Homemade Chicken Stock

I love making my own stock. I usually do this every four or so months, and it takes me along till the next time I have a chance to make a batch. You can use either chickens or turkey with this recipe. I use chicken in this particular tutorial. This stock can be used for cooking or as a base for your own homemade soup!



Ingredients:
~ carcass of a chicken or turkey - some meat still attached is preferable to a cleanly picked one
~ three or four carrots
~ three stalks of celery
~ onion
~ bay leaves
~ parsley - fresh is best but dried works
~ thyme - fresh is best but dried works
~ rosemary - fresh is best but dried works
~ optional - oregano - fresh is best but dried works
~ pepper corns
~ salt

Equipment:
~ large stock pot
~ big wooden spoon
~ large colander
~ small mesh strainer
~ two big bowls
~ measuring cup
~ ladle
~ muffin tin

First wash all the vegetables and herbs that need to be washed. I do not peel my carrots for this, but you can if you would like. Chop the vegetables into large pieces. Do not make the vegetables too small as they will mush up too soon and cloud the stock too much.



When I made stock this time, I had more than just the carcass of the bird from the night before. I happened to buy four chickens that shopping trip because they were on such a great sale. I broke the other chickens into parts for other meals, but I had backbones and internals left from the other chickens. If you only have a cooked carcass, please skip down to the picture of the cooking onions.



If this is the case for you, warm a little oil in your stock pot, remove the parts and pat dry. Place them skin side down in the pan and brown them up. This not only adds flavor to the pot but also will render out some of the extra fat from the backs. This is a traditionally fatty part of the chickens.





Once all the backs are browned, take them out of the pan. CAREFULLY drain out some of the chicken fat, leaving a little bit for starting on the onions. DO NOT drain the fat down your sink! If you did not have any raw pieces you can skip cooking the onions and just place them in the pot with everything else without any oils. Start the onions in the oil until they begin to sweat.





If you are just using a cooked carcass, throw everything into your pot. If you are with us from the cooking and rendering part, please throw all the other vegetables and cooked carcass into the pot. I also threw in the hearts and necks from the innards. I am not a big fan of using the livers however as I think it makes the stock look dark.



Fill the pot with as much water as is feasible. Remember that this is going to be simmering for a long time, and the water will evaporate out. You want to make this worth your time and not have to add more water during cooking.



Add a half teaspoon of pepper corns and two teaspoons of salt. You can add less if you like. I usually just eyeball this and tend to err toward the side of less is best. You can always add more salt later. Bring the mixture up to a light simmer. It should be bubbling constantly but not violently. As it cooks for the first 30 minutes or so, a scum will start to form. Scrape off the foam from the top of the liquid and discard. If you do not do this, the end stock will be dark and cloudy.



When the stock evaporates off enough to feasibly put a lid on the pot, do so. There may be a dark ring left from the scum that you did not manage to get off of the top. Leave it on the side of the pan, do not scrape it in.



Continue simmering for a few hours with the lid on. I usually simmer mine for three or so hours stirring it around once in a while when I think of doing it. It will start to cook down quite a bit. The meat should be floating freely in the liquid and the vegetable should also become quite soft after a few hours. The stock should also be a nice yellow color. When it reaches this point, turn off the pot and let it cool slightly.



Once it is cool enough to easily handle, but not totally cold, strain out all the big pieces by pouring through the colander into one of the big bowls. I usually gently press on the contents of the colander to extract any trapped juices. Don't mash too hard or you will end up with vegetable pulp in the stock. Discard the contents of the colander.



Next, pour the liquid from this bowl through the metal mesh strainer into the second clean bowl.



This should remove all the stems from the herbs, small bone chips, and other floating material. Discard. Some people do this through cheese cloth for a better filter.



Place the stock into the refrigerator and cool the stock completely. The fat will rise to the top, and when it cools, it will form a filmy layer at the top of the bowl. The stock in the bottom will be very gelatinous like jello. This is just fine as the natural gelatin from the bones have been cooked into the water.



Scrape the top layer of fat off with a spoon and discard. Do not put this down the drain of your sink! It should come off easily without taking much of the stock from underneath.



If you are making soup, you can just reheat the stock and add any water you want if you would like a less thick stock. If you are planning to cook with the stock, I then take it and portion it out into a muffin tin and freeze it into "hockey pucks." Warm up the stock until it is mobile and liquid enough to pour it into a muffin pan.



Most standard muffin pans will hold around a third of a cup of stock in each section. Once they are frozen solid, and they will still be a bit slimy and seem unfrozen, place the pan bottom into a little hot water to loosen up the pucks. Remove the pucks and place them into a freezer lock bag and place that back into the freezer. Whenever you need some chicken stock, you can just pull out as many third of a cup pucks as you need!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on stock making! Happy cooking!

Jozef's Birthday Presents - The Crinkly Owl

I am always stumped as to what to make for really young children that are no longer infants but are also not big enough for all out toys. Looking over the internet for inspiration and ideas, I ran across this great tutorial by Susan Beal for a crinkly, crackly owl toy It was a great toy and easy to make. I did it basically in a few hours. I used her pattern as a jumping off point and put my own little spins on it.



Here is the front of my owl all pinned together and waiting to be appliqued together.



Getting his back contrasts put together



The owl gets his wings!



Oh No! Look out owl! Here comes the iron for one good last pressing!



And here he is all stuffed with crackly recycled shopping bags and fiberfill. This tutorial was great and easy to follow. I made mine much more involved by giving him wings and also appliqueing the eyes, nose, and feet on. In the tutorial you just sew them on using felt rather than fraying cotton cloth. She also suggests the possibility of using buttons for the eyes, but Jozef is only one, so cloth only for him. I hope you all go and check out her tutorial and perhaps even her book. If you have seen the book or read it, what did you think?

Tutorial - Tea Cozy

A few years ago, my husband and I went to visit friends up in Minnesota. During our visit, we had tea in the afternoon as is habit around their house and with me as well. One thing I noticed when we were there was the beautiful tea set they used. In order to keep the tea warm, they used a tea cozy for the pot that did not fit with the rest of the matched pieces. I decided then to be on the look out for some fabric that would match to make a tea cozy for them. I finally found it and decided to make a tutorial to go with my making of this surprise gift for them. So, without further adieu here is my tutorial with notes on how I would have improved the project if I make one again in the future

Tea Cozy Tutorial

Materials needed:
~ ruler
~ scissors and if you would like a circular cutter
~ circle cutter or 6.5 inch circle template
~ 3/4 of a yard of cloth
~ something to make your pattern with, I used pattern ease, you can use paper or interfacing as well
~ needles and pins
~ marking pencil
~ button or velcro
~ batting or fiber fill



First, prepare your fabric by washing and drying it according to the care directions. This not only helps to prevent shrinkage of the finished project but it also helps to remove the finishing chemicals that may remain on the fabric. Next, make your pattern pieces. I was trying to guestimate the right size for the cozy, so I made the bottom a 6.5 inch circle, so it would have a half inch seam allowance built in. The side pieces are constructed like an arch way. The bottom of the arch I made was 10 inches. The height of the arch at the highest point was 8 inches. I made the straight side portions four inches before I began the arched top. I drew this by hand and eyeballed what I thought looked right, then folded the piece in half and cut them to be exactly the same on both sides to eliminate any differences in the curves.



Next, I placed my pattern piece over the fabric to see if I had designs that I liked on the outside pieces. You will need to cut four side pieces over all. If you wanted, you could use plain colored cotton on the inside, but I decided to just use the same material for the inside and outside.



After you have the four side pieces cut, you will need to cut two circular bottom pieces. I used a circle cutter, and I highly recommend spending the money to get the Olfa circle cutter. I don't know how I got by with out it now that I own one.



Here are my pieces grouped together. I am showing the outsides, or the pieces that will be seen when the cozy is assembled. I chose to put pieces of the fabric that had more bright highlights on the outside, and the dimmer pieces to the inside. NOTE: if you are using batting, you will need to cut two side pieces and one bottom piece of that now as well.

Next, place the pieces right sides together. Do this for the bottom and both sides. NOTE: IF you are using the batting, place the batting on one of the wrong sides of the fabric for the side pieces and the bottom as well. Pin the pieces together.



Sew the side pieces together starting with a quarter of the flat bottom side, up the straight edge side, the curved edge, down the other straight side, and part way across the flat bottom side, leaving three or four inches open in the middle of the bottom edge. I used a quarter of an inch seam allowance for the side pieces. Make sure that you pull the pins out before they reach your needle on the machine.



Clip the curved edge so that it will lay flat when turned right side out. Make sure that you also do not clip too close to the stitching so that it does not pull though the stitch line. Repeat these steps for the other side. Also, sew the bottom in the same manner, leaving an inch or so open so you can turn it right sides out. For the bottom, I used a half inch seam allowance. NOTE: in the picture below, I did not sew the bottom as you should. Please do make sure that you sew the bottom edge leaving a three or four inch opening in the middle for turning the piece right side out.



Turn the pieces right side out and iron them so the seams lay flat.



I top stitched the pieces in a darker color thread as decoration. I did a fourth of an inch seam on the sides. IF YOU ARE USING FIBERFILL, DO NOT TOP STITCH THE BOTTOM OF THE SIDES PIECES AND DO NOT TOP STITCH THE BOTTOM CIRCLES YET.

If you are using velcro, just sew one side of the velcro to the inside of each side piece of your cozy. Make sure that they will line up with each other.

If you are using a button, measure one side piece to find the middle. From there make a marking that will be big enough for your button to fit through, making sure that you center the mark on the center line of the side.



Sew in your button hole either by hand or machine.



If you used batting, skip this step and the next step.

IF YOU ARE USING FIBERFILL stuff the sides and bottom so that they are slightly full, but not bumpy. In the next picture, the bottom is totally open on my sides. This is something I learned in making my cozy that was not really necessary. I ended up needing to slip stitch the entire bottom of both sides closed. If you leave just a small, 3 or 4 inch opening, you can stuff the sides easily and not have to do as much slip stitching. Stuff the bottom circle piece as well. Once the sides and bottom are stuffed, I then pushed down on them to try to flatten out the fiberfill as much as possible to take the loft out.



Turn the edges of the opening under and pin. Slip stitch the openings closed. If you want, now you may top stitch the bottom of the sides and the bottom circle.

Now that your pieces are filled with either batting or fiberfill and are all turned right side out and top stitched if you want, now is time for the quilting. I found trying to hand quilt my pieces that I filled with fiberfill was nearly impossible, so I opted for machine quilting. Feel free to try hand on your pieces or machine. Really do whatever is most comfortable for you. I used a slightly lighter blue thread to outline the fruit and flowers. It took a little doing to get over some of the thicker areas of the fiberfill, and I think I would try a thick batting next time, but the fiberfill really did work fine, and I did not want to buy a package of batting just for this project.



Next, with right sides together, whip stitch the bottom to the side pieces. I had an overlap of a half inch on the sides. I also whip stitched the sides together up two inches.





Turn the tea cozy right side out. If you used velcro, you are finished! If you are using a button, attach your button to the inside of the piece opposite your button hole.



Button the sides together, and you are done! Now make some tea in your pot and use your cozy to keep it warm and toasty.



I hope this keeps you all busy while I am away visiting my sister next week. I will return to writing when I get back at the beginning of February. I still have a lot to do to get ready to go. I wanted to make some napkins to match the cozy out of the left over fabric today, so Dan can mail it off for me tomorrow. I also have to do the laundry and pack for the trip as well as a little house cleaning before I go. I wish you all creative thoughts and fun times while I am gone and look forward to hearing from people on their tea cozy adventures!

Finished Brenna's Present Part One

Here is the long entry that I have been promising. I made a felt board for my niece, Brenna, this year for her birthday. I hope that she gets a kick out of it. I had so much oddly relaxing fun making it. I did learn a few things along the way, mainly that I tend to go overboard with my projects and that crafting while on cold meds is not a good option for me.

So I got this idea from, well where else, the internet. After looking at several free design pages, I decided to strike out on my own. I got the letter and number templates from a wonderful book by Phyllis and Noel Fiarotta called A B C 1 2 3 Craft Book.



That book in and of itself was a gift for Brenna's younger sister Claudia last Christmas. I went and looked up letter sets for display boards, and cut that many of each letter. I did some as capital letters and others as lower case letters. I also cut out all the numbers and made a signs for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as well as the bar for under the problems.



To make this all easy on me, I copied the letters on paper first and then used that as a template to cut around on the felt. I used the smallest rotary cutter by Olfa. It worked really well for this. I could almost act like the cutter was a pencil and just draw around the templates.



After cutting out all the letters and numbers, I decided she needed shapes to play with as well. So I got out a set of plastic Tangograms, and used those as templates for geometric shapes. I cut them out of every color of the rainbow and also included black and white. Along with the triangles, square, and parallelograms, I also got out the new trusty circle cutter and made some circles.



I then ironed out my fabric. I chose a green frog fabric, so that this board can eventually be handed down from Brenna to Claudia and then the youngest Craig without care about being too girly. I cut the frog fabric into an 20 by 13 inch rectangle. I also cut the same size of blue felt out of the left over felt from last year's over purchase of felt.



I wanted to make pockets on the back for her to put the letters and shapes. I tried to figure out how big to make them. I was working on cold medicine at the time and was not thinking too straight. I was underestimating the pile of letters, numbers, and shapes that were amassed in a gigantic army waiting to be unleashed on the felt board. I ended up cutting four 6 by 8.5 inch rectangles to make into pockets. I also made a flap to snap closed on the pouch. Those were shaped like home base on a baseball field. They measured 5 by 2 by 4 inches. 5 being the flat edge and 4 being the triangle edges. I also wanted to line the insides and decided to keep with the blue and green theme, so I went into the fabric bins and found some great plain blue cotton fabric.



I then edged the sides of the pockets and the top edges of the flaps on the serger.



This is where things got a bit silly. I tried to set the snaps and was not thinking. I placed the snaps into both sides with out measuring. The next day when I got down to work a little more clear headed and less sick, I realized my mistake. The snaps ended up making the flaps a little over an inch too far from the pockets. I ended up getting more of the blue fabric out and adding an edging to the pockets. I really liked how they ended up turning out. I then sewed them to the back fabric.



I then decided that I did not want a flimsy board. This board needed some body to it. I decided to add some left over fun foam to the inside. I glued a blue and a green piece back to back with each other. This way I could make sure that they would not show through any of the fabric; I would place the blue side to the blue felt and the green side to the frog fabric.



I then sewed the blue and green together on three sides, then inserted the foam, then finished off the other side. I got some yellow quilt biding that was left over from the puppet theater project and edged the board in that. If you need to know how to place quilt binding onto something with the mitered corners, Heather Bailey has a great tutorial here. I then realized that the letters, numbers, and shapes had really gotten too large for the pockets I had made. I went on to make some pouches to hold them all. I figured that she can use the pouches for storage, and distribute some to the pockets when she is going to be mobile in the car or on a plane ride to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Here it is all finished.





I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Hopefully it gives you some ideas for your present making. If you love this idea but just don't have the time or inclination to make one, there are some sellers of this type of craft on Etsy.