Remember Grandma’s Kitchen?

(By Cari)
After a long hard day of working or playing on the farm in the winter, there was always a filling soup or stew and some hot-from-the-oven bread on the table. Or, maybe I just dreamt it, but there should have been some soup at that table!
Gourmet soup doesn’t have to cost a bundle, and it can be very nutritious. The base of a good soup is always a yummy broth or stock. Want to be thrifty and nutritious? Make some bone broth.
Many recipes call for starting with 4 pounds of raw bones-some marrow bone, some knuckle bone, and some meaty neck or rib bones. In a perfect world we’d have all the ingredients, but in my world, thriftiness is the mother of invention. Leftover bone from a beef or pork roast? What about a ham bone (my personal favorite)? Or a chicken, game hen, or turkey carcass? Even a fish carcass will make for some yummy soup. Any of those will work, or if you are in a hurry combine them together, it’ll still taste good!
If you’d like to follow the recipe, become good friends with your butcher. Can you believe that most butchers throw away their bones? Make arraignments to pick them up once or twice a week, and you may end up with more bones than you know what to do with! Be prepared to educate your friends and your neighbors about bone stock.
The secret to additional nutrition is the addition of ½ cup of vinegar for every gallon of water. Vinegar pulls the nutrients from the bone and into your stock. It makes an interesting science project for the kids, too. Once the broth is all cooked you can see the matrix of the bone which is great for anatomy lessons. At the end, the vinegar has cooked off and all you taste is lovely meaty goodness.
To begin your soup base, put all of your bones in a large stockpot or crock-pot. Be sure that any raw meaty bones have been roasted ahead of time in a 350 degree oven until brown. Cover the bones with water and add ½ cup of vinegar, soak for one hour. At the end of the hour, throw in a couple of chopped onions, a couple of sliced ribs of celery, and some carrots. The amount doesn’t matter, and neither does it matter if they are limp. This is a good time to use of those veggies that have been neglected at the back of the drawer. Leeks, garlic, and greens also taste lovely and add nutrition. Then simmer for 12-24 hours, or if fish just 2 hours is enough. Many recipes will ask you to simmer longer, but I’ve found that more than 24 hours and the broth begins to take on an “off” taste. There’s nothing worse than all that work going to waste. During the simmering process, scrape off any scum that rises to the surface. Once finished, strain your broth through a fine mesh or cheesecloth and discard the solids. Any marrow left in the bones can be fed as a yummy treat to any furry carnivores you have sniffing about. Refrigerate the stock until the fat rises to the surface, then either discard or render the fat for soap making. Your broth will have a gelatin appearance when cold because it’s chock full of nutrition. Never fear, it will become a lovely liquid again as soon as it is warmed.
Stock will keep in the refrigerator for several days or can be frozen in either plastic or glass without shoulders (being sure to leave room for expansion).

It’s time to make soup! This is the time to use up any leftovers. Quite often, I make up my own recipe as I go, but maybe you want to use Grandma’s recipe? Using ingredients found in your kitchen garden, your soup will soon be gourmet. Even in the dead of winter, thyme and rosemary poke their little heads up through the snow. Basil and sage, saved from a summer garden, also makes a yummy addition. You now have the foundation to a delicious, nutritious, illness fighting wonder food. It tastes good, too.