Chicken Stock in the Oven

MAKE IT EASY

I am all about making things easy these days. Maybe because we are in the full swing of fall programming in the garden, or about to start our biggest fundraising campaign of the year (do you support GFE? Might you consider this year?) or maybe it's the 11 month old chubby baby I have at home that requests I read books on repeat. But I am all about little life hacks - ways to make things easier, more simple.

So, when I was reading one of my favorite food blogs, looking for a chicken meatball soup recipe (I found it!), she mentioned making her chicken stock from a leftover roasted chicken in the oven. This sounded easy and brilliant and just the life hack I have my eye out for these days.

I love homemade chicken stock but finding the time to make it in my life seemed challenging. I'm home a bit with the baby but also have important things to do like go to the library and get to her take a nap. Plus, the idea of dealing with a hot, simmering stove while caring for a child sounded less than ideal. 

Now, I have a new little weekly routine and could not be happier thanks to the brilliant Molly Wizenberg. I roast a chicken (preferably buying it the day before cooking to salt it well first but this often does not happen), put the baby to bed, we eat the chicken for dinner and then pick off any leftover meat for future lunch/dinner/baby snacks.

Then I take the chicken carcass, all the bones and any leftover roasting juices, adding them to a large dutch oven. I snap a celery stalk into a few pieces, quarter an onion, cut a carrot into three, add some peppercorns and finally some cilantro stems if I have them.

I cover it all with cold water, bring to boil on the stove then put into a 200 degree oven, without a lid, before climbing into bed. The stock cooks slowly and evenly overnight and I wake up to rich beautiful broth in the morning, feeling incredible accomplished. Broth! Before 8am!

Lately, I'm really enjoying having some for breakfast, with a little egg stirred in and some parmesan cheese, inspired after another Molly Wizenberg recipe I wrote about some time ago.