Happy New Year and Ham Stock

I took a bit of a break from posting the past few weeks. Well, not so much of a break, but I just didn't post 4 days a week like a normally do. If I felt like posting I did and if i was uber lazy, I didn't. Now that it's a new year I'm getting back into my old routine. It feels weird. For example, I had to think really hard about what time I needed to leave to drop Blockette off for school. How do I forget that in only two weeks??? Must be old age and senility setting in.

I made this recipe for Ham stock over a month ago. My best friend had a fancy ham dinner and, to my surprise, she asked me if I wanted the ham bone. You bet I did! I snatched that bad boy up and stuck it in the freezer until I ate up some of the leftovers in there. Once the freezer had some free space I made some ham stock.

I've made chicken stock loads of time in the crock pot, but I wasn't quite sure if ham stock would work as well. I found some ham stock recipes on Kalyn's Kitchen, 101 things every cook should cook, and Recipes and Reviews to use as guidelines.

Ultimately, I basically followed the same recipe as the chicken stock.

I used:
1 medium size ham bone with a small amount of meat and fat still on it
2 carrots cut into 3 pieces
2 ribs of celery cut into 3 pieces
4 cloves of garlic
2 small onions cut in half
10 pepper corns
1 bay leaf
5 sage leaves
2 sprigs of thyme
1 sprig of parsley
1 tsp cumin
a pinch of red pepper flakes

Dump all those ingredients in the slow cooker over night. In the morning, drain, strain and skim off the fat.

See wasn't that super easy? A perfect recipe for those of you like me who are having difficulty getting back into the swing of things.

Turkey Stock

This was our nummy Thanksgiving turkey. It's been many moons since Mrblocko or I cooked a turkey and we were a bit rusty. We did pretty darn good if I say so myself. We didn't really do anything special. Just rubbed herbed butter over and under the skin and let it sit in some chicken stock as it cooked.

Somehow the turkey got done a full hour than we expected. I hadn't even baked the stuffing yet! It all worked out in the end though. The turkey was cold, but all the side dishes, including the gravy, was hot. Truth be told, ya can't tell if your turkey is hot or cold when it is smothered in molten gravy. We will be eating turkey left overs for some time. This bird is so massive that I cut up the carcass into thirds. I made turkey stock with the first portion and froze the others to make stock later.

I wasn't sure if Turkey stock should have different seasonings than chicken stock so I looked up a few recipes on line. The two recipes I found, from gracious bowl and cooking by the seat of my pants, were almost identical to my go to chicken stock recipe. The only change I made to the chicken stock recipe was to leave out the cloves, add some dried rosemary, and sprigs of fresh sage, thyme and parsley. I only used the fresh stuff because it was still green in my garden.

My plans for this, and the other batches of stock are to make soups with the leftover turkey. I've been on a hunt for some good recipes, and I think I have found a few. We'll see if they pass the taste test!