Canning Stock

We went grocery shopping late Labor Day evening, and ran across a pleasant surprise - the store had roasted too many chickens and was clearing them out for $3.50 each! What a score! You can't usually buy a whole chicken for that price, let alone roast it yourself! We bought two, brought them home, and picked all the meat off them, and threw the bones in the pressure cooker. I also got a deal on a package of 6 half breasts, so I de-boned those and threw the trimmings into the stockpot and froze the meat for later. Then I threw in all the onion and carrot trimmings I'd saved up in the freezer, along with some garlic and celery, and I let the pressure cooker do it's thing, and by evening I had a giant hot pot of stock.

The brilliant part is that my last batch of stock was packed in the freezer, so I took it out and dropped those stock ice-blocks into the pot of strained stock, and as they melted they cooled off the new batch, and within minutes the whole thing was ready for the fridge. I thought that worked particularly nicely! After a day in the fridge I skimmed off all the fat, and it was ready to can.

So today I spent my morning pressure canning 17 pints of stock. It took all day, because it required two batches. I should have done quarts, then it would have only taken one batch, but I usually use it a pint at a time. The pressure canner wasn't as nerve-wracking as last time. I've used it to pressure cook stock a couple times, and this is my second time canning. I think it gets easier the more times you practice.

Beautiful!

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