Sorry to be so late responding. I appreciate all of the advice. My e-mail has been acting up so I didnâÂÂt get any notifications and forgot to look here. I thought of cooking it outside just to keep the odor out of the house. Using the garage isnâÂÂt practical with our house design. It turned out not to be a problem inside. I think that I've cooked it a higher temp in the past - often a vigorous simmer instead of barely a simmer. Much better broth quality with the lower temp. Grainlady, the homemade boullion cubes looks great! IâÂÂll remember that for the future. Ajsmama, the bones are from the half cow that I purchased last summer. Since most people donâÂÂt want them, I suspect I can get more from the processor quite inexpensively. I love the effect of the parboiling. I put the bones in a stockpot, then covered with cold water. My stove brings this to a boil in a few minutes. After a vigorous 3 minute boil, all kinds of crud surfaced. I rinsed the bones, then roasted them, and made the stock as usual. There was almost nothing to skim during the stock making and the stock tastes wonderful. I probably didnâÂÂt cool the stock as quickly as I should have, but it was all down to room temperature within 30 minutes from removing it from the stove, and straight into the fridge. I wish IâÂÂd thought to use the blue frozen packs as we have a ton of them. I sadly ended up losing half of my bones before I started, so made this on top of the stove. Fortunately itâÂÂs easy to maintain a bare simmer on that stove. I found that the pan from my 24 quart roaster fits perfectly in my prep sink. We filled the sink with ice and water so that it came up around the sides of the pan; then strained the stock into the pan & stirred to cool. Since my stock was very concentrated, I also added ice directly to the stock, about 2 trayâÂÂs worth. This was a mistake, as I did lose the visible gelatin. It still tastes good, but I certainly won't dilute if at all when drinking.

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

I might as well add my two cents to this, although there are so many great ideas and links already here. It's my method for making chicken broth and soup. Here we can buy stripped chicken carcasses 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

wow, the 1 cup of peanut oil would put me off... didn't it affect the taste?! Anyway, when I think of poppy seeds the complementing flavors that come to mind are lemon and/or cream cheese. It's too bad that the dough is already sticky -- and I wouldn't add more flour to already bland cookies! Do you think it would it work to "shape them" on cookie sheets or smear some into muffin cups so that there's a center indentation and fill them w/ a lemon custard or a lemon-flavored cream cheese filling before baking? :) A simpler option would be to make a sweet-tart lemon glaze using confectioner's sugar and lemon juice that will harden after it's poured over the cookies. :) I LOVE THIS EDIT OPTION! LOL!!! This post was edited by party_music50 on Tue, Dec 18, 12 at 11:16