Cooler Weather Means Cooking Mojo Returning

One of the things I was able to cultivate during the my Covid Layoff was multiple stages of cooking whole foods.  I love being able to re-purpose, or progressively use food, but this takes time and planning.

For example, starting with a roasted chicken or turkey meal.  The leftover meat is used in chicken or turkey sandwiches or enchiladas, and a broth from the bones is used to make a soup, flavor sauces, or cook beans and rice.

I have a harder time doing this in the summer, mostly because I don't want to add heat to the house by using the oven or stove, when it's already so hot, both inside and outside.

So while we are still having warm, 90+ days, the nights and mornings are cooling off... and we have our first 70-something degree day of the season, in this week's forecast.

Over the weekend, I made a couple of Quiches and Fresh Tomato Pies using eggs from our new flock of chickens and a bunch of volunteer tomato plants.  These will mostly be used for lunch and breakfast over this coming week.

I also started a broth of domestic and wild pig bones.

These bones came from meats that Hubba smoked over the last year.  So they have already contributed to a primary meal where the meat was the focus, as well as multiple secondary meals of sandwiches, burritos, and tacos.

I started this broth midday Sunday, brought it to a boil, then let is simmer all afternoon and overnight.  It will spend most of today cooling off and I will filter out the bones and aromatics this evening.

Later today, Hubba will smoke a store-bought ham hock 

Tomorrow, this will all be turned into a Split Pea Soup.

I only wish I had some sourdough starter in progress, because fresh, home-made, bread is one of the nicest compliments to a hearty home-made soup.