Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Canning leftovers

Last week I prepared one of our family's favorite dishes, orange-roasted chicken, from a Cornish Cross we raised last year.


After the meal, I deboned the rest of the chicken...


...and gathered up all the scraps. A chicken carcass is far too useful to waste.


So into a stockpot it went. I brought it to a boil, then lowered it to a simmer.


I added about 1/4 cup of vinegar, which helps draw the nutrients from the bones.


Then I set the burner on the lowest possible gas, covered the pot, and let it simmer all night long.


In the morning it was a revolting-looking mess.


I strained out all the bones, etc.


This yielded about a gallon and a half of stock. Good rich stuff, full of nutrients!


I like to can stock in pints (rather than quarts). Because my stock is just rough-filtered, it has tiny bits of meat in it, so I used the pressure canner.


Meanwhile I also took out of the freezer some homemade teriyaki sauce.


This was left over from a neighborhood potluck meal a few months ago. Like the chicken stock, it also has bits of meat in it; so I froze it until such time as I was using the pressure canner for another meat product. This means 75 minutes at 10 lbs. pressure (adjusted for our elevation, about 12.5 lbs.).


When defrosted, it filled three jars.


When ready, everything went into the trusty canner.


By the end, I had 11 pints of stock and three pints of teriyaki sauce.


Waste not want not!

17 comments:

  1. awesome! pressure canning scares me.

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    1. Oh no!! Don't be scared. It's not hard... Just a new process to learn. Here in PA our Penn State extension offices offer wonderful classes and individual help with pressure canning. I'm sure other states do as well.

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  2. Great that you use the entire chicken - carcass and all. I must admit that leaving the pot to cook all night with an open gas flame, even on the lowest flame, scares me. All tho, I'd leave a pot on the woodstove all night - maybe there's no real difference.

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  3. I am new to pressure canning and I have a question about canning chicken stock. My stock is also a rough strain, so there are little bits in it and I don't skim off all of the fat. After the stock has been on the shelf for a while it gets a layer of stuff on the bottom. It smells fine, tastes fine, the jar sealed properly, so I am wondering if that sediment layer is just normal for chicken stock or if I am doing something wrong. Thanks!

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    1. It's perfectly normal, and in fact is evidence of what will be a wonderful soup base. Bon appétit !

      - Patrice

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  4. Patrice,
    How big of a stock pot do you use for making stock from one chicken? If you have two chicken carcasses, do you use a bigger stock pot? Sorry for dumb questions, just trying to learn. Thanks, deb k

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    1. I kinda wing it. For two carcasses, maybe a three-gallon pot? There's no set formula. By the way you can also add herbs and spices to the stock before canning it (avoid sage, as it goes bitter during canning, I don't know why), but I just can pure stock without seasoning so it will be versatile.

      - Patrice

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    2. Thanks. Do you also use the three gallon pot if you just have one chicken carcass?

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    3. No, I usually use my two-gallon pot and fill it to about 1.5 gallons. By the time the simmering is done, this usually reduces to a bit less.

      - Patrice

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  5. Since there is just my husband and myself for meals, it is not uncommon for there to be small leftovers amounts. I'm talking about veggies, gravy, meat, rice and noodles. I have a plastic quart container that I keep in my freezer that all of these leftovers get stored in and saved for what we refer to as "Garbage Soup". When the freezer container is full, I take a soup bone (ham, beef or chicken carcass) to make broth, add the leftovers that were rescued from becoming garbage and make a pot of soup. No two batches will ever taste the same but I can promise you that they are all delicious and what we consider to be a 'free' meal. Just another way to waste not ~ want not.

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  6. I would love your teriyaki sauce recipe it all looks delicious

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  7. Wow, you're my hero! I have an American pressure canner but I'm scared to use it. I bought it just for what you've described, but I can't overcome my fear of killing us with botulism. Any advice????

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    1. A couple pieces of advice:

      One, follow the setup and use instructions that came with the canner EXACTLY. Never leave any steps out or take shortcuts.

      Two, get yourself two kitchen timers, making sure one of them is the kind you can clip to your collar. One timer is for the overall processing time when the canner gets up to pressure; the other STAYS ON YOUR COLLAR and you set it for five minutes intervals. That's your reminder to check the pressure and make sure it never gets too high. Assuming you're using the canner correctly (by following the directions it came with), the only danger is forgetting to check and maintain the heat under the canner to make sure the pressure stays in a safe range. The beep of the kitchen timer will remind you to constantly check the pressure.

      Good luck and happy canning.

      - Patrice

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  8. I've pressure canned meat before, but not stock.

    Ok, I'll show my inexperience here, but what do you use stock for? I'm just getting started cooking, and have pretty much no experience, so I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, it looks great, but is it for soup?

    I'd love to save my turkey stock after Thanksgiving!

    Thanks!

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    1. Anything that calls for chicken bullion, you can substitute stock instead. Soups, casseroles, stews, gravies, anything for which you want a bit more flavor (and nutrition) than plain water. Our younger daughter loves to use stock for a noodle soup-type dish she makes several times a week.

      - Patrice

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    2. Got it, now I'm hungry, thanks!

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