by jphilo | Mar 23, 2016 | Recipes
I’ve been making chicken broth for years by boiling the chicken carcass in a big stock pot. But my daughter recently showed me how to make very flavorful broth in a slow cooker overnight. What could be simpler? Not much as this recipe shows, which works equally well with turkey.
Slow Cooker Chicken Broth
Place the carcass of a roasted or slow cooked chicken carcass, including skin and bones, in the slow cooker. Add pan juices and brown bits scraped from the bottom of the roasting pan. Fill the slow cooker with water. Throw in an onion (quartered), three stalks of celery cut into 3 inch lengths (include the leaves), and 6 garlic cloves (halved). It will look a little gross.
Put the lid on the pot, turn it on low and let it cook overnight. In the morning, run the contents of the slow cooker through a strainer into two large bowls. Allow the broth to cool. Pour into pint freezer bags. Seal and lay the bags flat on cookie sheets. Place cookie sheets in freezer until the broth is solid. Remove bags from cookie sheets, stack and keep in freezer until needed. Makes 8–10 pints of broth.
by jphilo | Nov 4, 2014 | Top Ten Tuesday
November is such an awkward, unlovely child with it’s chilly days and long nights. Even so, here are ten reasons to love this hard-to-love month.
10. The chances of being bitten by a rattlesnake are low.
9. It’s a good time to rearrange the living room and sweep the insect corpses that have been hiding under the furniture since the Man of Steel discovered the bee hive in the AC unit a while back.
8. Turkey prices go way down. Good for humans. Bad for turkeys.
7. The trees that still have leaves look so courageous, hanging onto their foliage with all their woody might.
6. Morning walks are lighter for a few weeks once Daylight Savings Time kicks in.
5. Outdoor plants moved inside to winter over give the house a safely-tucked-in-bed feeling.
4. Every once in a while God offers up a gloriously warm, calm, and sunny day.
3. In case you haven’t yet heard, The Caregiver’s Notebook released this November. What’s not to love about that?
2. It’s time to make pie.
1. Thanksgiving with the family, eating great food, playing board games, and hugging our grandson!
What do you like best about November? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Jun 2, 2011 | Recipes
Today’s recipe is a winner on summer evenings when it’s too hot to cook. It requires some specific ingredients, which you can experiment with to get a taste you like. But the really secret ingredient is the 1950s era Sunbeam electric skillet picked up at a garage sale over 25 years ago.
My kids say perfect grilled sandwiches and pancakes require this specific skillet. My mother had a Sunbeam skillet, and her kids thought it was the best skillet ever – which explains why I snapped up my nearly identical one at that garage sale years ago. It also explains why Anne claimed her grandma’s old skillet when Mom broke up housekeeping a few years ago. (Sorry, you can’t borrow either one, but there’s hope for those who like eBay and garage sales.)
With all these disclaimers, you might be thinking about ignoring the recipe, but that would be a big mistake. Everybody who tastes these babies wants the recipe. It’s that good.
Grilled Turkey-Pesto Sandwiches
1 loaf Costco roasted garlic bread, sliced butter
1/4 – 1/3 cup basil pesto
sharp cheddar cheese, sliced
sliced smoked turkey, sliced (call Hiram if you need the recipe)
Heat the electric skillet. Cut the bread into thin slices. Butter one side of a slice. Spread the other side with pesto. Place the slice, buttered side down in the skillet. Layer cheese and turkey on the bread. Butter one side of another slice of bread. Layer it on top of the cheese and turkey, butter side up. Repeat the steps for more sandwiches. Grill until they’re golden brown on the bottom. Flip the sandwiches and grill until bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted.
