stretching and saving

On Thanksgiving evening, I cleaned all the meat from the turkey and, minus the skin, threw everything in my largest stockpot, along with a carrot and a few onions and several quarts of water, and simmered away while I cleaned up the kitchen and then relaxed with Michael.

Before bed, I poured everything through my stock pot's pasta insert into my very newest favorite large bowl - my 6 quart stainless steel mixing bowl from my business. (Hurrah for bonuses, right?) I then put the bowl in the fridge so that the fat would rise to the top.

Not the next morning, but a couple mornings later, I scooped out the fat and was faced with a giant bowl of turkey stock. I've made chicken stock in the past, and frozen it in a large gallon size bag, but then it's pretty much only good if you're using a LOT of stock, say, for chicken soup. But there are lots of recipes that call for 1 can of broth, so recently I've been freezing it in 2-cup(ish) quantities, and here's how I do it.

Fold a bag inside and out of a glass. I typically use a 2-cup measure-all but mine was dirty so I opted for a clean drinking glass. This bag is a quart size freezer bag. You can certainly reuse the bag when you empty out the stock, but I definitely recommend this size - or larger! The extra room allows for flatter storage in the tiniest of freezers.




Then I scooped in about 2 cups worth. You will notice the texture of this stock is a little wiggly. If that grosses you out, I'm sorry. It's really excellent for your health, and it melts when you heat it up a little bit - turns back to liquid. I used a 2-cup prep bowl but you could either eyeball it or use a measuring cup. I'm just having fun with all my Pampered Chef stuff. Bear with me.



Then, I folded the top up and removed the bag from the glass. Then, I squeezed out the air by folding the top like so, and labeled the bag while it was like that. I like to know which broth is turkey and which is chicken - sometimes I label it with the date, but I use a lot of broth in recipes and so I have not found that necessary.



After labeling, you can seal the bag and lay it flat. Then repeat and stack the bags on top of one another. I can easily fit 8-12 bags in one stack under the shelf in my above-the-fridge freezer. These can be thawed in the fridge or quickly under running water. You can also just take them out of the package frozen and put them in the pan for soup.

I haven't decided what I like best - saving money or knowing what is in my broth.