End of Year Postcards
I have found myself very much sinking into home these past few months. More intentionally making schedules and school and chore charts; deep cleaning areas in our home that have never, since we built it, seen such treatment; and tucking into books and babies and deep nourishment as much as we can.
We have been culling some of the chicken flock and along with this harvest comes the most deeply golden chicken broth I have ever seen. I like to use this method for making it and it ends up beautifully gelled every single time. It makes for some deeply flavorful soups, stews, beans, and rice dishes.
We also opened our most recent batch of kraut. I don’t make a lot of ferments from July through September any more. It’s just too hot here, even in our root cellar, for a good batch to come out. So we wait until it cools down and start making kraut again and this batch, our first in far too long, was delicious.
I kind of wonder if my recent seed order and planning for the impending planting season is nudging me towards locking things down indoors. By mid-February the in-ground planting starts in earnest. As soon as those seeds get here, we’ll get the starts in the windows. So maybe it’s now or never before the chaos of spring starts and muddy shoes and garden mommy are at fever pitch.
Either way, we’ve got quite a few roosters and old hens left, so we’re going to enjoy this broth while we’ve got it… and the cozy indoors while we can.
Do you bake your chicken first, then take meat off and use bones for the broth?
Hi Angie,
Because these are roosters and older hens we are culling, I throw them into the pot – raw meat bones, and all. Then I simmer for at least 4-6 hours and see if the meat is tender. The legs are always the last to get tender so I check those. Once tender, I remove the meat from the bones and then put the bones back in and simmer an additional 8-12 hours.