Nicole, Deipnosophist.

How, oh how, can I beg for people to start making their own chicken stock??  Not only is it easy and cost effective, it is delicious!

Note: all amounts are approximate.

To a large crockpot, add in this order:

bones of two chickens
4 ribs organic celery, cut into chunks (or the base of one bunch of celery stalks)
4 carrots, cut into chunks
one large or two small onions, chunked
2 t dried Mexican sweet oregano, uncrushed (optional)
10-20 black peppercorns
6-10 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
1/2 bunch fresh italian flat leaf parsley (about 1 cup)

Fill crock pot with water until barely covering ingredients.  Simmer on low for 8 hours (or high for 4), uncovered for the last half hour.  Strain through a chinoise (then strain again through cheesecloth for really clear stock…but I’m too lazy for that step!).

Organic celery is much more flavorful, so if not using organic, increase celery to 6 ribs or add 1/4 teaspoon celery seed.  I freeze this stock in 2-cup containers; 4 cups takes forever to thaw and is often too much for a non-soup recipe.  To amp up the flavor, add chicken, celery, carrots, onions in the crock pot insert and roast in a 450F oven for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and roasty-smelling.  Remove from oven; allow to cool, then proceed with recipe as written.  If the container is not cooled before adding water, the cold water could crack your insert.

To keep this as cheap as possible, I have a big container in my freezer into which I throw chicken bones until full.  I almost always buy whole chickens for economy (free-range organic is expensive!!), but if you’re using bones from thighs, wings, etc, it can take a while to have enough bones for a batch.  If my carrots/celery are starting to look less than fresh, I’ll throw them in the freezer too.  I make stock when I have enough rejects to fill the crockpot.

This stock is not only more flavorful than store-bought, it contains much more collagen- which makes the mouthfeel more velvety and recipes will require less fat as a result.

Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 8 hours
Taste:
Ease:

After the annual carving, my friend Amy and I were lamenting (greenies that we are) that so many gourds are wasted on just being decorative. Well, my pumpkins supplied the seeds for the following recipe. If you like popcorn or roasted nuts, you will LOVE these:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Under cold running water, in a colander, rinse

Seeds from at least one large pumpkin

to remove all pulp. While still in the colander, drizzle seeds with about

2 tablespoons peanut oil

and stir to coat. Place parchment paper/Silpat on a rimmed baking sheet. Spread seeds in a single layer over the sheet. If you have too many seeds, use more than one sheet or bake in batches. Sprinkle seeds with

1-2 teaspoons kosher salt (to taste).

Bake for 10-20 minutes or until toasty GBD (golden brown and delicious). Try not to burn your fingers while you wolf them down!!!
If you use cooking spray (but it’s more expensive and less environmentally friendly), you can just spray the seeds after spreading them on the parchment. It is very important to use kosher, not table salt; it is very easy to oversalt with the fine granules of table salt.
Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Total time: 30-45 minutes

Taste
Ease

Do you buy chili powder? STOP!! You can make it very easily and just wait until you see the cost:
2-3 dried chipotles
2-3 dried red chillies (dried cayennes will work too)
1/4 cup whole cumin
10 black peppercorns
2 teaspoons kosher salt

Heat your smallest skillet over medium high heat. Add the cumin and peppercorns. Roast, stirring frequently, until the aroma hits your nose or you see one wisp of smoke (usually takes 3-4 minutes with a nice hot pan). Remove from heat; pour into a shallow bowl and allow to cool.
Using a coffee grinder, grind the dried chipotles until chunks are nearly powdered. Some whole seeds will remain. Add and grind the chillies. Add the cumin, peppercorns, and salt; grind all ingredients until powdered. This mixture will remain fresh for 6 months sealed in a dark, cool place.

This is my recipe built by trial and error. It only takes 10 minutes! Don’t increase the salt because it can oversalt the final dish if you use more powder to adjust the heat level of the dish. Salt is added to this recipe to adsorb oils and absorb moisture. This recipe is smoky with balanced heat (not my usual eyebrow-scorching heat level). Use only two of each pepper if you prefer mild.

By buying ingredients at a local ethnic grocery, this recipe costs 7 cents/ounce plus energy to heat the skillet. The cheapest powder at my grocery is 49 cents/ounce. That’s SEVEN times more! In addition, this stuff is so much more delicious that you will wonder why you didn’t switch sooner! Make double batches and use it for chili, fajitas, salsa, and cornbread. A coarser grind makes a great grill rub for flank steak or spareribs.

As for cleaning the coffee grinder, I use this method for lots of seasonings, so I have a dedicated grinder. If you don’t, just wash the lid thoroughly, then buzz the grinder with some baking soda and/or stale coffee.

Do NOT use a nonstick skillet for this, as it can produce toxic fumes.

Cost: $0.56
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes

Taste:
Ease:

While many people think that fruitcake is disgusting, that is because they have been eating the tripe made in a grocery store- or the kind with that sticky, food-coloring soaked, preserved fruit that looks like gummi worms. Talk about gilding a lily.

Real fruitcake, the good stuff, is delicious. It’s baked low and slow, it’s more fruit than batter, and best of all: it’s soaked in alcohol. I have a mister filled with apple brandy and Maker’s Mark that I use to mist the cake daily. For even more infusion, place a shot glass in the hole in the middle of the cake and fill it with bourbon. As with all recipes using alcohol, don’t use the cheap stuff: if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it. Now, I’m not using my George T. Stagg in the cake, but Maker’s is a decent whiskey that I drink on the rocks.  Here’s a picture of the fruitcake we made for our dad.

As for the recipe, it’s a family recipe. My father had a fruitcake made by my grandfather Maxey that lasted for years with proper preservation. My sister and I lamented that the recipe was gone forever. Then, for my sister’s bridal shower, our aunt gave her one of my grandmother’s cookbooks that had been unused for 15 years. My sister was very excited just to have the cookbook. Then, while turning the pages and poring over recipes, a slip of notepaper fell to the floor. It looked like a grocery list of dried fruit in our grandfather’s handwriting. Then we realized what we had: The Maxey Fruitcake Recipe.

Making the fruitcake is an annual tradition now, and we double the recipe to have enough for everyone. Serve thin slices with fresh whipped cream and Crème Noel (or egg nog if you prefer).

Oh wait… I never gave you the recipe… And I shan’t! The recipe itself is now a treasured and closely guarded secret. But Alton Brown has a great recipe that’s a close approximation.