We love chicken around here and I love making one chicken go as far as possible.
My favorite and super easy way to cook a whole chicken is in the crockpot. It’s so simple and so delicious. You throw the chicken in (breast side down), season and put on low for 6-8 hours. Really, what could be simpler?
So, in keeping with stretching that chicken as far as it can possibly go, I make chicken broth/stock from it. And I do it the easy way, also!
Note: this is usually done just after dinner since I’ve cooked the chicken to have some for dinner.
Once I remove the chicken from the crockpot, I let it cool until it is manageable, then get to work separating it. I remove all the good meat (to freeze), then put EVERYTHING (skin, giblets, bones, etc.) back into the crockpot with whatever liquid the chicken has already given off. I then chop an onion, 2-3 celery stalks and 2-3 carrots and throw them in (you don’t have to bother peeling the veggies since it will all be strained out later). Add enough COLD water to fill my pot about 1/2″ from the top and add a splash of raw apple cider vinegar – to help pull out the marrow. Put the lid back on and leave it on low until the next morning (I usually don’t have time to tend to it until after breakfast).
I turn it off and let it cool for a while, then strain through a mesh strainer into a large glass bowl. I discard all everything that gets strained out and then I strain the liquid once more through a super fine mesh strainer – metal mesh coffee filter set inside the other strainer works perfectly.
I then stick in in the fridge for several hours to let it cool completely – usually until after dinner that night.
This is how it looks when it’s completely chilled before I portion it into my freezer containers.
I then transfer into whatever freezer containers I have available (I have an assortment of glass canning jars and plastic freezer jam jars).
Tip: I move my crock pot into the garage when I’m using it overnight for chicken stock. I simply cannot tolerate waking up to the smell of chicken broth.
Additional note: I buy locally raised, free range whole chickens and I personally know my farmer and her practices. I don’t recommend adding organs (giblets) into your stock if your chicken is not properly raised/fed.
For a while now I’ve been trying to incorporate more beans into our diet as a main protein for one meal each week and have been so happy with this navy bean soup recipe, there was no way I could resist sharing it with you.
I have adapted this recipe to suit our tastes and we think it is SO yummy! My favorite part is how easy it is to put together a nutritious and filling soup for my family.
I’m not sure when I came up with this idea (or even if it was really my idea in the first place), but it has been very helpful for us.
Sharpen both ends.
It’s really quite simple. Though a tad time consuming when it’s time to sharpen, they don’t need to be sharpened nearly as often.
Also, I could not stress enough how much you need an electric pencil sharpener, especially if you have children who are partial to colored pencils or homeschool and your children use pencil for most of their work.
We also store all of our pencils, crayons, and markers in sturdy vinyl zipper top pencil bags. This makes cleanup a snap and easy enough that even the youngest artist can put away their own. Just scoop them into the bag and zip it closed.
I have read some tutorials lately to help me learn how to take better photos of my Christmas tree – they help with photos of other lights, too – so I decided to share some of my successes with you.
Note: I have had my DSLR for about a year and a half and am by no means anything more than an amateur. I hold no illusions about my ability to teach others anything, but I can follow a tutorial and play around with the settings that work best on my specific camera and lense setup.
All photos were taken with my Nikon D5000 and 18-55mm 1:305-5.6G lense.
I get absolutely giddy (ask Michael) when I take photos that truly capture what I was going for. It’s getting more common and I am feeling very pleased with myself. However, it took me about 60 shots to get these 4 that I’m happy with – remember, no illusions that I really know what I’m doing!
* These photos have had no significant editing done to them, I cropped out some junk in a couple of them and resized them to be a blog-appropriate size.
My birthday was Monday. Michael was scheduled to leave on Sunday for a 2 week TDY and wouldn’t be here for my actual birthday so he planned our traditional birthday celebrations for Saturday afternoon.
Saturday evening, after the children had given me their hand made birthday cards and our traditional store-bought birthday cake, Michael sent Eli [...]
We have a box of packing paper (large sheets of plain newsprint) that’s been sitting in our garage for a long time and I really just got tired of shuffling it around, so I decided to put it to use.
We were working on a craft at our school table last week that required the use [...]
Dear friends, I would love your prayers as we embark on another deployment.
We have the rest of this week with Michael – as he’ll be leaving for a 2 week pre-deployment training on Sunday – and then we’ll only have approximately one week with him when he returns before he leaves for 6 months.
It’s been several years since we’ve lived in a house with a mantel and I’ve never really done a theme or seasonal decoration for the mantels we have had in the past.
So, this year, I thought I would put together something. My goal was to take my time and choose fabrics and items that I [...]
