Saving a Little Money - One Penny at a Time

I try to cook most of our meals from scratch.  Not only is it healthier if I cook the meals myself, it saves an awful lot of money over time.  One thing I find I constantly need is Chicken Bullion and Chicken Broth.  I'm not fond of the bullion cubes you find at the grocery store.  They are very high in sodium.  In fact, many bullion cubes contain some form of Monosodium Glutamate. (MSG).  Since I have problems with MSG, I find it easier to make my own home made version of bullion cubes.  I make my bullion cubes in advance, so I can pull them out and use them when I need them.

You will need a deep pot, and the left over bones (with meat still attached) of whatever you have recently eaten.  Chicken, Turkey, and Beef bones all work well for this.  I usually do this on a day when I know I'm going to be home all day.  I start the broth simmering in the morning, and then turn it off around  2 or 3.  I let it cool, skim off the fat, and then make the cubes.




Everybody into the hot tub!  One turkey carcass, three stalks of celery roughly cut into large pieces, four carrots, peeled and snapped into several large chunks, and an onion, cut into quarters.  Put everybody into the pot and add water.  I add enough water to make the bones float- usually about half full.  Bring the mix to a rolling boil, and then lower the temperature down to a "2" or "Med-Low" and let everything simmer for hours.  Let it simmer at least 4 hours, with the lid on, adding water occasionally to make certain that the water level never drops down below the halfway point in your pot.  After 3 or 4 hours, turn the heat off and let the broth cool.  Skim any visible fat off the top.  At this point, cookbooks will tell you to pour the broth through a cheesecloth in a colander over another pot to remove the bones and veggies.  I hate getting extra pots dirty, so I fish out what I can.  I guess I'm a little lazy.  I figure that any chunks of veggies or meat that I can't get out with my little hand held strainer deserves to stay in and help flavor the next meal.



Here, I've portioned out the broth into a muffin tin.  I always spray the tin with a non-stick spray before I add the broth.  It helps to make getting these guys out a little easier.  I freeze the broth overnight, and then pull the tins out.  Run a little warm water over the top and bottom of the tin.  Using a fork (or table knife) and some patience, leverage these guys out of their little spaces.  These guys have just come out of the freezer.  You can see the fat has come to the top.  I scraped off what I could before I put them in a freezer bag.

Look!  Little bullion cubes!  When a recipe calls for chicken bullion, or a small amount of broth, I will pull out one of these cubes and add it.  Each cube contains about 1/2 cup of broth.  One of these cubes will add as much flavor as a bullion cube, but with much less sodium.  A long time ago, I used to make these in ice cube trays.  Pulling the cubes out of an ice cube tray was much easier - the trays are designed to release their contents easily.  However, I had two problems with this method- I'd always end up using 2 or 3 broth cubes for every meal I made.  Even worse, the mess I made attempting to get the broth into the trays- and to get equal distribution among the trays, was very messy.  With the broth in a muffin tin, I can fill the muffin holes 2/3 full and still have a decent size cube.  It allows room for expansion in the tin.  I make less of a mess transporting muffin tins that are 2/3 of the way full across the room to the freezer than I do a mostly full ice cube tray of broth.  Don't ask me why... I guess I'm just clumsy!

So, for a days worth of work, I ended up with 24 little cubes of turkey broth. They are happily sitting in the freezer right now, waiting for me when I next need them.

I froze the rest of the broth - 3 quarts worth- in 3 plastic containers with screw-on lids.  I will use these when I need a large quantity of broth to make soup.

For the three quarts of broth alone, I saved $10. I put in maybe an hour's worth of work, total on this project.  Nice investment of my time!