Homemade chicken stock

I don't usually bother making my own stock - I mean, chicken stock cubes aren't expensive and don't take much effort to mix up.  On the other hand, chicken stock is great thing to add to almost any meal to give it extra flavour and that "made with love" taste. Plus, the real thing is full of health benefits anyway that you can't get from the cubes.*

So, since I have the bones anyway from the chicken breasts, I have started making my own chicken stock. I also have started saving up all the bits of vegetable and vegetable peelings that don't make it into my meals in a tub in my freezer, so this batch is my first chicken-and-vegetable stock.  It came out a big darker than my usual chicken-only broth, but it tastes okay so I am sure that the vegetables are the reason for the darker colour.**

The vegetables I used for the stock - mostly carrot peelings, some tomato and baby marrow.

The finished product, after straining and a day in the fridge

After making the stock, I strained it and left it in the fridge for a day to cool. I prefer to do this, so that I can take off the layer of fat before storing in the freezer. It still looked like it had some vegetable bits in it, so I strained it once before.

I bought these juice bottles earlier in the year to store soup for perfect lunch-size portions (They cost about R2.00 each).  They have come in super handy over the year.  Each bottle can take about 250ml of liquid.  The rest of it I decided to freeze in an ice-cube tray (each cube is 15ml of liquid). I like to use the cube-size portions when I just want to add a little bit of something extra. 

When you are done making the stock, keep the chicken bones.  It's amazing how much chicken is still leftover. Not enough for a meal, but just enough for a little something extra. 

The leftover chicken bones after making the stock

The chicken meat I took off the bones.

You can use the chicken meat for any number of things.

1. Freeze it in an ice-cube tray.  For those days when all you can manage is toast and cup-a-soup or 2-minute noodles, that bit of extra chicken can really make a difference.

2. You can add it to scrambled eggs or omelets when your breakfast needs something a bit extra.\

3. My favourite: add some mayonnaise for chicken mayo sandwich filling.

I'm sure that there are tons of other things you can do with it.

Ready for the freezer until I need to use it

*Read this article for the health benefits of chicken broth: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2013/02/21/10-reasons-i-drink-bone-broth/

** If you want some info on how to make a stock, you can check some recipes here, but it's not exactly brain surgery: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_chicken_stock/