good evening y'all!!! I guess it's better late than never, huh. it's been another cloudy, dreary, cold day here in my neck of the woods. we got out and run 3 or 4 errands this morning and it was good to get those done.
I made a run to Aldi and picked up a few things, one of them being a big pkg of chicken legs. I didn't do an official count, but I believe there was a dozen. so after getting everything put away, I got out one my of my electric pressure cookers and in went those legs. I stood them up in the epc, put a quarter of a cup of water in them and then sprinkled them heavily with Aldi brand poultry seasoning.
I guess this is my advertisement for Aldi. hahaha just a heads up on that poultry seasoning, it is without a doubt, the BEST I've ever used. with any other poultry seasoning I've ever used, it always had something weird, that made it taste weird, in it. this has nothing weird at all. just 5 or 6 simple herbs, that's it and it is fantastic!!! ok, I'm done with the advertisement now. hahahaha
I cooked those chicken legs for 2 hours. when the epc went off, I done a quick release and took my legs out. they had already released about 3 or 4 cups of liquid. I got all the meat off the bones and the skin off. then I picked all the bones out of that stuff and put the bones and any cartilage back in the pressure cooker. before I started it back up, I put more water in, up to the 8 cup mark and then I poured about 2 tablespoons of vinegar in. the vinegar helps to break down the cartilage and bones and pull the nurtients from the bones into the bone broth. I put the lid back on and reset it for 2 more hours. once that was done, I reset it for 2 more hours making a grand total of 6 hours under pressure and the bones could be pinched apart.
while the electric pressure cooker was coming back to heat for the first cooking of the just the bones, I got the meat prepped and in the freezer. I made 5 bags of meat and vacuum sealed them in a gallon sized vacuum seal bag. so that will be 5 future meals that we will be looking forward to.
once the bones had run the cycle 2 times for 4 hours, I done a quick release and picked the bones and any scrap meat from the bone broth. then I put all the broth in a big bowl for it cool off. I'll pop it in the fridge after while. in the morning I'll take the bone broth from the fridge and defat it. when I defat it, this bone broth should be as thick as jello if not thicker because of all the dissolved cartilage from the chicken bones and then from all the other nutrients leached from the bones.
so, if anyone needs to know how simple it is to make chicken bone broth, well, here ya go. it really is easy to do and so worth while!!!! had I not done this, the bones would have gotten thrown away and I don't like to throw anything that's useful away. I may drink some of it with a bit more poultry seasoning and a dash of salt in it for a mid morning break. that will be delicious and nourishing. I make a corn chowder of sorts and my bone broth will be wonderful in it. when I'm cooking great northern beans, I like to use chicken broth. so there's lots of ways to use it.
I hope if you've never tried making bone broth that you'll give it a try. you would do the same thing with beef bones, pork bones, turkey bones, venison bones or whatever bones you may have. cook them for a long time, at least 6 hours in a pressure cooker. if you don't have a pressure cooker, then cook them for at least a minimum of 24 hours in a crock pot or slow cooker. it really takes a long time to cook those bones, but you can shorten the cook time with a pressure cooker. if I had gotten started early this morning, they would have probably been at least 10 hours in the electric pressure cooker. but 6 hours is still great. so give it a try, you'll be happy you did.
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all the while I was working on my chicken bone broth, I was dreaming of my garden. I was dreaming of what I'm gonna start first. yesterday I found a sight, I think it's "almanac dot com", typed in the normal way, not the way I spelled it out. I added my zipcode to it and it brings up a printable, savable pdf of all the dates to start your seeds based on frost dates and the changing of the moon and then when you can direct sow. lots of great information. so I got that printed out. and while I was getting our yearly calendar to keep all our important dates and happenings in for the year, I picked up another one just to start a garden calendar.
so what I'm going to do, is just pick out all the produce I'm interested in growing and put the seed start date in my calendar and then when that date rolls around, I know to start my seeds. then when they grow and the season gets warmer, I'll know when to transplant them. it also gives a last date to plant for late summer planting of things that are frost tender. and it gives fall planting for the cool weather crops. I can see that this pdf and calendar will be a big benefit to me with starting to keep a good calendar and good notes on when and what to do. if you could benefit from something like that, be sure and check it out.
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I guess that's just about all she wrote tonight. I need to get a load of laundry going before it gets too late. I hope you all have a blessed night of healing rest and that you're refreshed for a great day tomorrow. let's keep Christ in all we do and we will succeed. hugs and love, patty
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