Stocking Up

With this wonderful long weekend today felt like a 'freebie' kind of day. We used the time to do a little prep work. We had 15 bantie chicken carcasses in the freezer which were looking a little freezer burned, Tom and I worked hard on those guys (see this post) and were not about to allow them to go to waste. Time for stock! These little birds could not have weighed more than 3#, feathers and all. Being a couple years old, pretty stringy, not for roasting but the flavor is incomparable for soup stock, hands down the best I have ever tasted.


Banties in the orchard -with the big beautiful rooster (unknown breed!)



We cooked the 12 chickens in 2 batches with just onion, garlic, salt and whole peppercorns, using the canner as a soup pot.




After allowing them to cool a little - stripped the breast meat and some of the bigger pieces of leg/thigh. Good enough for chicken salad or in casserole but not great as a stand alone ingredient!



The liquid was poured off through a colander to cool and
allow some of the fat to be skimmed off.



Two cups of stock to a freezer bag (one ladle = 1/2 cup for me) and out to my walk in freezer :) ** Total for the day: approx 20 two cup portions.

Thank you little chickens.