For anyone reading this in the future, I finally did contact Dr. Andress and there really isn't supposed to be any meat left on the carcass when you start, they rewrote the instructions for So Easy to Preserve but she says they might clarify a little more on the website that this is a STOCK not a soup, that's why I kept putting "stock" in quotes b/c to me a stock doesn't have meat. Here's her reply "Here is how we re-worded it for our University of Georgia So Easy to Preserve book, below, although it's not a lot more specific. And I might now choose to say "Place large carcass bones (with as much meat removed as you can)": Or the other option is to not allow picking of the carcass at all. The directions really only allow for adding back the bits still clinging to the bones after cooling, not the all the meat stripped from the bones. So that's how we tried to word the order of actions for our book. But we can consider rewording on the website from the USDA guidelines, also. Thank you for pointing this out. Chicken Stock (Broth) Hot pack-- Place large carcass bones (with most of meat removed) in a large stockpot. Add enough water to cover bones. Cover pot and simmer until meat can easily be stripped from bones, about 30 to 45 minutes. Remove bones. Cool broth; skim off and discard fat. Remove the bits of meat clinging to bones and add to broth, if desired. Reheat broth to boiling. Fill hot jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims. Adjust lids and process. CAUTION: Do not add additional meat to this product. Process in a Dial Gauge Pressure Canner......(etc.)" Since how much meat is left on the carcass can vary, I think it's best not to put any meat back into the broth for canning, though I suggest that straining to get any bits floating might not be necessary. I also wouldn't add anything left at the bottom of the stockpot to the jars (sometimes I get little bits of bone as well as meat at the bottom of the stock). I knew what stock meant to a chef, couldn't figure out why NCHFP website was saying to add meat back into the broth, this was from very old procedures and it turns out stock really means stock. Maybe this is clear to someone who's been canning for a long time, but I haven't had any training (beyond NCHFP course, reading, and what I've picked up on this forum) so when I read that you could have meat in the jars my first question was "how much" - answer turns out to be "really nothing". HTH

You get used to cooking with whatever you have really. We now have both a 36" convection gas range and a 30" electric convection wall oven. Why? Wanted two ovens first and foremost. Already had the gas hook up and the electric there to run both in our house. To run an electric double oven would have required electrical work to be done for the extra load. So, most cost effective for use was to get an AG range and then add a single electric wall oven under counter to give us our second oven. I've said on previous post that the thought was also that it would give us the best of both worlds, but the reality is for us that you learn to cook whatever you want in whatever you have. On the particular brands we have the gas has the circulating fan and the rear. We've only used it on convection a couple of times so far. Not because it is gas, but more because it takes a while to heat the 36" oven space as compared to the 30 oven we have so we tend to use the wall oven a bit more. Not a gas/electric issue for us, just a habit now. On ours, as with any range/oven you're not familiar with yet, it has been a gradual learning curve. The first time we used the convection on the gas one we put in a full sheet of shortbread and it seemed to be browning faster directly by the fan than it was elsewhere. Upon reflection, we had not adjusted the temperature down (which you have to do with this brand) to account for the convection feature. Think they suggest something like 25 degrees less. The next time we used convection was with pizza on a stone on the bottom rack of the oven. This time it worked great with the dough puffing up nicely, getting a good crust and the toppings and cheese cooking evenly. Our electric wall oven has a different process for convection. Don't remember the sales jargon on what it is called, may have been "European Convection" or some such. Basically we have the hidden lower element, exposed upper broil element and there is also an element back in where the fan is at the back. When we've used convection it has worked well. We've used it for chips and they come out evenly crisp. We've also used it for pita type pizzas, but there you are just melting the toppings, crisping the pita and browning things. Even so has worked well, but we still find that we tend to swap trays with multiple layers to just be on the safe side with all being done evenly. Might just be appearances and still learning how to use both ovens, but does seem to brown the tops of those things higher up in the oven a bit faster than those below it. May again be a temperature setting issue perhaps. I guess what I'm rambling on about really boils down to get what you like. I really can't say one type is vastly superior to the other across the board especially for general consumer home use. You can cook well with all it is just a matter of the learning curve to find what works. For us, just having two ovens is bliss no matter that one is electric and one is gas. Also no matter that the appliances don't match. They are all stainless and the slight variation from brand to brand is no big deal. We looked at many kitchen books for higher end kitchens and I would say 99.9% of them had different brand appliances in the kitchen. Saw many pictures of kitchens with ranges with the big commercial range handles and then the wall ovens had graceful curved modern look handles on them. Looked just fine. Go to Lowes or HD and look through the idea books. Just a matter of finding what you like, the quality, what works in your design and what works for your budget. I can only remember one telly show where a realtor made an issue that the appliances did not match due to different brands. I really think that the statement the realtor made was more from lack of experience with that level of kitchen/home perhaps (just from what I've seen with the multitude of books we looked at) if that makes sence. Oh, and for us, we also went range and single wall oven for the ease and cost of install issues. Your situation is your situation, but for us it was cheaper (as you mentioned counter wise etc) to pop in a 36" AG with 6 burners and then just build a cabinet to hold the wall oven under counter. Best of luck with it! Cheers

A 4.5 lb. chicken is 1.5 lbs. heavier than the 3 lb. chicken used in the recipe that I posted. You should definitely NOT cook it less than the 5 hours and it may take MORE time because you are cooking a bigger bird. To be safe, you should check the bird with a meat thermometer after 5 hours at 250F in the meatiest part of the thigh. The temp should be up to 180F and if it is not up to that temp, I would put it back in to roast for another 30 minutes, then check the temp again. Poultry should always be throughly cooked and have no pink juices flowing when stuck with a fork or tip of a sharp knife. Please be careful to check the temp of the bird before you take it out of the oven and pronounce it done.

We buy turkey often. I think it has more flavor than chicken, so buy it whenever I can find it. Usually thighs or legs. But I am not a great fan of chicken - especially not white meat. I think it is so bland it takes work to make it taste like anything. I took a trip to Morocco 4 years ago. On the menu everywhere was what amount to a national dish, tagine. On most menus it was listed as chicken tagine (occasionally, lamb was offered). I ordered and ate it many times. Something about it tasted not quite right. I thought it was the lemon and other spices. Then close to the end of the trip a chicken tagine cooking class at our hotel was part of the itinerary. Tour members showed up to the restaurant kitchen. All ingredients were already cut up for us and on big platters running down the center of the work surface. I took one look at the "chicken" and realized it was turkey. I asked the other women and they agreed it was turkey. The chef came in and I asked, "So the recipe has been changed to Turkey Tagine?" He said, "No, it's still going to be chicken." I explained that the meat I saw was turkey. The other people on my tour also spoke up and said it was turkey. He insisted it was chicken. Oh, well, I thought, maybe their chicken meat LOOKS like turkey meat. Since it was already cut up in cubes, could I really be sure? Maybe it's free range or they are fed something different. So we all made our tagines and sat down to a group meal. Unanimous among our group: it was turkey. We talked it over and realized why what we had been eating so far didn't taste like chicken: we'd been eating turkey all along. It was semantics, I guessed. Some people never ordered it again, saying they didn't like turkey. I have made tagine several times since at home, and intentionally have always used turkey.