DIY Chicken Broth

I have noticed that more home cooking calls for more chicken broth.

Soups, stews, rice, quinoa, roast—I end up using a ton of it, pretty much all year round. And the only way it comes organic at our store is in a 32 oz container. I never use it all at one meal unless it’s the holidays so I end up tossing whatever is left after a week.

More than once I wondered why they don’t sell it in one cup pouches. And then a few months ago, as I cleaned up a carcass after a roast chicken dinner, I wondered something better: “How hard is it to make my own broth?”

At first I wanted to make Rebecca Katz’s “Magic Mineral Broth” from Cancer Fighting Kitchen, but it has chicken, carrots, leaks, onions, celery, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, garlic, parsley, kombu, peppercorns, allspice and bay.

Yeah, I don’t know what kombu is either.

So I reached for my other cookbook bible, the BHG New Cook Book, circa 1990.

First make this, or buy a roasted chicken at the store.

Keep the carcass in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.

Then into a large pot throw:

1 chicken carcass (I leave bits of meat hanging all over mine)

3 celery stalks, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon sage

½ teaspoon pepper

2 bay leaves

6 cups cold water.

Bring it to a boil and simmer for two hours.

Then I strained it and measured it out into one cup portions to freeze. It’s much less salty than the store bought version so the real flavors come through and it’s wonderful to cook with. I use it instead of water for my quinoa and rice, which gives both enough flavor that my kids are not missing those pre-seasoned salt bomb boxed rices.

Our roasted chicken recipe calls for stuffing the chicken with citrus. The first time I made this broth, I took the lemons out of the carcass before starting the broth. An hour later, I was shocked to find a lemon floating in my broth.

“Who put lemon in my broth?” I asked my husband and son, both of whom have official cooking rights in my kitchen. Blank faces. An hour later, Kate came in and asked “Mom, what’s broth?” Turns out she was the lemon bandit. She thought I was making soup and she was pretty sure—from all her cooking show experience—that it needed some acid.

Thanks, Cutthroat Kitchen.

And she was right. So in this picture, you can see I left the lemon and grapefruit in the carcass.

Tasty!

Summer Spaghetti Salad ~ Dana

What a weird summer we are having, right? I talked to Aunt Candy who lives in Ohio this morning, and she said that it has been in the 50s at night, and the mornings smell like fall. And here in Southern California, it’s 4:00 in the afternoon and my air conditioner hasn’t kicked on all day. I don’t know if you know what that means… but mid-July and no air conditioner might just mean the second coming. Of course, the two summers that I was pregnant, mid-July brought temps of 105 and higher. Of course.

But summer, hot or cold, means family get-togethers and days at the beach. And in my family, a get-together is incomplete without this lovely spaghetti salad. It has been that way since the beginning of time, and it is something that I will pass on for generations to come. Seems a bit dramatic for pasta salad? Well. You haven’t tasted this one.

It’s a great way to use up the bounty of produce from the garden, if you have one. I’m in the beginning stages of revamping mine. I need all new planter boxes and a new watering system. But I digress. The original recipe calls for spaghetti, but a few years ago, my cousin Dawn Marie mixed it up by using Rotini… easier for the little kids to eat, and the seasoning blend gets lusciously trapped in the curves. I’m in.

So here you go. My mom’s Aunt Arleen introduced it to the family, somewhere in the 1950s, I’m sure. Be sure and mix it up the night before to allow the seasonings to really sink into the pasta. Enjoy your summer!

My bebes. Image by Cean One Studios, San Diego, CA

Spaghetti Salad

1 lb spaghetti (or any shape of pasta, really)
1 bottle Shilling Salad Supreme (found in the spice aisle)
¼ cup red wine vinegar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 red onion
1 medium to large cucumber
2 tomatoes
2 green bell peppers (you could probably switch out pepper colors, too, but there’s already a lot of red and orange, so I like the contrast of the green here)

Cook pasta, drain and cool. Add vinegar and oil. Add Salad Supreme and stir in. Add remaining ingredients. Toss and let stand all night, to let the seasonings melt into the liquid. Salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Ice-y Creamy Ice Cream

The first time I made ice cream from scratch was thirty years ago. It was with one of those old fashioned salt crank makers and when I tasted the fruit of our (what felt like five hours) labor, I had one thought: Not worth it.

Then five years ago I was flipping through a Williams Sonoma catalog when it came to my attention that ice cream makers had moved into the 21^st century. There on the page was the most darling Cuisinart blue ice cream maker. It arrived in time for Mother’s Day and I’ve been making my own ice cream ever since.

Yeah, right.

First, we try not to keep dessert in the house. Ever. Because I’ll eat it.

Secondly, we’re more of a baked goods kind of family.

Thirdly, it’s not in mine or Shea’s family of origin to have cake AND ice cream. It was always one or the other.

But I do tend to make ice cream in June and July, as an alternative way to scratch my baking itch when it’s too hot to turn on the oven. I use the basic recipe, no custard making required, and in 20 minutes I can serve up homemade, creamy, safe (if not healthy, lol) and organic dessert.

All it takes is milk (I use fat free), heavy whipping cream, sugar and vanilla. My ice cream maker has a center cylinder insert that I store in the freezer at all times. Pop it in the maker, pour in the base and turn it on—that’s all it takes.

I have tried to make lower fat and sugar versions using just milk and no cream. No bueno. What comes out is the consistency of slushy milk which then freezes into a giant ice cube. So I stick to the heavy cream. I halve the sugar if I am adding fruit—we barely notice that it’s less sweet because of the richness of the cream and the vanilla flavor. And we actually eat the correct serving size—half cup—because since it tastes the way it’s supposed to, you don’t need as much to make your sweet tooth happy.

Recipe (courtesy Cuisinart)

1 cup milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla (for vanilla flavored ice cream) AND/OR

1 cup macerated, mashed fruit of your choice AND/OR

chocolate chips

Really, once you have the base, you can do whatever you want to it.

Whisk milk and sugar until sugar dissolves. Add cream and vanilla. Whisk until mixture becomes nice and frothy. Refrigerate for two hours. Then pour the base into the maker and process for 20-25 minutes. Add any other ingredients in the last five minutes.

Whisking the base. I like to get some air in there. I think it makes the ice cream creamier.

Logistics:

There are ice cream makers out there that cost $300, but I don’t know why. The Cuisinart costs $60, and I also found a Hamilton Beach option at Target for under $30. That’s roughly the same as six half gallons of regular ice cream.

I have learned not to store the leftovers in the cylinder or Tupperware. A glass bowl with an airtight lid keeps the ice cream from getting too hard or crystallizing.

If I’m adding fruit, I chop it, macerate it, mash it and then throw it in the last five minutes. If the chunks are too big, they get caught in the stirring thingy, causing the ice cream to back up and overflow.

My macerated, mashed and strained raspberries.

There are lots of ice cream recipes out there, including in the booklet that comes with the machine. But some of them require a custard, and I’m not having that. The easy recipe is just fine.

And when I want to be crazy, I suffer the heat, bake up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and make my own ice cream sandwiches. I plop a scoop of newly made ice cream on completely cooled cookies, wrap it all in plastic wrap and pop it in the freezer. Two hours later, yummy summer goodness.

Kitchen Rules: If you help, you get to lick!

Enjoy!

Lavender Lemonade ~ Dana

About ten years ago, at a cute local cafe, I came across a delicious drink: lavender lemonade. I immediately went home, searched the internet for recipes, and after trying a few different ones, I’ve landed on my favorite. And since my mom has a very generous lemon tree in her backyard, and I have 3 huge lavender bushes, we are a match made in libation heaven! When the temperatures rise, as they are right about now, mix up a pitcher of this refreshing drink, and hit the shade.

Lavender Lemonade

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup (a generous handful) fresh or 1 tablespoon dried lavender blooms stripped from stems
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Ice cubes
Lavender sprigs for garnish

Preparation:

Combine sugar with 2 1/2 cups water in a medium pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Add the lavender blooms to the sugar water, cover, and remove from heat. Let stand at least 20 minutes (and up to several hours).
Strain mixture and discard lavender. Pour infusion into a glass pitcher. Add lemon juice and 2 1/2 cups water. Stir well and watch lemonade change color.
Pour into tall glasses half-filled with ice or refrigerate until ready to use.

Makes 1 small pitcher

All about the bucket

Thank you to my SIL Susie for having this cool bucket in her home!

One of the things that Dana and I have noticed about being sparkly Queen of the Castle moms who happen to make a lot of our food and cleaning supplies from scratch, is that if we say that we order pure goat milk soap from this awesome homeschooling family in Pennsylvania, people will automatically assume that we’re crunchy. Or if I talk about canning jam and baking bread, or Dana talks about homemade deodorant—maybe this one most of all—we can almost see the mental eye roll.

There is nothing wrong with being crunchy. But we aren’t. We both drank a Diet Coke on Sunday.

Our approach is more big picture. We accept that there are only so many days in the week and so many hours in the day. We don’t want to be tied down to our sewing machines and stoves and ovens and laundry trees for most of our day. There are for sure times when we cut corners, from Happy Meals to Maybelline mascara. Sometimes for the convenience and sometimes because the homemade stuff flat doesn’t work.

This is the way we see it. A Diet Coke is not going to kill anyone. Shampoo with pthalates is not going to kill anyone. A juice box or applesauce with artificial sweeteners is not going to kill anyone. Wearing lipstick with lead on a big night out is not going to kill anyone. But when we start piling Diet Cokes on top of shampoo on top of juice boxes on top of lead lipstick every day, then the danger piles up too. If that’s all we eat or drink every day, then we are living a pretty toxic lifestyle. And that is not crunchy drama. That is scientific fact. You can double check me here and here.

So we think of our intake like a bucket and we watch what we put in there. We try very hard to make sure that we are not putting toxins in our bucket. And when we do, we try to make sure that we balance that with something that we know will act as a cleaner in our system. We drink lots of water. We read labels. We don’t keep soda in our homes. We make our food from scratch whenever possible and we’ve taught our kids to believe that homemade treats from scratch say we love them way more than any store bought cake ever could.

Just kidding. Kate had a store bought Frozen cake from Stater Bros for her birthday and it was good, scary blue frosting and all.

What we’re fighting here is accumulation. We don’t want to accumulate toxins in our bodies. That’s why we visualize the bucket because it helps us see what’s in there. If we drank soda and Starbucks and ate GMO and fast food every single day—and lots of people do—then our buckets would be full of chemicals and toxins and hormones. We don’t want that, not with our family histories of cancer. If we eat fresh food, organic food, homemade food and low salt food, then our buckets are not as full and they kind of get bigger too. Think about it: one mini-Snickers, or a whole half pint of fresh, ripe, sweet raspberries.

Lots of times, I have chosen the Snickers. Just not every time, or even every three times. We each have a guilty confession, too. Mine is non-dairy creamer, vanilla flavor. Which is straight up fake. And yes, I’ve tried making my own, and I’ve tried half and half and even heavy cream and it just isn’t the same and yes, I need it. Dana’s is that she uses Cascade dishwasher detergent and Finish, because the homemade stuff makes the dishes look awful and she has a discerning mother-in-law.

Our point is that we aren’t perfect when it comes to this healthy lifestyle thing, but we know our environment is dirty and big corporations are not looking out for us, so we have to balance the crap we can’t control with good stuff that we can. We aren’t judging anyone else and we try not to preach.

Although, I may need to work on this part because just a few weeks ago my dad turned to me in exasperation and said “I’m 68! I don’t care anymore!”

Fair enough.

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