con·ven·ience
[kuhn-veen-yuhns]
anything that saves or simplifies work, adds to one’s ease or comfort, etc., as an appliance, utensil, or the like.
Save time, take a short-cut, don’t do it at all ….. We all like convenience. It’s become the part of the story of our lives.
Instead of washing dishes, we use a dishwasher. We no longer walk around town, we ride a bus. Instead of growing and picking vegetables, we buy them in cans at the store. We burn a pan on the stovetop & instead of scrubbing the mess until it’s clean, we throw it out and buy another one. A sporting event starts at five, ends at eight. It’s too early to eat before, too late to cook afterwards, lets’s go to Zaxby’s. Daddy’s out of town. Momma is so tired, let’s pop a frozen pizza in the oven.
Guilty?
Yeah, me too.
While I love my dishwasher and despise scrubbing burned pans, there are certain parts of convenience that have consequences. Poor eating habits ( and serious weight gain) are definitely a consequence of convenience.
It’s a lot of work (or maybe just a bit of retraining), but I am setting out to change this for our family.
This past Sunday I carried two lightly seasoned & roasted chickens to a church event. Instead of throwing out the scraps after the bird was carved (there would have been a lot wasted), I brought them home and made chicken broth.
Did it take time?
Yes.
Was it difficult?
No.
How will it taste?
Delicious!
Here is my easy recipe for homemade chicken broth, that can conveniently be stored in the freezer without the sodium and additives of store bought chicken broth.
There are only two ingredients: 2 chickens (pre-cooked & carved) & water.
Place your chicken remnants in a roasting pan and add six cups of water.
Place in the oven at 300 degrees for three hours.
Remove and allow to cool about 20 minutes. You don’t want to burn yourself when you move to the next step!
Pour off the juices, allowing the fat to rise to the top.
I use a measuring cup made just for this purpose purchased at Williams-Sonoma.
OXO makes a Fat Separator that you can purchase at Target for $15.00
Skim off the fat (or pour from your fat separator) and all you have left is wholesome and very flavorful chicken broth for winter soup. I froze mine in Ziploc bags, but you can also use Ball (canning) freezer products.
Weekends are slowly becoming my food prep time for the week. While watching football on Saturdays I can boil eggs, dice up veggies for snacking and fix homemade trail mix for the kiddos to snack on. It takes a couple of hours time on my Saturday, but it sure is convenient during the week!
Linking up with Foodie Friday this week.
Fiddle Dee Dee by Jennifer Jones 