It’s Mojo Mastery time again.  This time I taught broth making which was a first for me.  I love that making chicken broth in my own home is a second nature act.  Bones never get thrown away and I like to roast a whole chicken every couple of weeks or so.  I can’t help it when I look at a whole chicken from the store nestled in it’s plastic with “giblets included” written ostensibly on the outside I can’t help but think “mmmmmmatzo balls”.  (ok I actually think fried chicken, a whole bird quartered with gravy and biscuits, but that’s just me, my stomach to brain neural connections fire at double time and I like to include butchering in my imagination).

I’m a busy lady so cooking for my family it is good to have some good solid building blocks around.  So amazing what one can make when you have the right things just hanging out.  In fact the beef marrow chicken soup that we threw together on Thursday night was one of those great happy accidents…  thanks Bob Ross. 

The group we had gathered greedily drank up the chicken broth that I had preprepared.  I don’t blame them it was dank, slow simmered for more than 36 hours, zero salt added it was seasoned with one of my favorite flavorings…  chicken, chicken, chicken.  But I was going to use it for my chicken noodle soup…  good thing I had also preprepared some beef bone broth. I very rarely make beef bone broth at home, and I think I’ll have to change that trend.  My spine tingled when I drank just the plain broth before we fancied her up, like it was hungry for some of that celular building block goodness.  So anyways here is the recipe for the bone broth     chicken “noodle” soup, the five vegetable blood cleansing mineral broth as well as the recipe for the split pea soup I demoed at Mojo as a easy dinner application once your fridge is “stocked”.

Beef Bone Broth

Stock Bones (split open so the marrow shows)
H2O
2 Dates
2 Umeboshi Plums
2 Dried Shitake Mushrooms
Bouquet Garni  (i used fresh rosemary, thyme, sage and parsley) wrapped in cheesecloth

Bake bones at 374 for 45-60 minutes.  You will see the bone marrow start to plump out of the bone showing that it is cooked all the way through.  Pour off the fat (this was a nice treat for the dog) and transfer the bones to your pot or crockpot.  Clean and scrape pan droppings from the bottom of your cooking dish with a little boiling water and throw that in the pot too.  Now top up the pot with water, bring almost to a boil (or all the way if you’re not fussy about cloudy broth)  and turn down to just under a simmer and let it steep that way for at least two hours, or much much longer.  Note: I only added the Bouquet Garni for the last 10-15 minutes, if you put the herbs in for too long your broth will go greenish grey.

Quick Chicken Noodle Soup.

1 Roasted Chicken
Mire Poix Vegetables (1 part Carrot, 1 part Celery, 2 parts Onion)
1 package Kelp Noodles
Bone Broth
Salt and Pepper to taste

Notice there are no real measurements here.  Remember in 20 years of cooking my own dinner I’ve only completely failed and had to order out twice…  So use the force and make a great soup!

Cut Meat from the Chicken….  save bones to make soup.  “Sweat” your mire poix veggies for about five minutes, that means gently cook with a little cooking oil (I like to use the chicken fat I saved from roasting the bones) try not to brown them.  Add Broth, Chicken and noodles (these are precooked they only need to be reheated) and voila, you have just made an amazing dinner in under 10 minutes (if you don’t count the three days it took you to make the broth ;))

Ham Bone Pea Soup

1 Ham Bone (you can use Raw or Smoked, either works fine)
4 Cups dried Split Peas
1 Gallon Chicken Stock
2 Cups Mire Poix Veggies
Salt and Pepper to taste

If you are using a smoked ham bone you don’t need to do anything to it.  If you are using a raw one you can either preboil or preroast the bone.  Sweat mire poix veggies in a little oil for about 5 minutes, I sometimes put whole cloves of garlic into this soup at this point. Throw in the ham bone top up with broth.  Sort and rinse your split peas…  like lentils they do not have to be soaked, but pick through and make sure there aren’t any rocks, give em a rinse and toss em in.

Bring the whole shebang to a boil and turn down to simmer.  Cook this dish uncovered nice and slow for at least 2 hours so the meat will be falling off the bone.  Stir occasionally to make sure the peas don’t stick to the bottom, also skim occasionally to get the foam off the top.  When the peas have broken down and thickened the soup and the ham is where you want it, this easy dish is done.  Pull the hambone out and shred the meat and add the meat back to the pot.  Season to taste.  I personally love a little olive oil drizzled on top of this hearty soup.

Five Veggies Mineral Broth for Blood Cleansing

Carrot
Daikon Radish
Radish Greens (can substitute Kale if the Daikon comes without greens on)
Shitake
Burdock Root,
(I like to add Kelp too for extra mineral goodness, that’s six ingredients but I won’t tell if you don’t tell)

Wash and rough cut veggies (roll cut is great here for the daikon, carrots and burdock). Top with water.  Bring to a boil, turn down and simmer for between 30 minutes and an hour.  You can cook for longer, but if you cook a long time you might want to strain out and not eat the veggies, just drink the broth like a tea or use it in cooking.  Serve hot or cold.