Do you make home-made chicken stock?

Yes, I do jack - even though I'm a demi-veggie. Makes great stock.

Yes Jack I always use the chicken carcass to make stock. Sometimes if the carcass is small I pop it into the freezer and wait until I have another to make stock with. I just add onion, carrot, leak, celery or whatever I have in the fridge and simmer. I use it as a base for soup or I reduce it and use it to go into a curry. Not so sure about the left over sponge cake though .

Yes, I always use the carcass and boil it with celery, onion and carrots, and perhaps a few herbs, until I am sure it will be like jelly when it has cooled and been refrigerated.

I use it for all sorts of recipes, but it makes great chicken and sweetcorn soup, or chicken chowder.

I have loads of chicken, and ham, stock in my freezer - trouble is, I don't always remember to use it for anything! I prefer to make soup out of chicken carcasses, because I know I'll always eat it. Chicken broth, with plenty of celery and carrots, is my all time favourite food.

The most exciting thing about stock (in my humble opinion) is that once it has been chilled you can (a) skim off all the fat and (b) be reassured that the broth is wonderfully beneficial to one's health.

DH has just said he heard someone on the wireless say you shouldn't boil stock. Nonsense. My mother taught me to boil stock to get rid of bugs. She also said you should re-boil it every day if you have an on-going stock-pot - for the same reason I imagine.

Oh dear. I do miss her so much.

She also said beware of rice. Not in its newly pristine condition. But rice that you heat up again. So I only re-heat rice once, if at all. Funny how mothers have such a huge influence on our lives, even when they're dead.

Your mum was right about stock and rice jack. Both gather bugs if you don't take care.

Thanks Carol. Any other tips about bugs?

Only that that I've got a cold! That's a bug!

Me too. The third in a month. Have had to cancel bridge tonight. Throat too sore for all the chit-chat! But I have managed to knock up a chilli con carne for tomorrow so DH has something easy to spoon into a bowl for me.

Meanwhile we'll finish off yesterday's soup for supper. And the medicine DH always gives me when I have a cough/cold/asthma is Whisky Mac. I might have mentioned this before!

I'd have one of those if I'd got any whisky in, but as the only time I drink it is when I have a cold I haven't got any

I only found out a few months ago that the problem with rice, is that being tiny individual grains once cooked, it has masses more surface area for the bugs to multiply on.

So now, if any cooked rice is not served up, I immediately put it under running cold water, drain, and either fridge or freeze it. As long as it's either hot or cold it's safe and can be re-heated without problems.

Stock from turkey bones makes the most delicious stew and is one of the best things about the food from that festival in December. (Daren't utter the C word yet )

notso don't even think it let alone use it!

Have just left sick bed to check bugs. Yes! Freezing cooked rice works really well and it has taken me nearly 100 years to work this out.

Does anyone listen to Ed Reardon on R4? (6.30pm-7pm). Have just lolled (as in laughed out loud) with my whisky mac. The script is brilliant.

Too ill to listen to The Archers. And I'm not that "bovvered" even when I'm OK. It is so slow that you only have to listen to about three episodes a year to keep on top of the plot.

I have been waiting for years for Jennifer to have a tantrum. But she never does. Wimp! (Sorry. Wrong thread)

Always feel a frisson of guilt if I throw away a chicken carcass, but there is only so much stock the freezer will hold!

Making stock is easy and basically free and so much better than the canned or boxed junk you buy at the store. Every non-vegetarian cook can find a use for chicken stock. Vegetarians can easily substitute vegetable. The uses for this sort of miracle base are myriad, and keeping some available is not only convenient, but it can save money. Here are some things to make with poultry stock, in case you are in search of healthy cooking ideas. You may read this article: Save time and money and eat well with chicken or vegetable stock

personalmoneynetwork.com/moneyblog/2012/05/30/chicken-stock-vegetable-stock/

My DH makes the stock; chicken, lamb, beef, game, fish or veal (from bones roasted in the oven) plus celery, carrot, onion and herbs. He cooks it, takes the fat off and then reduces it right down and freezes it as cubes in an ice tray. Consequently we always have bags of stock cubes in the freezer.

I usually boil up the carcass while it still has some meat on it, take the meat off whne cold, cook some lentils and onions, a little garlic sometimes and add....also any other bits I think of if I have them...good chicken soup.

My home made soups are all made from boiling up the carcasses,and occasionally they contain everything left lurking in the fridge,but nobody has been I'll yet. Chicken soup is good and delicious medicine,used regularly in this house to boost the spirits and comfort those with colds. Nature's penicillin.

Put the carcase in the slowcooker covered with water and leave on overnight-don't know how much this costs fuel wise but the kichen smells wonderful in the morning and if I'm insomniac I can always turn it out at 3am andjeni jewish chicken soup is best cure ever for a cold

I have a freezer full of stock and regularly forget to get it out to defrost ..but now I can copy mamies DH and put it in ice cube trays as they will defrost more speedily! Why couldn't I think of that myself ? [doh] emoticon! Thanks

Bacillus ceraeus is the bacteria which can contaminate rice and cause severe food poisoning. It can multiply in a domestic fridge at 4C. It's not really safe to re-heat rice especially in take-away food.

The other thing about the "reduction to ice cube size method" Nanaej, is that if you need a concentrated sauce you don't have to add all the liquid and then reduce, you just wing the ice cube in!

interesting merlot - I think the freezing of left over rice immediately tip is obviously a good one as then is is well below 4C. It does however use energy - both to cool it and then heat it again, so it might be one of those occasions when the throwing away food bullet should be bit. As in: it is only cheap rice and not worth spending money on.
Boiling stock until its concentrated also must use a lot of fuel. So unless in possession of Aga, is it worth it?
Reboiling stockpot daily a good hygiene measure - but again uses quite a lot of gas and electricity.
I agree re chicken carcasses not being wasted. I bought a big chick last week and we had several meals off it. I did proper stuffing (cranks wholemeal breadcrumbs, home grown thyme and parsley) Made some yummy soup with it yesterday - added yet more fresh parsley. I have lots of last year's parsley in the garden about to run to seed, so finding many ways of using that up at the moment (and not wasting it!)

We have a big central plate on our (bottled) gas cooker, so we tend to do the stock alongside other stuff. We have tried cooking on the wood-burning stove, but the smell permeates the whole house. We do bake, then slow-cook stuff in the bread oven as it cools down, to save fuel.