Dave! Dave! I can't believe how great they look now. I am so pleased with the results of your had work and your trust in us here. I am thrilled at how beautiful they are. WOWOW! Thanks for stopping by. You were certainly thought of. I have been meaning to ask you to come back. So good to see you again:-) Hey Josh! Alexa..Thanks so much for stopping by and your kind words. Josh, it is cool here agin. We only broke 80 in the past month! Where is our summer? Considering it was in the 90's in the middle of winter, I am beginning to think our winter will be in the middle of summer. I must say though that this must be your favorite weather. Very cool by night and mild by day. perfect for my coloring jades and flowering citrus. I would say, southern Cailf. weather in winter. Jaybird and Buylady!! Thank you so much. Buylady, let's talk soon. I want to make sure you are alright, You will be in my prayers:-))) Mike

John you should get some good responses here as quite a few members have made stock and demi. I make my own chicken stock or chicken, veg and beef bones mixed. But it's not a regular thing at the moment and I'm looking for a big stock pot to make it easier to do larger quantities. Here's what I have written about my method for stock and chicken soup. Here packaged in twos in the supermarket, after they've removed most of the meat for their trays of wings, breasts etc. But there's still enough meat on the bones for a great and flavourful soup. Soup Ingredients: Homemade chicken stock - about 2 quarts 2 carrots - diced 2 stalks celery - diced 1 leek - diced 1 cup diced rutabaga or orange squash 1/2 cup fine soup noodles salt & pepper oil or chicken fat Ratio of solids to stock should be about 2 cups stock to 1 lb chopped vegetables. Add any more chopped veg if you don't have enough. Stock ingredients: 1 meaty chicken carcass or piece of whole chicken 2 heads of garlic 1 onion - cut in half celery stick - sliced 1 carrot sliced fresh thyme - large sprig 1 bayleaf black pepper & salt MAKING STOCK: 1. Early in day or day before: Preheat oven to 350F. Cut top off heads of garlic. Place on roasting pan together with chicken carcass and sliced onion and drizzle a bit of oil over top of all. (I had two carcasss to roast as they are sold this way in pairs at our supermarket. I also added a couple of beef bones.) Roast in oven about 40 minutes or until all is toasted. and juices from pan. 2. Put bones into a very large pot. Squeeze one head of the buttery garlic cloves into the stock pot, saving the other head of garlic for adding to the soup. Add the rest of the stock ingredients and fill pot with water to cover. Grind in fresh pepper. Bring to boil, turn down heat, put on lid and simmer for a couple of hours. Skim off any grey residue that rises to the top. 3. Afterwards, strain the solid debris from the stock ---(REMEMBER you're saving the stock so don't pour it down the sink - as has been done LOL !). I look through the solids and pick out the meaty chicken pieces to save for the soup. Throw away all the rest of the solid material. Here I let it cool and refrigerate until next day when it's easy to remove solid fat from top. Otherwise continue to make soup. MAKING THE SOUP: 1. Sauté the chopped ingredients in a frypan in a TBS of chicken fat or oil until lightly golden. Squeeze out the buttery cloves from the 2nd head of garlic and add to pan. 2. Put soup ingredients including small bits of chicken into large saucepan and add an appropriate amount of stock - about double the amount of liquid to vegetables. Put on lid and simmerwith lid on for about an hour. Add soup noodles during last 5 minutes. 3. Check seasoning, add salt. SharonCb

We've had lots of discussions about the difference between stock and broth (not much, but "stock" usually refers to something used as an ingredient and broth is used to mean a finished rich plain soup). We also talked about why "bone" up topic. Some are made with mostly bones and are cooked a very long time to get the minerals out of the bones. Others are made with mostly meat or meaty bones and are cooked for less time, until the meat is all cooked out and what bones there are have yielded flavor but aren't soft and/or friable unless they're tiny. A third option is made with mostly bones and vegetables, but not cooked long enough to really pull all the minerals out of the bones. The first one is "bone" because it's about the bones. And often broth because it's meant to be consumed straight as soup.

There is usually a bag...or several...of frozen chicken bones, skin, etc. plus veggie trimmings in my freezer. When we have chicken pieces for a meal we cut the meat off the bones and add the bones and any other parts we are not eating to the freezer bag, too. Now that it is just my husband and me at home, we'll even chew meat off some bones and still save them. Of course we are the only ones eating stock made from those! The celery, onions, etc called for in many stock recipes get added to the actual soup instead. I'd rather have the fiber in my soup, not in a strainer.