March 2017 — well into retirement and less into grandiose cooking — I made chili for the Sierra Canyon Chili Cookoff. Had some loose sausage and some beef chuck cubes leftover.

I can deal with the sausage — eat it for breakfasts —the beef cubes? Roast?, Braise? Not enough to make stock in the traditional sense — do a search on “stock” and see pages and pages of recipe writing — but the empty crock pot is sitting on the counter from chili-making, why not throw in the beef cubes, NY steak bone from Monday, and bones and scraps we’ve been freezing for Tuzik? Make a 2 or 3 Quart batch.

Better fits our current lifestyle. When we have a chicken… do it with chicken.

Did just that. Slow cooker on high to start, since there was some frozen stuff, then on low until 6pm, about 8 hours. Now I have 2 1/2 quarts of beef stock ready to be skimmed of fat. 

Next time I’ll do the Colicchio method — blanch meat n bones first to get rid of blood n junk — then the slow cooker.

Just be choosy about what you use, remembering “garbage in, garbage out.” You want pure, wonderful stock, *better than store-bought.*