Chicken Stock and Soup

Last night I roasted an 8 and a half pound chicken so after dinner there was plenty left over.  Today I took the bones, the carrots, onion and celery that had been roasted in the chicken, and 4 quarts of water and made stock.  I added salt, bay, parsley and peppercorns.  After about an hour, I had 8 pints of stock, which got canned for 20 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

I also made soup:  I sauteed carrots, leeks, celery, celeriac and all the leftover chicken meat, diced up, and then added 6 quarts of water, salt and pepper, and diced purple-top turnips.  I have a LOT of those turnips from the farm share and there isn't a lot of interest in eating them.  I figured I could slip a few of them into soup and no one would really know unless I told them.  Heh.

After the soup had simmered for a while, I took out 2 quarts and added orzo and let it cook.  That was lunch, with a lot left over that got frozen.  Even without canning it, the orzo absorbed so much liquid that it was almost solid!  The rest of the soup, the part without the orzo, went into jars:  3 quarts and 4 pints.  I am now out of quart jars again.  That's in the canner now, 90 minutes at 10 pounds.  The idea is that when I heat it up, I can add some sort of pasta or rice.  Egg noodles seem to be the favorite thing to add!

Finally, A Day Off

Usually, I'm a pretty busy person.  Lately, though, the degree of busy has been raised exponentially.  I'm not sure why.  I am working basically the same amount, but I seem to be home less overall or, when I am, I just can't get the energy to do much more than the basics - laundry, grocery shopping, getting simple meals on the table.  I can't figure it out.  So the one thing that has really suffered in all this is my cooking-hobby time.  That's why there hasn't been anything canned in a long time, and I haven't baked any bread or made pasta or anything.  I have managed to make yogurt on a semi-regular basis.  That's about it.

This week I don't have any shifts, which is a welcome change.  The reason I don't have any shifts is that both kids have concerts this week.  One is in the orchestra and one is in the band and of course their concerts and rehearsals are on different days.  It made it easier for me to just not work this week.  I still have to go in for meetings and stuff but that's during the day so I will be home in time for all the important things.  One of the advantages of the shift work I do is that as long as I reach my quota for clinical hours worked by the end of the year, I'm OK.  If I want to take time off, I have to bunch all my shifts up into a shorter period of time.  I'll be doing that even more this spring because I really want to take more time off in the summer.  I'm already ahead by quite a bit.

Since this week is going to be framed by concerts, not a bad thing at all, mind you, I'm getting a lot of cooking done today so we will have plenty to eat on the days when I won't have time.  Today I made a lasagna that we will eat tomorrow.  I'm currently making a pot of chicken soup for tonight and will make a batch of homemade macaroni and cheese as well.  I have a plan to turn the leftovers from a roasted pork shoulder into burritos for Wednesday.  Hopefully the avocados will be ripe by then!  I think that's enough for the next 4 days, don't you?

One last little tidbit of info - in the chicken soup is a bulb of celeriac, from the farm share.  Yes, the farm share that ended in October.  Celeriac lasts a long time.  I still have a few turnips as well, but I think I'll use them another time.  Maybe the next time I have a couple of days off.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast Soup

The other day, I made a pot roast in the slow cooker.  It was a 3 pound roast, with sauteed leeks, carrots and celery, a couple of bay leaves, parsley, salt, pepper, and water.  And it was really good.  I saved the leftovers, skimmed off the fat, and made soup today - another variation on the beef and barley theme:

2 leeks, chopped

1 T. minced garlic

5 carrots, diced

3 small celery ribs, diced

1 celeriac root, diced

8 cups water

1 cup red wine

1 T. Worcestershire Sauce

8 ounces pearled barley

2 bay leaves

1 can tomato paste

pot roast leftovers, cut into bite sized pieces, fat removed

kosher salt and pepper to taste

The leeks, garlic, carrots, celery and celeriac were sauteed in olive oil until soft and then the other ingredients were added, including the leftover liquid from the pot roast (minus the fat).  This simmered for an hour.  We had some for dinner and then I canned the rest while I watched The Sound of Music with the 6 year old - which meant that every once in a while I had to leave to tend to the pressure canner.  I tried to only leave at the dialogue parts; fortunately the canner didn't need too much tending!  (6 pints, 75 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.)

I'm getting close to the end of the farm share veggies I've stored up.  This used up the carrots and I only have one leek and one celeriac bulb left.  I still have 5 squashes and some turnips, but that's about it.  We even finished the popcorn - how can you watch The Sound of Music without popcorn?

Chicken Soup is Good For You

When you're sick, there's nothing like a bowl of hot, comforting chicken soup. When you're a mommy and you're sick, while everyone is at work and school is the time to make soup, I guess! We had a rotisserie chicken the other night so I used the rest for stock and soup. First I made 6 pints of stock and then I took the last pint of stock and the meat and made soup.

1 leek, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 celeriac bulbs, diced
1 purple top turnip, diced
1 cabbage, chopped
5 carrots, chopped
chicken meat (I used half a chicken)
1 pt chicken stock
kosher salt
7 pt water
bay leaf
pepper
thyme
...
..
.

First I sauteed the leek and garlic in olive oil, and added the celeriac, turnip and carrots and sauteed them as well. To this I added the meat and liquids, and spices. After simmering for about an hour, I added the cabbage and simmered for another 30-45 minutes or so.

I put up 6 pints of stock and 5 quarts of soup. Then I ate the rest, and I feel better now.

Ralish?

What else would you name a radish relish?

One night, over a year ago, I was websurfing and came across this recipe for Pickled Radish Relish. I printed out the recipe and tucked it into my cookbook just in case I ever had 3 cups worth of radish. Well, the farm share has had Daikon radishes and I discovered that trying to eat them grated into salad was just too much for our mouths to handle. By chance I rediscovered the printout of this recipe and thought maybe it was worth trying.

Absolutely, yes!

For this batch I used Daikon radish, which is fairly sweet once pickled. Instead of celery I used celeriac stems, which added almost a fennel-like flavor. I used white vinegar. It's festive looking: white radish, purple onion and green celeriac. The recipe makes 2 pints, which is good to know because it doesn't specify on their web page.

That website had a few other interesting recipes but this is the first I've tried. Perhaps I'll have to go try some more!

Curried Squash Soup

It is the time of the year when the root vegetables arrive from the farm! In the house today I had 3 pounds of sweet potatoes, 4 squashes (2 butternut, 1 buttercup, and 1 delicata), and 2 bulbs of celeriac. I found an awesome recipe for soup which incorporated all 3 items. I was able to use up the celeriac, one of the butternuts, and 2 pounds of the sweet potatoes, plus an apple, some farm share garlic, and onion. Amazingly enough, I had all the ingredients on hand. Even the coconut milk! I did use chicken stock instead of vegetable, but otherwise I stayed true to the recipe. It made 6.5 pints so 6 pints are in the pressure canner (10 lbs pressure, 75 minutes).

It's creamy, sweet, curried, and just plain delicious. Here's the recipe:

• 2 1/2 pounds kabocha, butternut, red kuri, or other deep orange winter squash
• 2 pounds sweet potatoes (orange or yellow-fleshed)
• 1 1/4 pounds celeriac
• 1 tablespoon coconut or olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
• 1 cup apples - peeled, cored and chopped
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 1/2 teaspoons mild curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated ginger
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup water
• 1 can (400 ml) coconut milk (regular, not light)
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Place squash, sweet potatoes, and celeriac on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 55-75 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a skewer or sharp knife. (Baking time will vary depending on the size of the vegetables. Smaller sweet potatoes and squash will be tender earlier, whereas larger ones and also the celeriac will take longer time to soften. Remove those that are tender earlier while the others continue to cook) Once tender, let cool enough to handle. While vegetables are cooking/cooling, prepare other ingredients.
3. In a large soup pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion, apple, garlic, curry powder, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, salt, and pepper. Cover and cook for 7-9 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onions have softened.
4. Once roasted vegetables are cool enough to handle, slice squash and discard seeds. Scoop the flesh away from the peel and add to your soup pot. Cut peel away from sweet potatoes and celeriac (celeriac peel is thicker, so trim away a little of the thick, coarse peel. If the celeriac still seems a touch firm, cut it in smaller chunks so it can simmer and more quickly soften in the soup pot.) Add fresh ginger (start with 1 tbsp), stock, and water, bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer covered for about 10 minutes, or until all the vegetables are quite tender.
5. After this time, use an immersion blender and puree the soup until smooth. Stir in the coconut milk and lemon juice and taste test. If you'd like additional ginger, stir in the remaining ½ tablespoon.
6. Season with additional salt and pepper if desired, and serve.
7. Note: You can change the proportions of squash, sweet potatoes, and celeriac as you choose. Simply keep a total weight of about 6-7 lbs, which will give you roughly 10 - 11 cups of roasted vegetable flesh (after removing skins and seeds). Note that some squash will have more flesh and less seeds (ex: butternut) than other squash that will have a larger seed cavity and less flesh (ex: red kuri squash), so measuring out the cups of roasted flesh is helpful to determine how much you are actually using.

Another Soup Experiment

There were 3 bulbs of celeriac in my fridge just waiting to be turned into soup. What better time to do that than when sleep deprived and hungry?

The problem was, I've never used celeriac before (hooray for the farm share, lots of new foods this year!) and I couldn't find a recipe which matched my ingredient list exactly. But I read a bunch of recipes and got the basic gist of what I was supposed to do here, so I improvised:

3 bulbs celeriac, trimmed, peeled, and chopped
handful of celeriac stems and leaves, chopped
2 turnips, peeled and chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 leeks, sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil
1 pint chicken stock
1 pint water
salt and pepper

I sauteed the leeks and garlic in the olive oil, then added the rest of the vegetables and sauteed them for a few minutes. Then I added the liquids, salt and pepper, and got it boiling. This simmered for about 40 minutes until everything was soft. Then I took the hand-held blender and pureed everything. We had some for dinner - it's flavorful and very filling - and I canned the leftovers into 2 pint jars (10 lbs of pressure, 75 minutes) plus a little extra for the fridge. I think it worked out OK for a first attempt, anyway!