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Originally Posted by rightnow
I don't know anybody in offline life who makes stock out of anything except (and this is rare) a turkey carcass.
Then again, in all fairness, I only know a few folks who cook at all and all of them are older. All the people I know with kids my kid's age, cook maybe a couple different things (say, tacos, hamburgers, fried chicken) and everything else they eat is frozen, canned, boxed or window'd.
That's what I was hoping to find, thanks -- which bones to ask for. Also in a previous post Matt said 'soup bones' -- that helps too, and makes me feel a little less idiot asking for them since that sounds so reasonable. I have never SEEN a 'soup bone' in a store. You know, like in a package. I wonder why.
Um. You just stick them in the oven? (Sorry, I'm still a cooking retard. I'm learning though.) Do you put them IN anything? Add water or something? For how long, at what heat?
Well I am not real worried about losing all the vitamin A or whatever; I have other sources for most of its nutrients. But the natural contents (like collagen/gelatin/marrow) I seriously doubt are "going anywhere" from that pot and those are the things I'm aiming to add.
I don't mind crockpotting or long-simmering things, except to be honest, I have this thing about smell=food. When I was young I worked in retail food for a few years and I had such a problem eating at all because after smelling food all day my body had zero interest in eating it. I find I still have that result if I have to smell something for more than a couple of hours. So I like the pressure cooker idea although it seems a lot of babysitting to use one for a whole hour. I have only used my pressure cooker once so far (it is a good one though, but stovetop not electric) but I was a bit imperfect with the regulation of it. (I must have been expecting disaster--I am the Smoke Alarm Cook at the best of times--because when it suddenly leaped into a major steam-venting at one point I nearly had a heart attack!)
The other thing about a pressure cooker is that it can REALLY cook the stuffing out of bones, sez the various writings, can literally cook bones to totally soft in a pretty short time, so I figure PC probably gets a lot more of the 'stuff from bones' that people actually want for stock.
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I cook for my family because it's cheaper to cook as long as I utilize our leftovers. During my husband's and my student days, we used to make a chicken last three days -- a big part of this was cooking down the bones so we could have various stews for a couple of days.
I don't roast bones of meat that is already cooked. But I always ask for dog bones when I get a side of beef --those I roast first. Well, I do give a few to my dog as well. I've managed to put her hip dysplasia into remission with a grain-free diet. Pork bones really don't need roasting first. Lamb bones are better roasted. Something to do with red meat, I suppose. Roasting just makes for a more intense flavor. I also save and freeze pork chop bones, steak bones, etc. They're not very flavorful on their own, but I figure they have to have something left in them so they get cooked down as well when making a batch.
I boil ducks before roasting them, and I use that water when I cook down the carcass.
And you're right, the geletin doesn't go away with pressure cooking -- my stocks always gel up very nicely when cold. I never really thought of the health benefits of making my own stocks and broths -- I just can never stand to throw away bones. Plus I hate the flavor of premade stocks and bullion.
I can't bring myself to eat tongue either, and even grinding up heart for my dog gives me the "icks," but pigs feet (fresh, not pickleds) have always been a real treat for me. I cook them in sauerkraut, but you could just make a regular stock out of them as well. They make for a very rich stock. If you cook them under pressure, by the time your stock is finished, the bones should have fallen apart enough that hopefully they won't be too recognizable. Plus, there's nothing like something seriously tasty to rid you of your adversion.
To get back on topic, since raising my carbs, I have found that I need to lower calories. HOWEVER, I'm doing this by eating until satisfied, not by starving myself. I am gaining a new awareness of how much I actually overeat. Eating until stuffed is very much a norm for me. I have found that eating until full keeps me full just as long. But it's a hard habit to break. I probably still have about 1800 calories a day, and I'm still what would be considered low carb, but I eat maybe 25-75 carbs a day instead of 10g. Potatoes and winter squash are in season, and I am enjoying them. Once the potatoes are out of season (so I no longer get them from my CSA) they'll be out of my diet. Potatoes roasted in lard are this side of heaven, however.
Edit to add: For beef and lamb, I toss the raw bones in a 375 oven for about a half hour; when they start to smell good, I take them out and toss them in my pressure cooker with water. What you can do is put water in the pan, heat it up, scrape up any bits that ooze out in that half hour, and pour that in the pressure cooker as well.
So what I'm doing now is after clearing my plate the first time, I sit and ask myself if I am still hungry. Usually, the answer is no. Of course, dinner is usually a heavy soup, a meat, a veggie, and lately a potato, sweet potato, or winter squash. Even with just one serving, that's a lot of food.
If you were born a couple generations from now, you would probably have been fine.
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