Tuesday Already!? Here's Some Stock.

I've been struggling to come up with something to write about.  I'm so excited about our impending trip that I can't really think about much else.

But I did eventually think of something.

On Sunday we went grocery shopping like we always do.  Chicken breasts were on sale, but you had to buy them with all the skin and backs attached - those nicely prepared boneless, skinless chicken breasts were twice the price.  So being thrifty (read: cheap) we bought the boneful, skinful ones.

I'd like to take this moment to say that I'm the world's worst butcher.  Or maybe I'm the best?  Because I totally butchered those chicken breasts trying to get the backs off!  But in the end, I succeeded and ended up with a pile of bones that looks like this:

Ew.  So now what?  There's still meat on there and stuff so I shouldn't waste it.  Then I'm thinking about how I'm trying to cut back on sodium and how I was going to make minestrone on Wednesday and even though that store-brand chicken stock has 20% less sodium than they normally put in it, it's still quite a bit of salt.

So I'm gonna make stock.

Step one is really just get some bones.  Easy enough, I should think.

Step two is to cut up some onions.  Oh and here's a tip:  Cut your onions on a cutting board over the stove top (make sure the elements are off!) and turn the exhaust hood on.  This cuts down on the crying part quite a bit.

Now you're gonna heat up a great big pot.  I used to always heat my pots on high because I thought that would make things go faster.  I just ended up with burnt food every time.  So now I turn it down a bit.

Waiting for pots to heat up is boring.  So you can take this time to eat some fruit salad.

Great!  Now we can add the onions.

Oh yeah, there's canola oil in there, too.  Now we wait for the onions to get soft.  Probably 3-5 minutes depending on whether you have the heat cranked or not.

Now's a good time for some more fruit salad.

Ok!  Now the onions are nice and soft so we're gonna transfer them to a bowl and put the chicken backs in the pot to brown.

 Ew they're so gross!

Once they're brown, add the onions back in.  Now this is gonna cook for 20 minutes so that the juices from the chicken can seep out.

While the chicken is seeping, boil some water.  It helps if your kettle is cute and red.

Okay, so once the chicken is done seeping, add the water to the onions and chicken backs and throw in a couple bay leaves.  Then simmer on low for another 20 minutes.

Eat some fruit salad.

Then just drain out all the large bits by dumping everything through a colander or whatever.

Ok and that's it.  I don't have a picture of the final product because my boyfriend was home by then and I was distracted by telling him about my awesome day and how I made my own chicken stock.  I'll post a picture when I make the minestrone.  How's that?

So yeah, if you have to hack up a chicken breast anyway, making stock really isn't so hard.  You might want to add a little salt to yours - I didn't add any (as per above) but I think it would really bring the flavors out.

I based my instructions on the recipes from this site.  I used method 2:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_chicken_stock/