Poultry Stock (In Honor of Thanksgiving)

Happy Thanksgiving!!! 

This is, hands down, my FAVORITE holiday.  Why?  Well, I love food and I love my family.  Those two things come together (without the pressure, cost, and waste of gifts) in perfect harmony on Thanksgiving.  

In honor of this holiday, let me show you a bit about how I make stock.  My family actually had a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving (not to practice, but to extend the holiday!) and I grabbed up the turkey carcass.  I thought my dad's head was going to pop off, since he usually snags them!  If I can give you one tip about eating well on a budget, it is DON'T be afraid to ask/beg.  Friends and family grow in their gardens, buy too much, and waste scraps.  Garden food is awesome, over purchased eases their burden, and scraps can be stock, soup, even compost!  

(The bag on the right is for soup scraps, the Tupperware on the right is for composting.)

Right now we are having BOTH of our sets of parents save all of their fruit/veggie/coffee/egg scraps for our compost pile (more on that in the future).  Anyway, ask and ye shall receive!

In this case, I received a huuuuge turkey carcass that was barely picked over at all.  It went into my crockpot with scraps of carrot ends, celery leaves, onion ends, and garlic ends.  I save these EVERY time I cook (and I use a LOT of onions and garlic, let me tell ya) in the freezer and take them out when I am ready to make stock.  The crock-pot was then filled up with water and a few splashes of Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother). 

It cooks up for a few hours on high, or overnight on low (that's what I do).  When it is done, pluck out what you can, and strain the rest of the stock. I pick over the stuff that is strained out and, depending on how picked-over the carcass was to begin with, I get 1-4 cups of shredded chicken off of it!

This was used for egg rolls and fried rice!

I put the strained stock into Mason Jars to store them in the fridge, or double bagged in the freezer.  I haven't ventured into glass in the freezer because I just don't have the room right now.  I'm hoping to get an upright freezer soon, and then it will be all glass, all the time!

It really is that easy.  I throw the stock into everything.  I cook rice in it, sometimes I cook macaroni in it, I add it to basically ANYTHING that is being cooked in a pan.  Anywhere you would use canned broth/stock, use this!