Stock; Made From The Stuff You Would've Thrown Away.

     I have been making all kinds of homemade soups. Gumbo, chicken noodle, hamburger and dog vegetable stew, clam chowder, and three-pepper corn chowder. I seriously can't get enough of soups. They are easy, delicious and cheap, that is if you don't have to buy frivolous ingredients like stock.
   
   Wait, you mean you do buy chicken, vegetable or beef stock? Well I am going to excuse that just this once because you probably didn't know how to make it on your own and how easy it was to make. All stocks start out the same with only four ingredients. Water, bones,vegetable peels and salt. CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP, cheep.

      Here is what I do, I start by saving my vegetable peels in freezer bags, it usually takes about a quart of peels. I save carrot peels, the tops of bell peppers, onion peels anything other than lettuce gets thrown into a freezer bag and then made into stock.

     Then the next time you have chicken or another meat with bones, save those bones. If you don't think you have enough, just throw them in a freezer bag until you do. I usually like to get a rotisserie chicken from costco and have it for dinner one night, then I pull all of the meat off it and use the whole chicken with skin.

    The meat that I pull off the chicken will be used in soups later.

        So next you put everything in a stock pot with about 2 quarts of water and 2 tablespoons of salt depending on how many vegetables and bones you have.

       Look at all the goodies in there! Tomato vines, onion peels even the dried out skin. Bell peper seeds, celery leafs, carrot peels. Seriously good looking stuff.

       Next you let it come to a boil then cover it and turn it down to a simmer. Let it simmer for about an hour and then cool off. You strain it and store it in freezer safe containers, making sure to leave room at the top. I like to use pickle jars.

      This recipe yields 8 cups of stock.

• 2 quarts water
• 2 TBSP salt, more or less to taste
• 1 quart of freezer vegetable peels 
• 1 quart of bones from chicken or beef. Leave out if making vegetable stock. 

 Add all ingredients to stock pot. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Let simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. Let it cool then strain. Add any spices you might like at this point, like ground sage. Pour into freezer safe containers, making sure to leave room at the top. You can store it in your fridge for 3 days or freezer it.

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