Yesterday I boiled most of my ten-pound bag of chicken leg quarters, saving out three quarters that I froze as-is for a certain recipe. Cliff's youngest sister gave me a huge stainless steel pan years ago around Christmas time; I don't know what I'd do without it. It's the only pan I have that's large enough for ten pounds of chicken. I diced and froze the chicken yesterday, strained the broth back into my big pan, and set it, covered, on the cold back porch so the fat could rise to the top and congeal sufficiently for me to remove it this morning. Besides, my energy level isn't quite what it ought to be, and I'd made enough mess for one day getting the chicken ready for the freezer.
This morning I did my butternut soup experiment, which required a quart of the broth. The soup turned out nicely, except that I added the frozen squash thinking it was pureed; it wasn't. I had cooked it in the microwave and scraped it out of the skin, but that left those stringy strands that are part of cooked squash. So the soup wasn't quite the consistency it was supposed to be. This required my putting the whole batch of soup, again, through the blender.
Once that was done, I had some good soup; it's what's for dinner.
Unfortunately, I splashed and splattered squash soup all over the kitchen.
Then I bagged up my chicken broth for the freezer. More splashing and splattering; the dog is still licking the rug below the kitchen sink. I must be the world's messiest cook.
The dishwasher isn't going to help me with this mess. See my big pan in the right-hand sink?
Ah, but the rewards are great. Two cups of canned chicken broth costs about a buck in the store, and that stuff is diluted and over-salted. What you see here is quality stuff. I use it in so many soup recipes, it will go fast.
Now I must go clean up that mess. I need to mop, too. I haven't mopped since before my little spell of being under the weather.
