Naturopathic Source

It's actually not too difficult to always have homemade vegetable or chicken stock on hand. (See the Recipes section for the recipe.)

Vegetable stock is easy to make, because vegetables keep well in the fridge and can be taken out anytime to make stock, but I find chicken stock a bit tricker. I used to find I either didn't have any bones around, or when I did have bones I didn't have the time. Also, sometimes I had the bones from only one or 2 chicken breasts and this wasn't enough to fill my stock pot. When I did make stock, I always seemed to freeze it in really large containers and then it was difficult to use: the size of the frozen block was too big for a small soup pot and I would have to let it defrost on the counter and that took forever...and so on. So I started making chicken stock in either large or small quantities as described below.

For larger quantities, get out a big stock pot, add all the ingredients and add enough water to just cover. Cook as directed. Many people will put a chicken carcass in after roasting a chicken for dinner and cook until bedtime. At this point, if the weather is cold, the pot can be put outside overnight. Or, take the pot off the stove about 30 minutes or so before bedtime, fill your kitchen sink with very cold water and put the pot in. The water will cool down the contents and then right before you go to bed, put the pot in the fridge. The next day, skim off the fat (the hard white, circular things on top), take out the carcass and all the vegetables and freeze in containers. Make sure the containers are not too large, so that when you take the frozen block out of the freezer, it will fit in a soup pan. I like to use medium-sized containers and then I can defrost the whole container for a larger pot of soup or just defrost part of it for a single serving.

When I just want one serving of soup but the amount in my container is more than that, here is what I do: I take the container out of the freezer and put the entire frozen "cube" into a pot on medium. I let just enough stock melt away to make the amount of soup I want and then I carefully pick the remaining frozen piece (usually about half of it's original size) out of the pot and put it back in the container and back in the freezer. This way I don't need to have a hundred small little containers in the freezer, nor do I have to make a much bigger pot of soup than I will eat. It also allows me to have a quick soup always on hand because if you have good stock, a good soup can quickly be made.

When I cook a chicken breast, I like to also make a smaller quantity of chicken stock. I always buy my chicken with the bone-in and then I de-bone it right before cooking. De-boning a chicken breast is really easy and doesn't even have to be neatly done; any small extra chicken bits left on the bone can easily be cut off and put into the stock once cooked. I use one of my medium-sized pots and cook according to the recipe. And although it's nice to have all the vegetables that the recipe calls for, sometimes I don't and so I just use whatever I do have.

You can also buy chicken necks and backs at your local grocery store (or where ever you buy chicken) fairly cheap and use this instead of the above mentioned bones.

Stock is the perfect thing to on any day that you are home for most of the afternoon or evening. It doesn't take long to get it going and then it just simmers away on it's own for hours. And with the above cooling techniques, you can just put it in the fridge overnight and then finish it up (skimming fat, putting in containers etc.) the next day.

With vegetable or chicken stock in your freezer, you will always be able to whip up a delicious soup quickly; and with homemade stock even really simple soups are delicious.

TC