Sigh... I'm feeling a little discouraged here... My bones looked pretty much just like Michelle's after roasting and putting into the pot... But after 3.5 hours of cooking it tastes like.... Eh, dishwater! Smells beefy, but the taste isn't there at all. I'm going to keep cooking it down I guess... Maybe I used too much water? I had about 10 pounds of bones, and I used 32 cups (2 gallons) of water... I thought that seemed like about the right proportion, given the recipe listed above... Emily

Here's my crab asparagus soup recipe: Crab Asparagus Soup Ingredients: 2 pounds asparagus 6 stalks celery 1 onion 2 serrano peppers 4 cups water 1 tsp crab soup base 1 tsp lobster soup base 1 tsp Thai fish sauce 1/4 teaspoon Chinese chili paste (or to taste) 1 pound crab meat Soy sauce to taste Remove the tips from the asparagus and reserve. Coarsely chop the asparagus stems, celery, onion, and Serrano peppers and put in a stock pan with the water. Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 45 minutes. Blend the mixture in a food processor or use a hand-held blender to purée. Strain the puréed mixture through a China cap into another soup pan or bowl and force as much purée through as possible, leaving the stringy pulp to be discarded. Return the liquid to the heat and add the soup base, fish sauce, and chili paste. You can substitute a dash of cayenne for the chili paste. Add the asparagus tips and simmer for about 3-5 minutes, but do not overcook the tips. Add the crab meat and remove from heat. Adjust seasonings with soy sauce and/or chili paste and serve immediately. 2003 Lars Theoderik *Note: you can substitute fish stock for some or all of the water and omit the soup base, but then you will need to add about 1 tsp salt (or to taste), since I use the soup base in place of salt. It's best not to add too much salt, and I generally serve it with soy sauce. You can also cut the recipe in half, but I haven't done this, as it goes pretty quickly. Lars

Well, it worked GREAT. I made a simple clam chowder with turnip, daikon radish, and rutabaga, all cubed about 1/2", in place of potato. Everything else was as usual for a simple clam chowder. Onion, celery, a little garlic, bacon, clams (some canned, some whole), plenty of butter and heavy cream, milk, salt, pepper, a little flour to thicken (which turned out to be unnecessary, in fact I had to thin it out with more milk), Italian parsley garnish. Served in a boule bread bowl for DD, in plain bowls for SWMBO and me. We all preferred the low carb chowder to the traditional potato based chowder, which I'd made last week. SWMBO liked the way these root vegetables held together in their cubes instead of disintegrating as potatoes are wont to do. She liked the daikon radish best. She did complain about the actual clams with shells. DD pointed out that the shells slow you down and prevent gobbling. I felt the root veg-based clam chowder was a little lighter than a potato chowder, in the sense that it doesn't sit quite as heavy in the belly. But that may have been psychosomatic. (Numbers. Grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams of food: Potato 17, rutabaga 9, turnip 6, daikon radish 4. So next time I'll use more daikon radish. It's low(er) carb than the traditional recipe, but has plenty of fat from the dairy. I'm trying to eat less carb and more fat and protein, so this is perfect for me.) Anyway, this is going on the Christmas eve menu. We are doing a big crab feed. We always do a big crab feed. This year we broke tradition and went away for Thanksgiving, to a friend's house in Port Townsend WA. It was a wonderful trip - ferries, food that I didn't have to cook, a cute coastal town with interesting shops, our favorite cafe and a good bookstore, lots of lounging and napping, and one day I set up my laptop, put my head down, worked for 10 hours and pushed through a task that had me "blocked" for months. But . . . This has made us more determined to spend Christmas and New Years at home, with the kids and a fire, cooking and knitting, working and reading, getting the last college applications submitted (DS), and napping, hopefully a good deal of napping.

Lots of shelf stable milk products available and milk does freeze well. As does small containers of greek yogurt. I keep a stash of powdered goat and buttermilk. Rarely use it. I like to use blendered roasted vegetables for a thickener in soups and gravies. Alex Guarnaschelli uses roasted veg (blendered) in her holiday gravy...no flour. Lock-down i purchased a big 4-5 pound bag of riced cauliflower. Cheap. Went through it quickly. (i don't think MrSleeve even knew i was using it) Cooked in stock with celery, onion, and some cubed roasted butternut or acorn squash makes a nice 'cream' when blendered. I added a few dried soaked wild mushroom for this years vegan gravy. (have not needed to cook vegan/gluten free since holidays 2018). Made a veg stock and a couple pints of veg gravy last weekend for thanksgiving and x-mas. A few pints of veg stock for wild rice/mushroom stuffing/dressing. My sister will eat eggs, tamari, tahini, miso, some grains/rice and certain beans. All the seeds. Some hard goat cheeses. No other dairy. So not difficult to make flavorful dishes. I'm sure a good low/no carb risotto can be done. I would finish with a good nutty romano instead of a heavy dairy cream. I doubt i would attempt risotto for either family having this seasons meals already maped out. My sister is chill about making her own meals if mine does not fit her diet. I accomadate for the main holiday meals. Same with MrSleeves family. I have a half dozen HoneyNut squashes in cold storage. Acorn and delicatta. Looking for recipe ideas i came across this risotto. Not a bad primer recipe for a creamy risotto without the carbs. Replacing the riso with creamy veg.