Yesterday was the official first day of autumn, and the weather is finally (and quite suddenly) colder and wetter. I have a few days off of work, and one of the things on my to-do list is to go through the deep freezer and move some of the older produce and meats out.
At the very bottom of the bag containing all the frozen meat, I had 3 packets of Costco Chicken Thighs from last spring, and a few other bags of frozen chicken that looked a little freezer burned. I also had 3 bags of assorted veggie scraps for stocks (like 1.5 gallons of celery leaves, and older garden carrots).
So I made a huge pot full of chicken stock and let it simmer with some fresh herbs for a few hours. I pulled out the chicken and put it in the refrigerator, strained the stock, and put it in containers to cooling the fridge overnight. In all, I need up with 4 half-gallon jars and a quart of golden and nutritious stock.
This morning, I got all the canning gear out, harvested an entire stock of celery from my front garden, and peeled my haul of carrots from the garden.
I used about half the stock from last night, added in some other veggies we had around (onions, some freeze dried green and red bell peppers and a few peeled baby potatoes from the CSA), and a ton of diced chicken, and then seasoned it with salt, pepper, and some of the better than bouillon seasoning. Let it boil for 30 minutes, and then canned it up per Ball's recipe.
I ended up with 13 pints (now coming to pressure in the All American, where it will go for 75 minutes at 10 lbs. for my altitude). And we finished up the remaining quart, with some ramen noodles added, for a good rainy day lunch.
Thanks for stopping by!
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