Bone broth is magic! About twenty years ago, I made a startling discovery. I noticed that—if my husband, Bob, and I have at least two servings of my homemade bone broth soup a week—we have no problems with our joints. If we don’t, our joints get quite stiff and bothersome.
Vitamins and minerals are water-soluble. This is one reason that we lose a lot of vital nutrients when we boil our vegetables and meats and throw the water away. Soup, on the other hand, collects these items and serves them up to us in an easily digestible way. And nutrients are the building blocks of our cells; they give us the ability to renew and heal all of the parts of our bodies.
So, I make soup a lot. Using beef, chicken, turkey or lamb (or a combination), I put the bones in a crock pot. I add whatever organic vegetables that I have at hand—often beets, carrots and onions. In the summer, I include the carrot and beet greens. Because liver has so many vitamins and minerals, I always add a small piece of liver to the pot. I then add a dash of white wine or vinegar. This helps to get the gelatin from the bones into the soup. If I have any pan drippings from cooking the meat, I will also put that in. Then, I fill the pot with cold water and turn it on to simmer.
I cook my soup on low for 48 hours. The longer we cook it, the more gelatin gets into it. By the end of this amount of time, the soup is very dark and rich. Now it’s time to strain the juice from the rest. Using pot holders, I pour the mixture into a colander set into a large bowl. Once the crock is empty, I generally set the colander into a smaller bowl to let the soup begin to cool down. A few teaspoons of salt can be added at this time. Once cooled, I spoon the soup through a strainer and into several can or freeze pints, label with the date and set them into the freezer.
We often heat up a pint, pour into two mugs, and drink. In a pinch, I set the pint in a pan of hot water to defrost more quickly. However, this soup can also be made into a sauce by boiling and adding a mixture of arrowroot and water and boiling again.
My knees love me for it!
Celeste Longacre has been growing virtually all of her family’s vegetables for the entire year for over 30 years. She cans, she freezes, she dries, she ferments & she root cellars. She also has chickens.
Celeste has also enjoyed a longtime relationship with The Old Farmer’s Almanac as their astrologer! A personally autographed copy of her book, Love Signs, is available in the Almanac.com General Store [4]. You can also find an ebook version on Amazon.com for $2.99.
Celeste is a great speaker for garden groups and civic groups. She is also offer a gardening “Apprentice with Celeste." Email her for details via AlmanacEditors@yankeepub.com