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I have been very busy this weekend! In an effort to stay healthy I decided to try to make my own fully organic chicken stock. I found a recipe that uses the bones and leftovers from a roasted chicken and thought this would be a great way to try this the first time. While I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, I did use it as a guide. I’m no stranger to roasting chickens, I think it’s a great way to prepare delicious food for a group and it’s also economical. I also thought this would be a great way to get the most out of one chicken. At the end of the day I was able to prepare two meals and also had some leftover chicken stock to store in the freezer! I call that a win.

I started with an organic whole chicken from Trader Joe’s. I removed the innards and rinsed the whole chicken inside and out. I then combined olive oil, salt and pepper, dried oregano, basil, thyme and the juice of one lemon. I stuffed the used lemons inside the chicken for some additional flavor. I then covered the whole bird with the olive oil mixture and let it sit out while my oven pre-heated as I wanted to it to come to room temperature so it would cook more evenly. I pre-heated the oven to 450 degrees and it took about an hour to fully cook. Chicken should come to an internal temperature of 165 degrees. The result was a delicious smelling apartment and a tasty bird!

I couldn’t be happier with the result! I then picked this beauty apart until there was really nothing left but bones. I reserved the dark meat for my soup and the white meat for my chicken salad. The recipe I used as a guide for the chicken stock came from a blog that I found on Pinterest.

How to Make Homemade Chicken Stock

I did not use the peppercorns but I think it might have added something, as my final product while still tasty felt like it was missing something. It was so simple! All I did was cover the chicken bones, carrot, celery, onion and garlic in water and let it simmer on the stove for about 4 hours. Towards the end of the cooking I added some tumeric and a healthy portion of salt. I love the color that tumeric adds to dishes! It’s such a vibrant yellow. After straining the stock, I added about half of it back into the pot to start my delicious soup creation and let the other half cool so that I could ultimately freeze it later.

Roasted Chicken, Sweet Potato, Kale and White Bean Soup

Ingredients:

Dark meat from a roasted chicken (directions above)
Homemade chicken stock (directions above) – probably about 3-4 cups.
Two sweet potatoes, diced
Two handfuls of kale (I removed the stems)
1 can of organic Northern White Beans with the liquid (I got mine from Trader Joe’s)
1/2 cup of pasta (I used brown rice fusili)
Parmesan cheese rind (Picked this idea up from Gina at http://www.skinnytaste.com)
Salt & pepper

Directions:

Add the chicken, sweet potatoes, kale, parmesan cheese rind and white beans into the homemade chicken stock. Bring it to a boil and then reduce heat and let it all simmer for about 45 minutes. Add the pasta and cook for an additional 10 minutes or to package instructions. Serve with a sprinkle of fresh parmesan and a piece of bread! I picked up a loaf of bread from the bakery below our apartment and it was delicious! I highly suggest finding a good bakery for your bread and bagel needs!!

The picture could be better, but after smelling this in my apartment all day, I could only take time to snap one photo. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! Stay tuned for the chicken salad recipe. 🙂

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