#9: Stretch your Dollar Chicken Broth (slow cooker, or not)

Dear Tiff,
Chicken broth at Safeway usually costs about $2-$3 for a 1 quart container.  You can use it in all sorts of things: soups, curries, casseroles, roasts, etc.  And I'm all for buying the shortcut (the store version) if you need it and its a good price.  But making your own is incredibly easy, and costs basically nothing: you're using something you would otherwise throw away.  With the bones from last night's roast chicken, I made about 5 quarts of chicken stock- which cost me nothing beyond what I had already paid for the chicken!  That would have cost me between $10 and $15 at the store, depending on the current sale price!  I actually could've made more if I'd used my giant slow cooker- or split this between the two smaller ones- but I didn't feel like getting any more dishes dirty.


Thanks to Trent from The Simple Dollar for reminding me about this great way to stretch your dollar!


Ingredients:
the chicken bones/skin/giblets from your latest chicken adventure OR you can also use the carcass from when you cheated and bought a precooked Safeway chicken :P
some veggies: an onion and a handful of baby carrots, maybe some celery or green onion if you have them on hand
Italian seasoning
salt (optional)
water


I did mine in the crockpot because I had no desire to babysit it on the stove all day...
In fact, if you cooked your chicken in the crock pot, don't even worry about pouring out the juices and stuff.  Be sure to pick all the usable meat off first, and then dump your bones, giblets, and skin, add the veggies, and fill your pot with water.  For a lower-fat version, leave out the skin.  Let it cook on low all day, or overnight.  OR you can do it on the stove for at least 4 hours.  But honestly, who wants to be chained to their kitchen for that long if it can be avoided?


Next, remove the pot from the heating element to let it cool, scoop out the bones, strain the liquid, and store in tupperware or freezer bags.  The crockpot lady suggests running it through the blender rather than straining it- then you don't waste any meat or veggie pieces in there.  But its not essential- I don't have a blender so I just strained it and it turned out fine.


Try to stack your bags flat in the freezer (or lay them on a baking sheet in the freezer) until they are frozen; this will keep them in a more manageable shape for storage.


You can look forward to a bunch of recipes that use chicken broth as I put all this good stuff to use!