Bone Broth Marathon: Making Stock Convenient To Use

Life has been crazy.  Dad had another episode on Tuesday and I spent Wednesday at my folk’s house.  Reinforcements arrive this weekend in the form of family from out-of-state.  There’s still no diagnosis for Dad, so we have no assurance these episodes will not continue.

Concentrate Your Stock For Easy Storage

I took two gallons of the chicken stock I made and concentrated it down to about two quarts of liquid.  That is one-fourth of its original volume.  I put it into a stockpot, brought it to a boil and reduced the heat to medium.  I cooked it until reduced to the amount I wanted.  I then cooled that liquid to room temp and poured it into ice cube trays.  After a day in the freezer, I popped them out and put them into a freezer bag.

Easy Means Convenient

The result is that now when I need a small amount of stock, I can pull out a cube or two.  One ice cube is equal to about one ounce of fluid, or two tablespoons.  If I need one cup of stock, I pull out two cubes (1/4 cup or 4 Tbs), put them in my measuring cup and fill with water to the one-cup mark. You have one cup of stock without having to store the entire cup in your freezer, taking up extra space.

This is especially handy when you’re cooking something that isn’t wet and doesn’t require a long cooking time.  A good example is taco meat.  When you add your spices after browning your meat, you’re supposed to add 1/4 cup of water.  That means that normally you could only add 1/4 cup of stock instead.  However, if you use two cubes of stock in place of the water, you get the equivalent of one cup of stock into your batch of taco meat without extra cooking time or work on your part.

When I’m making rice, I put one cup of rice, 4 cubes of frozen stock and 1.5 cups of water on to boil. The cubes melt while the water comes to a boil.  This keeps me from having to remember to thaw out a bag of stock when I decide to make rice at the last minute.

What’s Cooking?

How are you getting bone broth into your diet right now?  If you’ve been reading daily, you know I’ve had a lot of soups.  Wednesday was no different.  I had chicken soup for both dinner and snack.  I’m finding the more stock I consume, the more I crave it, so soups are getting it into me the easiest way.  I really didn’t expect to start craving it.  That tells me my body needs something in the stock.  I’m happy to oblige.

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