Hey everyone! I'd like to thank you all for you interest and I'm happy to say that I'm completely finished with my downsizing. All the plants are gone and my collection is where it needs to be. Look for some pictures of my new terrariums soon.

I agree, I think they will be fine, especially with an overnight soaking. Sometimes if beans get too old, they don't soften when cooked, they stay a bit hard. I've had beans that were 3 or 4 years old, though, and they cooked up just fine. And yes, I know. I need to clean the pantry more often! annie

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

So now it will be another week or two before I try the new recipe of what is (basically) a shepherd's pie with sausage - and the potatoes have spinach and gruyere and vinegar and nutmeg as well as the usual butter and cream. DH was looking forward to it but I goofed with the sausage. Next time!