Recipe: Homemade Bouillon Cubes

I hesitate to call this a recipe, but I thought some of you might be interested in what I do.

After Christmas dinner, I took as much meat as I could off the great big turkey, and then I broke it up so that it fit in my crockpot and my big pot. The cooked gizzards, and the neck, and the bits of chicken skin, all of it went in. I also threw in the vegetable leftovers that I didn’t think would get eaten. I had to put a heavy container on top of my crockpot lid in order to keep it down, but it worked. Of course, if you have your own usual recipe for making turkey stock, do that.

I let the stuff in the pot cook for the rest of the day, and then I put in the fridge. The bones were sticking up out of the fairly weak broth. The crockpot stayed cooking on low Thursday night, all day Friday, and Friday night, although I did have to top it up with water a couple of times. When I finally decided that it had been thoroughly cooked to death, I strained the bones and guck out of the broth, and added that broth to the big pot. Now, I hope you know that I made sure that there was enough room in the pot. If there hadn’t been, I would have just cooked the broth in the pot a bit longer. So now I have the crockpotted broth poured into the pot where bones are still cooking. A big canning pot would make all of this so much easier, because I’d be able to put the turkey in one pot. I think I’ll add that to my “Please Santa?” list for 2009.

Are you getting the idea that I’m going for a super strong broth here? There are bits of meat in it, because I’m not really that careful with my straining. I just want to make sure that I get all of the bones and inedible bits out. I let the pot simmer all day Saturday, then I strained it and put it in the fridge. Sunday morning, I scooped off the chicken fat (which is now in a dish in the freezer) and let the broth simmer some more. This was easy to do, because the broth was a very thick jelly. As I cooked it today, it began to turn a dark brown and the house continues to smell like turkey!

From a crockpot plus a big pot, both full of turkey carcass and veggie leftovers, I now have about three cups of incredibly strong broth. In fact, it looks more like gravy than it does broth, and I’m still letting it simmer. The smell is mouthwatering! When it looks like about two cups of broth, I’m going to pour it into my Pyrex 9×13″ baking dish and then let it chill in the fridge. It will turn into a firm broth jelly that I’ll be able to cut into squares, wrap up in plastic wrap, and store in the freezer. I have no idea about how many cubes to add to how much water, because I don’t cook like that.

This may seem like a lot of work, but the hardest part is really straining the broth and tossing out the wet bones. (I let them set, in the strainer, in the sink, until they’re cool and dry) The broth just cooks on its own. The best part about this is that, like Stone Soup, it uses up things that aren’t going to be eaten.

Recipe: Stone Soup

What do you do when you have a bunch of assorted leftovers in the fridge or freezer? Why, you make Stone Soup! It’s different every time you make it.

First, a bit of definition. Stone Soup is, essentially, soup from nothing. If you want to make your children’s eyes pop open, tell them you’re making stone soup and include a (very well washed) stone in the water when you’re boiling up the broth and say “Oh, maybe we can toss in this so it’s not wasted.”

There are several versions of the story. In all of them, some weary and hungry travelers (their identity changes with the decades) come to a village looking for food. When refused and told that the villagers don’t even have enough for themselves, they ask for nothing more than a pot of water as they’ll be preparing their delicious Stone Soup. Each of the villagers come to them, one at a time, wondering what is being made. The travelers say, “Oh, it’s Stone Soup and it will be delicious. *Sigh* But it would be truly amazing if it only had a little bit of …” Half a cabbage, a potato, a shank bone, a handful of barley … the villagers gradually add food from their hoards until the travelers have a large pot full of delicious and filling soup. Of course, by themselves, each hoarded ingredient would have made a miserable meal. Stone Soup, indeed.

Here’s how I’ve been making it for years. In this case, the “something from nothing” comes from the fact that you’re creating a nutritious soup from bits of food that you would normally be throwing away. (It sounds so much better than Garbage Soup, unless you’re feeding 10 year old boys. In that case, call it Garbage Soup.)

Save all of your raw veggie scraps in a freezer bag in the freezer – tomato ends, carrot tops and peelings, outside leaves of lettuce, leftover salad, etc. Don’t add anything rotten or dirty (wash your carrots and lettuce before cutting them up), but droopy and wilted is perfectly fine. Also toss in any bones that you have. It won’t look pretty, and it doesn’t have to.

A note for the very-frugal-and-not-squeamish: Bones off the plate are perfectly fine, unless the person is sick or not a member of the family. I’ll bet your grandmother, during the Depression of the 1930s, never threw out a bone or scrap until every bit of flavor and nutrition had been boiled out of it. (And then she likely toss the boiled-to-death bones to the dog) I’ve been known to ask the produce manager for discards – to feed my hamster, you know. If you’re more squeamish, just pretend I never said that.

In another bag, save leftovers – the pork chop no one wanted, the carrots left in the pot, the bit of rice that didn’t quite make a serving. Chop or tear everything into bite sized pieces, and put the bones into the other bag.

When the bags are full, toss the bag of raw stuff into a big pot and add water. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer until all of the vegetables are cooked and all of the good stuff is in the water. Now strain it. See why I said that it doesn’t have to look pretty, and why bones from the table were just fine? It gets boiled, so all the cooties are gone. Now add the bag of cooked leftovers. If it’s too thin, add a handful of rice or noodles or potato. Season it to taste. I can’t tell you how to season it, because that depends on what you put into the soup.

We eat Stone Soup a lot at our house.

Recipe: Pancake Mix

Pancake Mix
2 cup whole wheat flour
2 cup white flour
1/2 cup cornmeal or oats
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoon baking powder
2 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Mix well in a large bowl. Divide into 3 bags – should be about 1 3/4 cup in each bag.

To make pancakes:
1 bag of mix
3 beaten eggs
2 Tablespoon melted butter

Do you know how to make pancakes? Hot pan – hot enough that drops of water bounce when they’re sprinkled on the pan. Use a good quality non-stick pan and save yourself a lot of grief. 1/4 cup of batter makes a good sized pancake. When the bubbles have stopped popping, flip the pancake. It should only take a few seconds more to cook. As the pan heats up, you’ll probably have to turn your heat down a little.

If you didn’t learn to make pancakes in Home Economics, expect a few burnt pancakes and a few badly-undercooked pancakes. I’ve been doing this long enough that I often walk away from the computer while they’re cooking, something I don’t recommend. If you wreck a pancake, toss it, wipe any black out of the pan, and start a new one.

I always claim the last pancakes as mine.