Cooking LOTS of chicken

     A few days ago I decided to cook a bunch of chicken and when I was all done I decided this might be a good thing to share on the blog! 

     A few months back there was this GREAT sale on chicken leg quarters (where the leg and thigh are still attached to each other).  They were selling this 10 lb. bag of chicken leg quarters for... I think it was  maybe 69 cents a pound!! CHEAP!  So I bought it thinking I would cook it someday I had time.  Well a few days ago I finally did!

     The first thing I did was rinse and dry all the chicken.  Then I put them all on foiled lined and oil sprayed cookie sheets ( easier clean up).  After that I salted and peppered both sides of each leg and then roasted them for around 50m to 1hr. at 350 degrees.  When they were all done we each had one for dinner with some peas and potatoes!! :)  But after that, I took all the skin and bones and put them in a stock pot and put all the chicken in another bowl ( I pulled it apart as I went so I didn't have to chop it up later).  I covered the bones and skin with water ( DON'T FORGET to add 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar, it gets the really good gelatiny stuff out of the bones) and let them boil for a very long time, ( I would normally do this in a crock pot up to 24 hours, then to the stock pot to condense the broth, but there was to many bones etc. to fit in my big crock this time!)  I let it boil/simmer for a long while, then I strained out the big bones and stuff into another bowl, then I used a even finer strainer one more time for some of the tiny stuff.  I put that bowl in the fridge over night so the fat would rise and somewhat harden.  This makes it easier to remove in my opinion.  What is left over is this rich almost gelatin chicken broth full of nutritional goodness!!!

     After you've got all the fat scraped off, ladle this into the smaller sized freezer ziplock bags ( don't forget to label the bags first, much easier this way:).   I used four cups for each bag.  You can push the bag down into a cup to make it easier to fill if your doing this alone.  Then I put them on a cookie sheet and froze them in the deep freeze.  And there you have it, homemade chicken broth!

     Then as you can see above, I separated out the chicken into 6 two cup bags and froze them too!!  Now I have some great items ready to make my life easier for meal for the next few weeks!  I have already done chicken noodle soup!  I used left over noodles from last nights dinner that I just put in a ziplock with alittle olive oil to keep them from gumming up.  Then I added a can of green beans, some pre-cut carrots that I froze this fall,  my broth and chicken alittle salt and pepper!  Instant YUMO!!  Hope you give this a try, it's been a blessing for this house!!