Sunday Kitchen Mash-Up
Do you save jars? This is one of the reasons they are a must for me. We make percolator coffee on the weekends, and I save any that remains in jars to enjoy for breakfast during the week. This weekend, I ended up with these two bottles full, plus a smaller one as well. If this runs out before the end of the week, the French Press makes what I need to get me through.
Stock is another reason to keep jars on hand. Most things that go on in my kitchen involve multi-tasking ingredients. I knew I would need some stock to make chili and also knew I needed to make dog food. Chicken leg quarters were $1.79 per pound, so the skinless meat from two made it into the chili. The rest of the tray was used for stock. I make my stock in two stages. For the first, it's the bones, carrots and celery. Then I pick extra meat off the bones and set that aside with the mushy veggies., which then go into dog food. To finish the stock, I put the bones back in along with some onion. Onion is toxic for dogs, so I save that for after I cull the scraps for my girl.
The tray of chicken I bought was large, so the meat and skin from four leg quarters was cut up and put in with the small batch of liver. The other two legs (minus skin) were cut up for the batch of chili I made for dinner. Then I set the stock on its way.
Once the stock had cooked through its first phase, I dumped the discarded meat bits, carrots, and celery, into a bowl and mixed in the chicken and liver batch from the small crock. I measured in another teaspoon of calcium for the chicken and the gave it a good mix, plus a half cup of old-fashioned oats. What I ended up with should last us for about five days.
I ended up with four quart bags of the liver mix. This will need to be combined with two pounds of cooked meat each. This will mean my next few batches will be easier to make. I'll just shop for deals on "Use Today or Freeze" meat to work with. Frankie's food gets its own section in our kitchen fridge. We also have a chest freezer, which I am trying to work through because lots of stuff becomes a mystery. My latest tactic was to get a label maker, so I won't have more adventures in misidentification of whatever is frozen.
Frankie is very helpful when it comes to clean-up. But she is a real pest while the crockpot is going. Especially when it's something super smelly like liver! But I love this little girl to bits and cooking for her is making her super healthy. It's work, but it's worth it -- and I've learned to keep it low cost too. So, we all win.
And apropos of nothing...
Today was a theme dressing day. I am a Buffalo Bills football fan, and we have a big game against the Kansas City Chiefs. That means almost everyone in Western NY is wearing either team gear, or team colors. For my jewelry, I went with diamond and ruby earrings, plus small gold hoops in my second piercing, plus a small heart-shaped ruby pendant with a DIY strand of glass pearls.
And as an aside note... this is how I keep the arms of my sweater together when I wear it over my shoulders. I rubber band the wrists together, then fold them up over it. This was a great thrift find -- $3 cashmere, made for Lord and Taylor. I love The Bills, and I love cashmere!
Looking very colourful in team colours - great tip with regards the hair band! I hope your team won.
ReplyDeleteAhhh...freezer roulette, I know it well! x
It was heartbreak for us last night -- we lost!
DeleteI have managed to make my way half way through the freezer. Going to need to come up with a better organizational system going forward.
And for sone reason, Blogger isn't letting me change from Anonymous....