It's Chicken Broth Day!

Everything you need to make chicken broth is right here!

Last night's roasted chicken dinner is seeing a new life today. In a previous post, I mentioned how we get at least 3 meals out of one chicken to feed our family of 6. While I'm saving the shredded chicken for another night, today I am making chicken stock to freeze and use in many of the soups and other savory recipes that we'll prepare this Winter. You can read about the nutritional benefits of bone broths, such as this chicken stock here.


While I modify it a bit from time to time, my recipe for chicken broth is super simple!


1 gallon of water
1-2 chicken carcasses, picked pretty clean (I like to use 2, so I usually have one waiting in my freezer until the second carcass is ready)
1 small yellow onion, quartered
whatever veggie scraps are on hand (for us, that's usually a few carrots, celery tops, broccoli stalks or a lonely leek)


I put my chicken carcass(es) in a 7-qt. Dutch Oven, or you could use a stock pot. Fill almost to the top with water. Add in the onion and veggie scraps and turn the stove to high until the water comes to a boil. Once it begins boiling, I turn the heat down to a simmer, put a lid on it and leave it alone to simmer for a few hours. Once it's cooked down for a few hours, I turn the heat off until it's cool enough to pull out the bones and what's left of the veggies, then strain the stock from the pot.
What's left is a couple of beautiful, golden quarts of homemade chicken stock!


And when you pull it out of your freezer to make made-from-scratch soup, your family and friends will think you are a culinary genius. You don't have to tell them how incredibly simple and easy it was if you don't want to. It can be our secret.


Update: A photo of the finished product:

Just shy of 3 quarts chicken stock going into the deep freeze!

Food Stamp Challenge(Alternate Title: Stephanie is a Numbers Nerd)

"Live simply, so that others may simply live." --St. Elizabeth Seton

$31.50 per week to feed one person. That breaks down to $4.50/day or $1.50/meal, if you break it down even further. Does that even sound possible?

It's not only possible, but millions of Americans that receive food stamp benefits do this week in and week out as they feed themselves and their families. $31.50 is the average per-person weekly allowance of an American who receives food stamps. For many, these are their only food dollars, and they have to make it work.

I read an article on a local Indianapolis news website today about the Food Stamp Challenge that is going on this week across the country to help increase awareness about SNAP (food stamp) benefits and hunger in the United States. The article followed one local man who was engaged in this challenge and how he found that his food choices were limited by the $31.50/week limit for all of his food for the entire week and that he chose to eliminate breakfast in order to have enough money to eat lunch and dinner, as well as choosing less nutritious options to save pennies.

While I was unaware of the challenge, I was curious how possible it is to live on $31.50/week per person. So I pulled out our family budget to see how our family compares. Our family of six has spent slightly more than $5,000 in the first 10 months this year on groceries, also including the cost of seeds and plants for our garden, all bulk fruit and vegetable purchases for canning and freezing, 1/2 hog and 1/4 beef. We don't purchase formula or prepared baby foods, but it does take into account my extra caloric intake for nursing as well as all foods used to prepare baby food for Eliza.

If I extrapolate that $5,000 figure out for the rest of the year, we will probably spend around $6,000 this year to feed our family of 6. When I break that $6,000 figure down, it figures out to roughly $1,000 per person per year, or about $19.25 per person per week. That's $12.25 less than the $31.50 average for food stamp recipients.

Now, the $31.50 for the Food Stamp Challenge needs to include ALL foods, including eating out. So I checked the budget again and added in the almost $2,000 our family has spent dining out and school lunches in the first 10 months of this year. Again, extrapolated out, let's call our 12-month dining budget $2,500. When added to the $6,000 food budget and broken down between 6 people, the weekly average is still only $27.25.

$27.25 per week to feed one whole person? Well, surely we must eat only processed foods and rice and beans, right?

Actually, no. Over the past few years we've eliminated almost all processed foods from our house except cereals (I'm not a morning person and I have a 2-year-old that demands breakfast immediately upon waking at 6am), crackers, pasta noodles (because that's one thing that's just not worth my time to make), Annie's shells and cheese (because they are just too yummy!), granola bars, tortilla and potato or veggie chips, yogurt and ice cream--which I don't plan to ever give up. Otherwise, it's a rarity for other processed foods to jump into our grocery cart unless they are free and we will use the item.

We have chosen to purchase as much locally produced, whole foods as possible, and when that is not an option, we then choose the most naturally produced, whole foods as possible, including our choice to purchase only local, pasture-raised chicken and pork, and 100% grass-fed, pasture-raised beef.  Amazingly, when we began purchasing local and organic whole foods, our food bill is actually lower than purchasing prepared, processed foods. 

We make almost everything from scratch, down to the whole wheat bread and strawberry jam we make our PBJ sandwiches with. We do have meatless meals, but most days we have meat with 2 out of 3 meals, but we plan ahead.

Many weeks I will roast a chicken and get 3 meals out of it. The first meal is roasted chicken with our vegetables and other sides. The second meal I use the rest of the chicken that is removed from the bones and shredded--instead of purchasing the pricier boneless, skinless chicken breasts--to serve with pasta or to make chicken enchiladas, or another chicken-based entree. For the third meal I make chicken stock from the carcass and vegetable scraps and use the stock to make chicken noodle soup, or chicken and dumplings, etc.

This week I made French dips with a beef round steak one night, then used what was left to make beef and noodles for lunch the next day and had enough leftover for Jason and I to each have leftover beef and noodles for a second lunch.

Eating well for under $31.50 per week is possible, but it takes discipline and a lot of hard work.

When we were still students at Anderson University and not yet dating, Jason and I would meet for lunch every Sunday after church to clip coupons, look over the grocery ad, and plan our food purchases for the week, being mindful of our meager RA stipends that were paying for our groceries. Today, on Sunday afternoons, you'll still find us doing the same thing. Now, however, we are sitting at the kitchen counter and checking the online ads at our favorite stores. The habits we've learned from the humble beginnings of our relationship continue to stick with us and are second nature.

I do understand that at 20 and 21, we were forming habits that would be much harder to try to learn today, but it's not impossible. If you are interested in trying the Food Stamp Challenge, check it out. Even if you didn't do it this week, you can try another week between now and Thanksgiving. Anyone CAN live on $31.50/week for food, and some people have no choice.

For just one week, you can make the choice to live simply, and perhaps you can help someone else simply live.

Harvest time

5 years ago I planted a small garden.  I never would have guessed that it would turn into my summertime hobby.  It has grown over the years (ha ha) from a meager 10 square foot plot into a 12' x 23' rectangle of bounty.  This kids have gotten into it as well over the years, so they get just as excited as I do about the preparation, planting, cultivating and harvesting.  This time of year wraps up the months of work.  It is the time to enjoy the fruits (or veggies) of our labor, which we eagerly do around here.  The planting list for this year included 4 varieties of tomatoes, 2 varieties of beans, sugar peas, sweet corn, jalapeno peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, carrots, strawberries and green onions along with basil, dill, cilantro and chives.

We have been eating well.

To tie in with a previous post, what makes the food all the better is only having to travel to the outside of my house to get it and that it was produced as naturally as possible.  No herbicides, no pesticides, just all natural compost and water.  The kids eat the food like it was candy.  They like to sneak over to the garden and reach their grubby paws through the fence to grab another pea pod or green bean pod and wolf it down before I notice.  Another benefit is the cost savings.  I really only pay for seeds and water.  The rest is up to God to take care of.

We also like to visit some local growers to stock up on some food items that we cannot grow ourselves.  We will go to Stuckey Farms, Spencer Farms and Tuttle Orchards for blueberries and strawberries to freeze for later, pumpkin to roast and put up for bread and muffins, apples for apple sauce and apple butter, and peaches for canning.

And for those who are thinking about it, it is not too late to go out and get some good, fresh food.

Our recent harvest of carrots.  5-7 pounds!

What should we eat?

We like to consider ourselves eaters of good food. By that, I do not mean that as a family we stroll around looking for the next great steak or ice cream Sundae.  What I mean is that we try to stay conscious and aware of where our food comes from.  We strive to acquire naturally produced food; organic, sustainable, hormone and pesticide free.  By no means are we vegan or strict about our exact diet.  We do have the occasional splurge into the realm of fast food (and then quickly I remember why I stay away from those places).  If you know me, you most likely have heard about my fondness for my garden or how I love finding a local farmer with pasture fed animals (see Ahh, Meat for what I do with them).  It truly is a great feeling knowing exactly where your food came from, not just a guess at a state or country.  To be eating something that just a few short hours ago was still attached to it's root system.  Yes, at this time of year we are reminded of how yummilicious fresh can be.  I am not just speaking to that.  Some context...

Being a video production guy, I do enjoy a good documentary.  My wife can get into them as well, especially when they deal with topics that top her list of lifestyle choices.  Since signing up for Netflix a while back, we have discovered many documentaries dealing with food and the health of our nation.  They are sickening and eye opening at the same time.  What amazes me is that as a culture we blindly accept what is put in front of us, never questioning what has been done to produce the consumables on the plate in front of us.  So much of our 'food' has been beefed up with hormones, pesticides or genetically modified that I question if it really counts as food.  I see it more as a calorie rich, tickle my pleasure center, feed me more item.  


So this is the part where I insert stats about obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc. (blah blah blah, you can find your own stats).


We recently watched Forks Over Knives.  The big push from this one was to go with a plant based diet and for the most part eliminate meat.  I'm good with the plant part, but I do not see the point in completely eliminating meat from my diet.  I'm an omnivore.  I eat both.  The point that the film did not address was how has the meat been treated/produced.  In the sense of the mass produced, assembly line meat farm, yes I would give up meat.  But the real stuff, the pasture raised, let it grow on it's own GOD given time meat, that's what I do not want to give up.  


I do not know if I have expressed myself clearly enough.  The point that I want to get across is to be aware of what you are putting into your body.  The adage is true, garbage in, garbage out.  The problem is that the 'out' part may be one of your internal organs that is failing.  I am making an effort to teach my kids not only proper eating habits, but also proper eating choices.  Unfortunately, this is something that needs to be taught across this country, but the big corporations seem to have this one tied up.  The whole food pyramid thing is messed up, the school lunch program is a joke, and even the 'healthy' options at restaurants really are not.  Food, Inc. touches on some of these topics. 


So, that is my sort of rant.  I guess that when you feel passionately about something, even mildly passionate, you will go on about it.  You may debate in the comments section.


Now go eat your apple.