October 23, 2011

Current Outside Temp: 41 F

What I cooked today:

Frozen Pomegranates:  We bought 22 lbs of pomegranates from Bountiful Baskets about two weeks ago, and finally, last night, finished 'processing' them.  We'd removed all the seeds (using the awesome underwater method) and today they were frozen solid enough to pack into FoodSaver bags and toss in the freezer.  What on earth am I going to do with 7 1/2 lbs of pomegranate seeds? 

Chicken Stock:  I bought a 'fryer chicken' from Albertsons this week (for $0.79 a lb!) and had to do something with it.  I used to think that chickens were just born in chunks, you know, like breasts, wings, legs, etc.  It turns out that chickens are like turkeys, born as a whole bird, and you can cut the individual pieces off!  Who knew?

Okay, I'm kidding, I knew they came as a whole bird, but I had never really done anything with a whole bird except the turkey at Thanksgiving.  And this bird was way too small to stuff and serve with mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. 

Referencing my handy 'Alton Brown: Good Eats' cookbook, I learned today how to octo-sect a chicken.  I cut the bird into all eight parts (breasts, wings, thighs and legs), and didn't do too bad of a job.   I took the breasts and the thighs and sealed them up with my foodSaver and tossed them into the freezer.  The legs and wings, and the rest of the bird, went into my 12 qt stock pot, along with an onion, a carrot and a stalk of celery.  The top went on and within about 20 minutes, all was boiling nicely. 

Of course, today we had to go into Great Falls for our weekly shopping trip, so I transferred the stock into my crock pot.  It filled the pot to the top, just shy of going over the top.  I left it simmering for about 8 hours and came home to a pot filled with beautiful homemade chicken stock!  I strained out all the 'stuff' and was left with about 12 cups of stock.  It chilled for about 2 hours in my fridge, and then I canned it.  I'm throwing the jars into the freezer, instead of pressure canning it: a) because I'm too lazy to do it tonight.  and b) because I want to read up a little more on pressure canning meat products before I subject my family to the string of bacteria that can occur.  'Alton' suggested putting it into ice cube trays, and then you can use as little or as much as you want. But I figured I'd make a mess of that.  Maybe next time!

Chicken and Noodle Soup:  Using a couple cups of my newly made stock, I tossed together some carrots, celery and onions to make a great homemade chicken soup!  I had a single 'freezer burned' chicken breast in my freezer, so that got defrosted and cooked and tossed into the soup.  Cooking up a handful of noodles, dinner was ready about 45 minutes after I walked in the door!  Patrick said the broth was awesome! 

 Update:
Today was our weekly trip into Great Falls for shopping.  It's about 40 miles in (and 40 miles out) of Great Falls, so I hate to do it more than necessary.  Since Patrick's parents are leaving on Tuesday, I thought we'd take advantage of them (again) and have them watch the kids so Patrick and I could have a date.  Of course, that date consisted of shopping, but I'll take it!  In 3 hours, we hit Big R, Walgreen's, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Smiths and Albertsons.  I worked on my weekly list of meal planning last night and I think I'm good until next Sunday. 

Tomorrow's forecast is for a high of 45 and a low of 27, which means it will be kind of cold.  Not really cold, but kind of cold.  It's also calling for rain, which means I might get to see more snow tomorrow or Tuesday morning!  It also means that at 6:45 tomorrow morning, in the dark, while I'm getting the kids ready for school, it will be cold.  Ugh, I'm not looking forward to the whining tomorrow morning: 'Mom, I'm cold, I don't want to get out of bed!'.  But, since I'm driving them in tomorrow, instead of taking the bus (Ryan has speech at 8:15), they get an extra 10 minutes!  :)

The boys have their first Basketball game tomorrow night, in Belt.  Apparently, Belt's team is really good, but we'll try our best!  I can't wait to see the boys on the court!  Stay tuned for pictures tomorrow...