I have a confession. I tend to buy carrots and celery for one particular meal and then let them go bad in the fridge waiting for that meal to make its way back on the rotation. Because that meal only called for two stalks of celery or three medium carrots. And the bags of said produce? They come with enough carrots and celery to feed a small nation.
And we’re not the type to snack on carrots and celery. Too much work required, with the peeling and cutting and washing…
So I went about searching for other recipes that use carrots and celery and here are some of my favorites:
(Ahem… here is one of my favorites. I was going to bless you with more, but neither child napped today.)
Chicken Broth
Ingredients
3 pounds bony chicken pieces (wings, backs, and/or necks) – I use the frozen leg quarters from Aldi’s at $0.79/lb
3 stalks celery with leaves, cut up
2 carrots, cut up
1 large onion, unpeeled and cut up
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried thyme, sage, or basil, crushed
1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns or 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
4 sprigs fresh parsley, or generously sprinkled with dried parsley flakes
2 bay leaves
2 garlic cloves, unpeeled and halved
6 cups cold water
- If using wings, cut each wing at joints into 3 pieces. Place chicken pieces in a 6 qt kettle. I don’t have a 6 qt kettle. I have a 12 qt kettle. It is large enough to cook a human child. Observe:
I usually double this recipe with room to spare.
- Add celery, carrots, onion, slat, thyme, peppercorns, parsley, bay leaves, garlic, and water. It feels pretty off to be adding onion skins and unpeeled carrots, but at the same time, don’t you just love the low maintenance?
- Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 2 1/2 hours.
- Strain broth. Discard veggies, remove meat from bones. Use meat in one of these recipes. Either skim fat if using broth immediately, or freeze. (It’s easier to scrape frozen fat off the top later than to bother with that whole annoying spoon method.)
Your turn: Leave a linky to your recipe post using leftover produce. Just make sure you’re not linking to your homepage. That’s a sure way to lose a good recipe.
Next week on Recipe Swap: Bread Machine Recipes.
(If you don’t have a bread machine, go ahead and leave a normal hand-made bread recipe. I’m sure there’s some way to convert it. If you happen to know of how to convert one to the other, please leave us tips in that area as well!)
(And I just happened to have stumbled across the best ever bread recipe recently. We call it Awesome Bread. So be sure to come back for it!)
What a shame if you don’t eat chicken stew first! It looks so good to me!
I can’t think of a good one! 🙁
You can also boil the remaining bones from a whole roasted chicken, instead of buying separate meat bones that you may or may not eat. And my favorite tip for broth, courtesy of my sister-in-law, if you want to simmer it for a long time (to draw out more of the gelatin from the bones, which is a health benefit of broth), you can simmer it in your crockpot all night long. Just bring it to a boil first, then turn it down to low. Thirdly (I’m a homemade broth fanatic), I like to reduce my chicken broth on the stove the next day, letting it simmer to 1/4 or 1/5 of its original volume. Then I freeze 1/4 cup portions in mini tupperwares (garage sale purchase!) and pop them in the freezer; it saves space and makes it really easy to pull out a cup’s worth of broth to use for a recipe – just add 3/4 cup water to the reduced broth (which should be gel-like), of course! Okay, I’m done with my broth rambles.
I will often times cook my chicken (split breasts, or even boneless skinless breast) and just save the water I cooked it in for broth. I pour off most of it and keep what’s left at the bottom. But I love the idea of adding the flavors with the veggies (I never use all of my celery).
I am SOOO looking forward to the bread machine recipes!