It smells like chicken in here! And I mean that in the best way possible.

So I have been on a hiatus and for the few people who amuse me and read this I apologize. To put it bluntly the last couple of weeks have not been my best.  I have found myself single again and although my new relationship status is for the best a break up is a break up and it just plains sucks!   For the most part I have been kept busy by my friends and have actually done quite a few things: learning how to make homemade pizza dough, drink champagne, Indian food night, drink wine, sweaty yoga, drink beer, etc.  Ya know, the standard stuff people do to distract themselves.  

During the last two weeks I have been seeking out comfort through food.  No friends, I do not appear to be one of these girls who becomes super model skinny from sadness, which actually is a bit of a bummer.  I instead started putting on my winter hibernation weight with chocolate, pizza, falafel, and enough booze to make me feel like I was back working at Club Med. But now with the sudden turn of weather here in DC all I have been wanting is soup.  This actually works out to be a benefit to me and my waist line.  And I am definitely not the only person that feels that way as many of the other food blogs I read have been focusing on soup, so I have had wonderful inspiration.

Last weekend I attended an awesome knife skills at Hill's Kitchen which is wonderful kitchen supply store here on Capitol Hill.  The class was actually focused on how to butcher a bird.  Let me tell you that is pretty empowering to be able to take a knife and be able to take a part a whole bird.  I am not saying that I would be able to do it perfectly on my own, but the knowledge is there.  The point of this digression is that from this class I came home with a bag of chicken bones and meat that I am determined to use every bit of.  So what with my craving for soup and a bag of bones lurking in my fridge it only seemed best to try my hand at making some chicken stock.  So here is a photo essay of my chicken stock making day!  (and yes it took most of the day!) 

Guess What?.....Chicken Butt!!!

And so it begins...10:30 am

The final product....6:00 pm!

I will not be lacking in chicken stock for awhile, don't you agree?  Honestly it should have been done around 4:30 pm but with my electric stove it is pretty heard for me to maintain anything at a simmer for such a long period.  So I decided to keep it on longer to let it reduce more and I think that was a good decision.  

So what did I make with my fabulous stock now readily on hand?  Absolutely nothing!  The goal was to make stock people, not cook something with it!  Honestly I just did not think that far but there are plans for matzo ball soup, using the stock to make cous cous instead of water, etc.  So stay tuned for my chicken stock extravaganza as well as fabulous recipes with all my other chicken parts that are currently on ice!

Tootaloo chickadees and I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend.  I am going apple picking tomorrow and will try to share some pics so that you can be jealous. :)