Bone Broth (Soup Base)

Soup is so much nicer when made with a bone broth or a stock as opposed to just water.  This is how we make our bone broth.  I used to use a large stock pot on my stove top, but a crock pot is so much more efficient!  

Bones – chicken carcass, chop bones, any bones you cook that have meat on that you eat really!, or buy soup bones, even salmon bones but don’t ask me that one....

1. Put bones in crock pot, add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (this helps extract the minerals from the bones) and cover the bones with water.

2. Turn on overnight or for 8-12 hours or when bones crumble when pressed between your fingers. 

3. Let it cool. 

4. Skim fat from the top and store it in the freezer.  (It is delicious to use to fry eggs or roast veggies or oven fries.  We even cook our pizza dough tortillas in it!)

5. Drain liquid stock from bones using a sieve (bones done blend too well ... we've tired accidently!)

6. Freeze or use.

I also use, as a soup base, the water that I cook crock pot meat in such as corned silver side, roasts (I start my roasts in my c/p and put them in oven about 30 minutes before I serve it to crisp up the outside), any other meat that you cook in your crock pot that you would tip out the liquid from before serving.

* Note ...we waste almost nothing!  The bones, once cooked until I can get no more from them, are then tossed to our chickens!