Cooking and Canning Homemade Turkey stock - PART 1

I find it deeply satisfying to purchase a scant $7 of turkey necks and turn them, along with a few pieces of organic produce (both purchased and homegrown) into a big batch of stock, plus a meaty casserole or lunch meat salad. I use every tiny bit of usable food to feed my whole family: both the humans and the chickens. Yes, you can feed chickens poultry with zero fear of 'cross contamination' or anything else wierd. If it's edible for humans, it's edible for chickens. Pecking at bones is a great way for my bird daughters to 'bone up' (har har) on their calcium, and the grosser meat scraps are perfectly palatable for them.

So here's my stock:

• 2 packages turkey necks. I'd like to think they were responsibly grown, but i really don't know. Stock is one of those things i will buy 'slavery poultry' for, as i'm cheap out of necessity.
• 2 onions
• 5 or so fresh bay leaves from my lovely bay tree
• some salt and pepper
• a few gross cabbage leaves not worth eating in any other dish
• several celery stalks
• woops, i forgot to put garlic in there - oh well.

That's it - just throw those things in a pot, bring to a boil, cover and simmer ALL DAY stirring occasionally to break the meat off the bones.

I let the stock pot sit out all night - i always wonder the dangers of this. That definitely puts the food in the 'danger zone' (certain temperature parameters deemed unsafe by the food Lords of the USA) that could breed bacteria, but since i bring the stock back to a boil before eating it i figure we're okay.
The next morning i lift out the chunks into a colander or salad spinner - pour the liquid through a strainer into a smaller pot. I then (while wearing my apron) separate all the edible chunks of meat from the other gross slurry and save that in a pyrex for some other meaty dish.

Next, as i like to use EVERY LAST BIT OF GOODNESS, i pour very hot water over the gunk in the colander to get the last of the good juices and gelatin to pour out. I pour that through a strainer into the smaller pot which then goes into the fridge for the day.

The rinsed pile of onion/bone/fat/meat goo goes out to the compost heap to feed the delighted chooks (and hopefully not choke them to death) as well as quite a few mice and other nasty beasts i don't want to know visit my compost heap.

Once the fat has hardened, i skim it off and heat the stock back up in readiness to be canned.
So, there's the stock. Next up: Canning turkey stock.

Lovely Afternoon, Preparing Beds and Weeding Around the Wildflowers

What a beautiful day! Normally I might not be so thrilled for a 70 degree, slightly humid, breezy almost stormy but sunny day in January - but heck, even if it's SUPPOSED to feel like Winter, that kind of day is perfect! Now if only we got more of those days in the middle of Summer when i'm hiding in my studio under 7 fans and misters.

The husband brought home a dolly yesterday and we moved some old planters to the front yard - i think they make a nice fence like border along the sidewalk, though i wish we had one more to make a nice odd number. Although it is a little early to plant most things, and theoretically too early to prune (i don't buy it: my rosemary has already put on 3 inches of spring growth and the pecan tree is budding) i took the beautiful afternoon off to get my hands dirty.

 

I weeded. Every last square inch. I weeded around the broccolis, lettuces, and herbs in the veggie garden, i weeded around all the little sprouting wildflowers in the 'strip', and i weeded any other weeds that i saw and fed them to delighted chickens left behind in the back yard. Belina and Soot laid this morning so they had the privilege of joining me in the front yard to snack on Elbon Rye. Lots of clearing as well as weeding helped to open up areas around the xeric bed and big herbs - the compost doubled in size!

 

I prepared the planters to receive onion sets: tilled, pulled the fava beans to compost, mixed in molasses and rock phosphate and a few handfuls of more compost. The raised bed that usually houses basil will be used for mustard this year: i am excited to make pickled mustard leaves and let the plants flower to make mustard from my very own mustard seeds.

It was a bit tricky weeding around the wildflowers, as they are essentially weeds themselves. But i was careful, and i was delighted to see little flowers here and there already blooming! I reckon This year is going to be a great wildflower year for me.

 

During my weeding and thinning i harvested a few radishes, overgrown but still perfect for soup, some kale and some sorrel and dill. I've never added dill to chicken soup before, and i don't think i will again - it added another dimension to the soup, but i'm not sure i'm a big fan of that dimension. The sorrel and radishes, on the other hand, were delicious and cooked to a perfect firm but not crunchy in about 1 hour in the soup stock. We enjoyed our soup while watching The Natural History of the Chicken, which is a completely ridiculous movie - especially enjoyable to those of us with chickens. Hilarious, and insightful. We caught part of this film when the chickens were wee chicks in a box beside us, and it was very neat to watch it now with older chickens and recognize in our hens the traits those in the film also recognized - they are such interesting critters!

 

Next on my list is a trip to the nursery to buy mustard seed, onion sets, borage seed, corn seed, and cucumber seed. My step mama is bringing me some green beans - not sure if they'll translate from Eugene OR to Austin TX, but i'm happy to receive. I would order my seeds from the many catalogues i receive, but my limited space requires limited seeds and my local organic nursery has a pretty nice selection of plants that do well in this specific area.

All in all, a wonderful 2-3 hours spent with my girls and my garden: some of my very favorite things!

Have you gotten your hands dirty yet this Spring?