The wind has been blowing hard today, keeping me inside but distracting me from getting much done. Not that it takes much to distract me these days! Colder nights remind me of home made soup, including pumpkin, vegetable, and various concoctions with lots of hot green chile. The base ingredient for all of these is a nice chicken broth.
Trader Joe’s has good chicken broth in a box, and for that matter they have some really yummy soups in a box. But when you’re nearly thirty miles from the nearest TJ’s you need to think about making your own. Especially with holiday cooking right around the corner.
The Barefoot Contessa did a knock your socks off chicken broth, starting with whole chickens, carrots, parsnips and half the garden. I tried making that once and it was WOW but really? Whole chickens to make broth for your own use? Wouldn’t you rather be eating some of that chicken first? Which is why I came up with chicken broth for we who just don’t have enough time no matter how hard we try to plan, and who really appreciate the simpler things in life.
It starts with those great rotisserie chickens we’re all using on rough days (and a lot of other days!) I’ll mash up some cauliflower the first night, maybe do lettuce wraps the second night, and pick off it for one more day. Then there’s still a lot of meat left but I’m hungrier for fresh cooked, whether I do it myself or grab another one while I’m in the store. So the rest of that carcass goes into the freezer. When I have three or four, I grab my stock pot, some celery, onions, garlic maybe parsley. Pretty much whatever strikes my fancy and is in the refrigerator when I get started. All of it goes into the pot, chopped or broken up, comes to a boil, cooks for a while. Strain off the broth, cool the chicken so you can pick off any extra meat, and decide if you want to keep the veggies or not.
Cool some, pour into those nifty semi disposable plastic containers, freeze. And you’ll have chicken broth whenever you need it. Next I’ll be sharing some of my favorite soups made from this broth. Yum.
Mona Karel Author 