Stock Take 2: Homemade Turkey Stock

TURKEY STOCK



Bingo! We won a turkey before Thanksgiving at the annual St. Philip's Church turkey bingo event. I actually won, twice, on the same card. This is doubly awesome because I rarely win anything. The church ended up giving away 100 turkey's, it was a very fun night.

Let's get started!



Precooked.



December is going to be a very, very busy month so I figured what better time to make a turkey! I baked the 10 lb. turkey last night for 3 hours.  Before baking I 1)stuffed the turkey with onions and garlic 2) rubbed it with a mixture of salt, sugar, thyme, paprika, and pepper 3) brushed melted butter over the turkey 4) put a few splashes of Italian dressing inside the turkey. It still smells awesome in my house. I let the turkey sit over night and completely tore it apart tonight. White meat in one bowl, dark meat in a second bowl, bones for stock in a third bowl, and other 'parts' in a fourth bowl for our 'pet fox'.



Leftovers for the fox.

 The stock I'm making with the turkey bones is very simple again. Even more simple than the pork broth I made this fall.  I picked out the largest bones from the turkey, picked them clean (mostly) and those are what I'm using for the stock.  I plan on using the stock for a soup again but it will be frozen until I have time to make a soup. Homemade stock is good for 1 week in the refrigerator or approximately 6 months if frozen.

So this is it, nothing fancy but oh so tasty!

Turkey Stock:

3-4 quarts water

Turkey bones

(largest bones from 10 lb turkey)

2-3 carrots

1 white onion

4 small garlic

2 tbsp dried parsley

Directions:

* Add all ingredients to water and bring to a boil.

* Reduce to simmer.

* Simmer 3+ hours.

Homemade Pork Stock

I'm going to go a little out of my comfort zone. I have been wanting to make homemade stock to use for cooking and I finally have a day at home to try it! There are a lot of different ways to make homemade stock so it was hard to finally decide exactly what I was going to use. I decide to put everything I read together, (leave a few things out) and wing it. It was suprisingly Here is my recipe for Homemade Pork Stock.

Warning: Your house will smell amazing upon creation of homemade stock. You will have a stronger urge to cook and bake!

Ingredients:
1 pork shoulder bone
1 yellow onion (quartered)
Green onions (cut in chunks)
2 carrots (peeled and halved)
1-2 heads garlic (halved)
Fresh basil
Dried parsley
Handful peppercorns

Yield: approximately 1 gallon - 1.5 gallons (depending on size of bone and desired flavor)

Directions:
1) Place bone in pot, add water to cover 1-2 inches above top of bone.
2) Add all other ingredients.
3) Bring to a boil. Allow to simmer 5-6 hours.
4) Strain out vegetables.
5) Allow to cool, store in the refrigerator over night.
6) Skim any fat off top of stock.
7) Freeze, refrigerate or use it up!

The bone was decent size but I think next time I will add less water and not use the extra strainer piece for my large pot. I would have liked a bit more flavor.

Onions, carrots, garlic.

 

Fresh basil (optional)



Forgot to buy fresh parsley, so I went with dried, not ideal but it worked!

 

Pre-cooked!

 

Just getting started!



After simmering for 5+ hours this is what I had left over. The bone was falling apart at the touch.

 

The finished product, the smell was amazing!

 Plans for the pork stock:
* I used some already in squash soup and crock-pot-chicken.
* Will use in some sort of a meat/vegetable/noodle soup.
* Froze 2 containers (2c each) for uses yet to be determined!

This recipe could also be made 'meatless' by adding extra of each of the other ingredients.

Tonight I saved the bones from a chicken. I am going to wait until I have 2 chicken's worth of bones to try Homemade Chicken Stock. I can honestly say that I will not go back to buying canned or boxed stock/broth. Of course, as most people know, homemade is so much better!