Thanks for clearing that up. (Note to self, bigger freezer or consider...pressure power!) I went to the link but see that this recipe includes actual meat jarred up with the broth. "Chicken or turkey: Place large carcass bones with most of meat removed in a large stockpot, add enough water to cover bones, cover pot, and simmer 30 to 45 minutes or until remaining attached meat can be easily stripped from bones. Remove bones and pieces, cool broth, strip meat, discard excess fat, and return meat trimmings to broth. Reheat to boiling and fill jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. " I myself simmer turkey/chicken bones with a few veggies and herbs for a good 3 hours (ham hocks for maybe 4). There is little actual meat in the pot. The resulting (mostly) clear stock then jells up overnight in the fridge. At that point I usually freeze it. It would seem to me that a 30-45 minutes simmer as indicated above would most likely result in a really 'weeny' broth with little substance. Has anyone jarred up a meatless broth? (Meanwhile she opens up a wordprocessing window and starts letter to Santa....) Kris

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

That much chicken, barely covered with water - seems like it should have flavor! But I don't make chicken stock with breasts, that being the least flavorful part of the modern chicken in my opinion. I use the carcass, which has more connective tissue, skin, cartilage, and so on. That all breaks down to gelatin which you want in a chicken soup. So, I second the suggestion off adding some necks and backs. I also make my stock separately, strain it, then use it to make chicken soup. That allows you to cook the stock for hours until every bit of flavor is extracted from the chicken and veggies, then remove the now-tasteless mush, fat, clouding particles - that you don't want in the soup anyway. When you use that stock to make soup, in effect you are further enhancing the broth with a second pass of chicken and veggies, which you'll cook just enough and not too much. I usually put the veggies in last. I know this is not the simpler process your mother used, but those of us without "mom magic" have to resort to more laborious measures. One thing - your mom might have used more salt than you are using today. Salt enhances flavors and back in our childhood, people weren't usually trying to control sodium. Her "mom magic" might have been as simple as an additional tsp or two of salt.

You can use any part of a chicken that you find on sale for making chicken broth. I buy packages of chicken necks & backs just for making broth. Not a whole lot of meat, but it really doesn't matter if you simmer the broth for several hours. By the time you're done, the meat has pretty much given up all its flavor. If your goal is to make broth & use the meat for soup, I think legs, and especially thighs, are a good choice. They are more flavorful than breasts and hold up to long cooking. As far as too much broth, you don't need to fill your dutch oven. Just make the amount of water equal to what you want to finally end up with. Or, you could make a larger amount and freeze the extra broth. However, there's absolutely no reason why you can't use a smaller saucepan with just a few pieces of chicken. I think browning the chicken pieces either in the stock pot or in the oven adds a richer flavor to the chicken broth. I always include a chunked up carrot, onion, and celery stalk, along with a bay leaf, some whole black peppercorns, and a couple of whole allspice. The longer you simmer the broth, the deeper and fuller the flavor. I usually strain the broth using a strainer lined with some cheesecloth & toss all the solids. However, if I have used some really meaty chicken pieces, I remove the bones & skin and set the meat aside for use later. Then I refrigerate the broth overnight & scrape off the congealed fat. If I'm making soup with the strained & de-fatted broth, I'll use fresh vegetables.