Chey’s Lounge

The stock. I made it yesterday. What a saga, honestly. To make a long story short, I bought three chicken backs and thought I had frozen bone in chicken thighs at home. I had boneless, skinless breasts. I was like shoot. So after much deliberation, I went to the store at 8 a.m. Saturday morning looking for more. They didn’t have any, so I got feet and necks. I got home and when I started prepping, I washed the backs and feet and it was fine, albeit a little weird since it was my first time handling feet. I went to wash the necks and they fucking smelled. I’ve never gotten necks, so after some Googling I called my mom and my dad said don’t do it. So, I chucked the necks. That was a lot, but oh well. I was not in the mood to go back out, I’m sure it was kinda crazy. So I made do with 3 backs and a pack of feet. I brought them to a boil and tried to skim the scum as well as I could. I eventually added the veggies, aromatics, idk. I used carrot, celery, onion, leek, garlic, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, some salt, and peppercorns. Oh, I also added a splash of apple cider vinegar to help, like idk, get the stuff off? I let it simmer for like 3-4 hours and then strained it. I didn’t use a cheesecloth bc I didn’t want to. I put the stock in 2 bowls and put them outside to cool. 

Today, after ultimately spending the night in the fridge, I scraped the fat off the top to the best of my abilities. It was pretty gelatinous, so I think I did pretty well. Trying not to think about the amount of foot juice I’m working with. After scraping off the fat, I needed to clean and chop the veggies. I used potato, turnip, parsnip, carrot, celery, leek, onion, a little ginger, garlic, flat & Italian parsley, dill, salt, and pepper. Sometimes I’ll add turmeric to my soups. Not this time, the color is appealing enough on its own, didn’t feel like I needed it. I used 3 chicken breasts bc that’s what I had and in my mind I was committed to using what was in the freezer, so I did. I started by cooking them in the pot I was planning on using before quickly sautéing the vegetables. I seasoned them with just salt, pepper, and paprika. No real reason, just felt like it. I used a decent amount of the stock from the day before and I didn’t add any water. Just didn’t feel right to me. I ended up making latkes too because I made apple butter again last night. I’m not ready to talk about it yet, so I guess I’ll end it here for now, LOL. Snow day tomorrow!