? 

Alright. 

Well, I've been wanting to make my own chicken broth for quite some time now.  I heard it was cheaper, but for some reason, I was scared to try.  Why do new things in the kitchen always intimidate me?  Recently, I was given a ton of chicken from a friend who was moving and needed to empty out her freezer.  Since they were all frozen in one big bag, I didn't know how to defrost just one for a meal without having to defrost them all to pull them apart.  Therefore, I had wayyy too much defrosted chicken in my fridge.

I decided it was finally time to try making my own chicken stock.  So after Googling some basic recipes, I took a swing at it...and definitely hit a homerun.  So easy.

You can totally do it.  I ended up making 3 batches of the recipe below.  There was a lot going on in this tiny kitchen of mine, let me tell you.  And now my tiny little freezer has lots and lots of chicken broth to last us awhile.  I feel so domestic!

 
Next time I want to try making a fancier one.  I hear turnips are a fun veggie to use...

Easy, Basic Chicken Broth

Makes:  Approx. 6-8 cups

Prep Time:  10 minutes

Cook Time:  2 hours

Ingredients:

3 pounds uncooked chicken with the bone in
2 celery stalks, cut into chunks 
2 carrots, cut into chunks 
2 medium onions, quartered 
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed 
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 
6 cups cold water
  
Place all of the ingredients in a stock pot or Dutch oven.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Skim off the foam.  Cover and simmer for 2 hours.  When done, set the chicken aside and save for other purposes (I used some for Chicken Noodle Soup the next day, and shredded and froze the rest!).  Next, strain the broth (you can either discard the veggies, or you can try and re-purpose them.  I'm not sure how this turns out as I haven't tried it yet). Refrigerate for at least 8 hours.  Over this period of time, the fat should solidify at the top, then skim the fat from the surface and discard.

I saved mine in mason jars by the cup.  I figured that would be the best since I usually only use one or two cups at a time (unless it's for soup) and I had the room in my freezer. 

See?  No biggie.  You can do it, too!  (And just so you know, these last two pictures were from my phone and before I had chilled them and scraped the fat off...hense the thick layer on the top!  Don't worry, it was gone the next day. :))