Adventures in the Kitchen with Michelle, Soup Sock!

OK, today I’m going to clue you into one of the best secrets in my healthy eating kitchen – and it sounds crazy (surprise). Soup Socks. These have been around for years. It’s basically a wide mesh cheese cloth woven in a sock. I make my own soup stocks – fat free.

Step 1:

I start with, this time, a rotisserie chicken. I know I’m going to be making soup later anyway, so I’ve got an extra bag of frozen stock from before (see it in the background) to add to the pot. I get a bowl and stretch the sock over it with plenty hanging over the edge. Then I fill it. The carcass from the chicken, the onion ends, carrot pieces, celery tops, a little garlic, and some sprigs of rosemary.

Step 2:

I tie the top and get it in the pot. Add some salt and pepper and get it boiling. Just a simmer please. Let it go for an hour or so. Move it around and the bones should break up and be soft when it’s done. Not to mention, the veggies will have given all they have by then too.

Step 3:

That’s it. Pull out the bag and set in the sink to cool a bit. There’s no looking for another bowl and a giant strainer, etc. Then having to dump a nuclear hot liquid and getting a steam burn. Bag o’ junk – Pot o’ gold! That’s it.

Step 4:

Dump out the refuse and wash out the sock. Just like a grass stained kid sock – turn it inside out and rinse and rinse. I then set it in a coffee cup (or whatever’s in the sink awaiting the dishwasher) with hot water and some dish soap. Um, don’t put it in the regular wash or else it’ll smell like a dryer sheet. Which isn’t really a bad thing until your next batch of broth tastes a bit like Bounce! Let it dry and put it away for next time. Cause this is so easy, there will be a next time.

Now, go make your soup…or put your stock in a bowl and later get it in the fridge. Skim the fat off the top and there you have it! Super tasty, no MSG, no price either! This was from stuff you were going to toss anyway! I put mine into 2 cup portioned zip-bags and freeze them flat. Later they stand like little books of yumminess in the freezer waiting for that recipe that calls for ‘2 cups of chicken stock’…and I know you’ve got a ton of ’em! Or, just as it is. You’ll see, when you make your own stock, you can make healthy broth with flavor that you can’t get from a factory filled box. And that crazy ‘sock’ means there’s almost no mess. Luvin’ the Soup Sock.

Michelle