The Follow Up

After a meal like yesterday's, where the meat is so good I want to suck the marrow out from the bones, I try to cook down the leftovers, extract whatever flavor might be left. I did it last week with some pork chops we didn't document. And I'm doing it with the rib remnants of last night. I chopped up an onion, threw in a bay leaf, cut a few springs of rosemary and thyme (growing on the deck) and salt and pepper. I did make the mistake of adding garlic. I personally find it makes the broth too bitter when I add raw garlic this early in a long simmer, but Jake thinks it tastes fine. Because of the extra bitter I compensated with some shallot salt today, which seems to balance it tolerably.

One item has facilitated this semi regularly stock cooking. And that's the crock pot. This crock pot particularly, with it's multiple inserts is great. I deliberated between this or a timed pot, the ideal device would be both. For two people we rarely need anything that's five or more quarts, but having the option is great. I've regretted it a few times in the last eight months, but not as many times as I've told myself I'm a genius.

The stock from last Saturday's pork chops, after about 15 hours of simmering with an onion and sage, rosemary, and thyme. After simmering I made a fantastic soup out of it. In leftover bacon grease (from Sunday's breakfast) I cooked some turkey meatballs*. cut some fresh corn, shelled some fresh peas, uh, some dried peppers, tomato puree, more generic 'italian' seasonings (pasta sprinkle). It all melded together beautifully. The total amount of extra work might have totaled ten minutes, counting putting it in single serving tupperware and not counting the multiple tastings and marveling at my own awesomeness.

From a few bones, and a minor amount of work, I got four additional meals!

Even more, after the soup, since I only used half of the ground turkey, and a third of the can of tomatoes, I made a tomato sauce of delectable which turned into a dinner a few days later.

I'm not sure yet what to do with the stock I'm making tonight. I'm rather leaning towards a rice or orzo dish, we'll see. Regardless, I'm sure it'll be delicious.



*turkey meatballs
ground turkey
pork chop seasoning
minced garlic & onion
shallot salt (which is ungodly amazing and probably deserves a post devoted just to it's awesomeness)
pepper
splash of red wine