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DIY Chicken Stock Using Pressure Canner

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Our local Wal-mart reduces any left-over rotisserie chickens to half price after 8:00 PM. So I can snag a chicken for $2.59. I bought one the other day and picked all the meat off. With the meat, I made Chicken quesadillas twice, a chicken bacon ranch pizza and chicken fried rice. I saved the carcass for this recipe!

I have also been saving leftover vegetable scraps. I mean the stuff that you would normally throw away. The top of a pepper, onion scraps and skins, carrot tops, etc. I had about two cups of vegetable scraps. 


I threw everything in the slow cooker and filled it to the top with water. Add a little salt and pepper to taste, or fresh herbs or whatever you like! I cooked in the slow cooker for 20 hours. You can do as little as 4 or as much as 24!


This part took a few minutes but using a fine mesh strainer, ladle the broth to get out all the little pieces. 


When you are done, you will be left with a deep, rich colored broth!

I put mine in the fridge overnight and skimmed off any fat or other stuff that comes to the top. There wasn't hardly anything to skim so next time I might skip this step, but if you do this, you will need to  bring your broth to a boil again before adding to hot jars.

I won't go over step by step on how to can because, honestly, I'm still learning! I'll be canning a lot of green beans this summer so I'll try to add a how to can post sometime. In the meantime, there are a lot of canning how-to tutorials out there. I would find one of those, but also carefully read the instructions that came for your canner. Each canner is a little different and you want to make sure you are doing it right so that your jars will seal properly to avoid food spoilage.


I processed mine at 10 pounds for 20 minutes.



 When you take them from the canner you should start to hear the seals "Popping!" pretty quickly. This means you did it right and your jars are sealed!


Let the hot jars sit for 24 hours and then store in a cool, dark place for up to 18 months. 


There's something so gratifying about making something that you would normally buy in the store from nothing but scraps that would have been thrown away anyway!

Here are some helpful links to canning info to get you started canning today! 

Ball/Kerr Canning 101

Melissa K. Norris-Is Home Canning Really Worth it?

Melissa K. Norris-Canning Myths

I also love listening to the Melissa K. Norris-Pioneering Today Podcast! It's full of helpful on information about homesteading, gardening, canning, preserving and making your own food.

Coming soon, I'll have a post about making Strawberry Jelly via the boiling water method! I plan on canning green beans, whole tomatoes, some black raspberry jelly (hopefully) and some apple butter and peach butter. Maybe some whole peaches too. 

Have you canned anything? If you so, what's your favorite things to can?

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