Making Stock of Things

I'm going to blog a little differently today, as I am looking outside at 4-5 fresh fallen inches of snow, and more coming down on that. In addition to the 'you ARE staying home today' message this sends, I have had a very busy week in which I did not cook. Well, yes, there was cooking. But nothing I'd show off.

So I will begin with the creation of stock, as today's Eat This While you Read That post is slow food.

Very slow food. The sort that cooks all day, but really doesn't need much help from me while it is happening. I'm making Chicken and Dumplings from Amanda S Green's recipe, and it begins with making the chicken stock from scratch. If you've never made stock from scratch before, I highly recommend it. It's easy, so tasty, and worth the wait.

While you wait, you can start on reading a whole trilogy of fun urban fantasy books she wrote - and there are more coming.

Chicken Stock

Making it is fairly simple, and you can introduce many variations:

• 2 lbs chicken, bone-in. I'm using leg quarters today, because they were on super-cheap sale.

• 8 cups of water

• 1 tsp of salt

• ground pepper to taste

• bay leaf

• 1 large onion, chopped.

Place in pot together and allow to come to boil, reduce to simmer for at least one hour, but it will be better if you let it go longer. Today I plan to put it in the slow cooker and let it go for 3-4 hours. When you removed from heat, remove chicken with slotted spoon or a spider and allow the chicken to cool before removing the bones. You'll be doing this with your fingers - messy fun! - so you want it down to room temperature or close. Allow the stock to cool as well so you can remove most of the fat from the surface.

While the stock is cooking, relax with a book, and I'll be back later with the rest of the recipe!