Stock pot with chicken and lovely trivet, halfway through filling with water.
Besides a birthday party Saturday night, we had a blissfully unscheduled weekend. The freezer is almost empty and I've felt out of sorts for weeks, but we had a cooking and yard-work filled weekend; now everything is a bit better.
All told, we:
- cleared acorns. It's our second bumper crop year in this house. Removing untold number of acorns is pretty heavy physical labor, done almost entirely by husband. I set some aside to make acorn flour. If I can get them cracked and cooked in the next few days, it's a success.
- roasted butternut squash. I now have some stowed in the freezer for those tasty fall recipes that call for squash.
- made chicken stock. We have stock leftover from summer, but it was time for a new batch, and we also need precooked chicken for easy weeknight dinners. This one is potent. I've made many stocks over the years, and the Le Creuset cast iron trivet has made it so much easier, it was a gift from my in-laws a year or two ago. Any food-safe cast iron trivet should work just the same. I layer vegetables under the meat, and the trivet easily holds both layers down, making it easy to skim the stock while cooking.
- rendered lard. The jar of rendered lard cooling on the counter, I swear it looked as if it were filled with lemonade. Husband is going to post about the project later this week.
- made apple butter. I've been missing apple butter for the better part of a decade, I don't know why I stopped buying it. Well, now I've made it.
- chopped veggie snacks for me to take to work.
My big kitchen focus for fall is baking bread, but first I needed to get a batch of stock out of the way. Now that it's done, this week I'll be prepping dough to cook over the weekend.
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