Bone Broth

Bone broth of any kind is wonderfully nutritious and adds a depth of flavor you can't even imagine. You can find store bought bone broth in just about any grocery store. It can be expensive though and I can promise you that the taste cannot compare to homemade broth.

I am talking about bone broth today for two reasons. One is I have already done a blog on homemade veggie stock and the other is that my daughter-in-law made an amazing dish the other night with Elk bone broth given to her by a friend. The dish was rich and filling. The kitchen smelled amazing but more about that later.

Let's talk bones: I only use organic, grass finished bones or wild game like the Elk I just mentioned. The reason is so many chemicals like growth hormones, antibiotics, medication, lead, herbicides, pesticides etc are easily absorbed by the bone marrow of an animal. If you are making bone broth for flavor you might as well do it for health as well.

 I choose both!!

 You can find organic, grass finished bones at most whole food markets or on line from private companies that sell grass finished meat or organic chicken. So don't through away the bones of your organic roasted chicken. Those make great bone broth. You can also find powdered organic bone broth from many stores but my favorite is from Rosemary's Herb Shop in Ruidoso NM.

I'm a fan of the nutrition in bone broth. You get loads of minerals and vitamins but also the collagen from inside the bones. It's an easy way to ramp up the nutrition in any stews, soups, gravies or just heat it up and sip it from a cup.

Recipe for bone broth:

You will need a cookie sheet or roasting pan, and a crock pot or instapot.

Foods:

About 4 pounds of bones, 1 roughly chopped onion, 2 roughly chopped carrots, garlic powder to taste, salt and pepper, water, olive oil, 1 bay leaf.

Directions:

Heat the oven to 450* toss the bones, onion and carrots with the garlic powder, salt and pepper and the olive oil and place in the roasting pan. Roast at 450* for 15 min then toss the mixture and roast for an additional 15 minutes. 

Remove from the oven and place all of the ingredients and the bay leaf in the crock pot. Scrape up all the bits from the bottom of the pan and place in the crock pot as well. Those are flavor bombs! Cover all the ingredients with water. Set the crock pot to low and cook a minimum of 12 hours. The longer you cook it the better it will be!  When you are satisfied with the cooking time strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer or cheese cloth. Discard the bones and vegetables. Allow the broth to cool at room temperature. Then place in the refrigerator for a few hours. This will solidify the fat on top of the broth and you can scrape off most of the fat. TIP: Don't scrape off all the fat. Fat=flavor!!

You can store in the refrigerator for a couple weeks or it will freeze nicely for up to 6 months.

Now back to the dinner my daughter-in-law made. She called it Cocoa Beef Ragu. I don’t know the exact recipe because I was playing with the grandson and not paying very close attention. So what I am going to do is tell you what I think she did.

Roast a spaghetti squash in the oven at 400* for about 45 minutes or until soft. To prepare it She cut it in half and scraped out the seeds and pith, oiled it and salted it. She baked it face down in about a cup of water. After it was done and out of the oven she took a fork and scraped out the flesh and it looked just like spaghetti.

While the squash was baking she prepared on the stove top some ground beef, onion, mushrooms, zucchini, maybe some canned tomatoes, garlic, a green pepper, a little bit of tomato paste, italian seasoning, 2 tablespoons of cacao powder, and salt and pepper in a huge cast iron skillet then she added the Elk bone broth (about 3 cups)and let it simmer for a while. We ladled it over the spaghetti squash. It was magical!! This meal can also be made with sausage, ground turkey, or whatever red meat you happen to have. Don't be scared to mix up the veggies you have either, feel free to use whatever you have left over in your fridge!

Maybe you take these sparse instructions and your imagination and try your own version.