Tips and Tricks - National Soup Month

Suggestions from an old church cookbook:

What to do with those bones -

You've just broiled two tender T-bone steaks. You savor their taste and texture, pick up the plates and scrape the bones off into the garbage pail. NO! NO! NO! What a waste! Instead you put them in a plastic bag and toss them into the freezer. The next time you have steak, you add those bones to the bag in the freezer. Then one day you prepare a nice beef roast. After you have carved the meat off the bones, you throw them in the garbage pail. NO! NO! NO! You put them in the kettle, add the steak scraps from the bag in the freezer, cover them with water, add some salt and start boiling them. Simmer them for a couple of hours and strain the broth into a large bowl.

Let the broth cool for about a half hour and then put it in the refrigerator to let it cool fully. The next day, scrape off the fat that will have risen to the top and you should have some jelly-like broth (the firmer it is, the better the broth). Place the broth in freezer bags, label and date them, and place them in the freezer. Later you can use the broth for soup, gravy or a variety of dishes. [The writer goes on to describe a similar procedure for poultry and ham bones.]

It's also worth your time to re-read Lucy's suggestions in Waste Not, Want Not for sorting leftovers to make soup later.

And last for today, I'd like to point you back to Lucy's Blue-Ribbon Southwestern Chili, a recipe from our archives that includes meat.