Chicken Stock 101

I wanted to do a post devoted solely to chicken broth bc I feel like I've made a cooking breakthrough and I wanted to share it with you.  I know it sounds silly, but I always thought it was too hard to make stock.  It's like the cookie dough thing, now that I realize how easy it is, I may never buy canned chicken broth again!  I made my broth on Tuesday night after dinner while we were watching our Rangers beat the Tigers.  Anywho...  

For this stock I used:

• 1 whole fryer chicken (about 5 lbs)  - giblets removed
• 2 celery stalks (cut in three pieces each)
• 2 carrots (cut in three pieces each)
• 1 onion (chopped in large pieces)
• water

I just threw everything in the stock pot, covered it with water, brought it to a boil over medium/high heat, covered it and turned it to low, and let it simmer for about an hour.  Easy!

I tend to think that it's done when the chicken is floating.  Gross, yes, but that's how I roll.

Then took the chicken out and let it sit (and the broth, too) for 30 minutes.  

Then I strained the broth and put it into two containers, covered with foil, into the refrigerator.

The next day my first batch looked like this - gross, again, don't you think??  Yes!

But here's where you get to skim the fat off and throw it away - something I found surprisingly satisfying.  I'm a cooking nerd, what can I say?

After skimming the fat, I started to divide my stock into containers for freezing.

I got this great idea from my friend, Ashley :) I poured the chicken broth into ice cube trays to freeze and use as needed.  Each tray holds about 2 cups of broth, so it's perfect for many recipes that call for just that.  Also, if I'm making a side dish, I can just pop in a couple cubes of broth for added flavor.  I love this idea!

This is the reserve broth ready for freezing.  I kept about 2 and a half quarts out for a recipe and this was what I was going to freeze.  I figured that all in all, I made about 20 cups of chicken stock.

I covered each tray with wax paper, foil, labeled it, and into the freezer it went.  This kitchen staple will be a regular at our house starting now!

Awesomely Yummy King Ranch Chicken

Let me explain this recipe.  This recipe turned into quite a journey for me.  I made King Ranch Chicken a few years ago and my husband & I were not liking the recipe.  The flavor was all off.  Bland.  Boring.  If you were ever lucky enough to have King Ranch Chicken from Celebrity Bakery, back when they were still around, I wanted it to taste like that.  A little kick, just enough, but not too much.

So I took a few years off, then found this recipe in my Southern Living Best Fall Recipes, so I thought it was time to try it again.  Now, this time the recipe had me making my own chicken broth, using a whole chicken, things I wasn't used to and thought I was crazy for attempting!!  I was cursing this recipe from the beginning, thinking "why did I think this was a good idea??!?"

Well, I'll tell you why!!  BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME!!  After I tasted the final product I thought, "Totally worth it"!  The boiling the whole chicken, making my own stock, shredding my own chicken. Totally, awesomely, worth it.  This stuff is good, friends!!  Like me, you'll thank yourself when you're done!!

For this recipe you'll need:

• 1 tbsp butter
•  1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium sized green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, pressed (I smashed and chopped mine - and used 3 cloves :)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 2 (10 oz) cans diced tomatoes and green chiles, drained
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp ground cumin (I didn't have any cumin on hand, i.e. I forgot it the two times I went to Target this week, but it was just fine without it)
• 1 tsp chili powder (original recipe called for Mexican style chili powder, but I used regular)
• 3 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese
• 12 (6 inch) fajita size corn tortillas, cut into 1/2 inch strips

You'll also need:

• (4 1/2 to 5 lb) whole chicken
•  2 celery ribs, cut into 3 pieces each
• 2 carrots, cut into 3 pieces each

Okay, this is the part that threw me for a loop.  I was not prepared for dealing with the "whole chicken".  But, I put my big girl pants on and did what I had to do.  "Remove giblets" apparently means sticking your hand in a freezing cold chicken carcass and taking out whatever you can pull out.  Yuck.  I did that.  But I didn't like it.  

I rinsed my sad little bird and put it in a stock pot (original recipe called for a Dutch Oven, but again, don't have a Dutch Oven so stock pot it was).  After bird was in the pot, I covered it with water and added my carrots and celery, brought to a boil over medium high heat; covered, and reduced heat to low.  Simmer for 50 minutes to an hour or until chicken is done.  It took me longer than an hour for mine to cook, just keep checking until it's done.  I didn't take an after picture bc I honestly thought it wasn't going to be edible.  That's the zero confidence I had in my chicken stock/chicken experiment.

But I continued to follow the directions, let it cool for 30 minutes, removed the chicken from broth, reserve 3/4 cup cooking liquid (I ended up using about 1 cup instead).  Strain any remaining liquid; reserve for another use - does anyone have any good ideas about how to store chicken broth?  Because this made a ton.  More on that later...

Okay, so I wasn't feeling super confident about my broth/chicken, but I decided to soldier on...

Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat.  Add onion, saute 6-7 minutes or until tender.  Add bell pepper and garlic, and saute 3-4 minutes.  Stir in reserved broth, soups, rotel, and spices.  Cook and stir for 8 more minutes.

Then it will look like this.  I have to admit, it was starting to smell good and I was starting to have a little bit of hope for this recipe.  Not a lot of hope, but some, nonetheless.  So I began shredding the chicken.  Whole chicken yield A. LOT. of chicken!  This was another teaching moment for me.  I bought the whole fryer chicken for 4 dollars this week.  That's a ton of chicken for 4 dollars!  Totally cheaper than buying chicken breasts or tenders or whatever!   If I can just get past the whole "this whole raw chicken grosses me out" thing, I'll be good.

Layer half of the chicken in a 13x9 baking dish - I greased mine with olive oil.

Then top chicken with half the soup mixture and a cup of cheese

Then top with half of the tortilla strips.  Repeat the layers once more, topping with one more cup of cheese.  Cover and put in 350 oven for 50 minutes... 

then uncover and bake for 10-15 minutes more.  It was smelling GOOD at this point!!  I was hoping it was as good as it smelled!!

It came out looking bubbly and yummy!  Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

For a side, I got out a can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained them, and put them in a pan.  Then, since I had a BOATLOAD of chicken broth in the fridge, I poured some chicken stock in with the pinto beans, added some season salt, pepper, and sea salt, and presto!  Yummy side!

Totally worth every minute!!  Next time I will make this on the weekend, but be assured, I will make this again!!

Harvest Beef Stew

I love fall so I was super excited to try this new recipe that just sounds like fall!  A rich, hearty beef stew from the same place I got the yummy baked penne .  Also, I was excited to cook with butternut squash for the first time!  But you'll see how that turned out later - ha.  This recipe was good, but could've been better with a few modifications for our family.  More on that later!  But it was perfect for a welcome to fall & perfect with ...cream biscuits!!  It was also very good with potatoes that I'll post about later - you don't want to miss those!!

The original recipe called for lamb, but this was another option they suggested.  Since beef is easier for this mama to stomach than lamb, we went with the beef version.  My husband said he felt like he was eating dinner in England.  That has to be a good thing, right??

For this stew, you'll need:

• 2 1/2 lb beef stew meat
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 6 oz. can tomato paste
• 1 14.5 oz can beef broth
• 1 cup chopped celery (about 2 stalks)
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, chopped

Rinse meat, pat dry.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, toss in flour, shake off excess.

Cook half of meat in 2 tbsp hot oil in Dutch Oven until browned.  I don't have a Dutch Oven and thought I'd just use my big pan.  If you have a Dutch Oven, use it!  The yummy brown bits on the bottom would've worked better if I'd had a Dutch Oven :)

Repeat with remaining meat.  Here's what my set up ended up looking like.

I returned all meat to pot, then added tomato paste.  Cook 1 minute.  Add beef broth, stir to loosen particles from bottom of pan (this is where having a Dutch Oven would've come in handy)

Transfer mixture to a 6 qt crockpot.  This is where things were getting crazy in my kitchen.  I know crockpots are supposed to make our life easier, but I'm not sure I'm on board that bandwagon!!  It's just hard for me to get it together early enough to have it cook for X amount of hours.  It's easier for me to just cook dinner right before we eat it.  At this point, I'm throwing stuff in the crockpot at a fever pace, children are screaming, and I'm thinking, "This better be worth it!!"  Sorry, I digress...

Stir in celery, onion, and garlic.

Then came the squash (that's right, it wasn't over yet!!  I think I have issues with this recipe...).  I cut it open and seeded it with a spoon.  This process was easier than peeling the squash.  I wasn't quite sure what the best course of action was to peel it, so I just used the same knife that I chopped it up with.

Butternut Squash went right on top (don't stir in).

Cover and cook on LOW 4 1/2 hours or until meat is tender.

Sidenote:  it was at this point I noticed my hands were burning.  From the squash.  I'm allergic to cantaloupe and this squash had a very similar smell to cantaloupe.  So that was first red flag.  Then once I chopped it up my hands started burning.  Second red flag.  Then I tried some of the stew, had a giant allergy attack.  Had to get out the Benadryl.  Good times.  Next time I plan to use potatoes instead of squash.  But that's just me.  Anywho...

It did look super yummy and fall appropriate - especially with the cream biscuits!  If only I hadn't had the allergy attack it would've been perfect ;)