Titus 2 Tips: Seven Reasons to Make Homemade Broth For your Family {Simple recipe included}

The peak of flu season is fast approaching. The cold winter months of the Northern Hemisphere finds scores of people sick with viruses that have been roving around the globe. People with a weakened immune system are particularly vulnerable and one way to strengthen your immune is eating healthy foods.

So last week I had chicken bones simmering on our kitchen counter. In fact, there are more bones in the Crock-pot right now brewing up rich broth for soups and sauces and uninvited illnesses. You never know when those nasty viruses are going to attack and this is a way to help guard them from you and your family and to restore health if the flu bug does come knocking on your door.

Chicken Noodle soup has always been a comfort food on a cold winter's day, when fighting off fevers, but several years ago I discovered the actual health benefits of broth and it has changed the way I boil down our chicken carcasses after a roasted chicken dinner. This is a win-win for our family because Roasted Chicken is one of the favourites in this house and then I have broth to make some easy and healthy meals for the next several days.

I would encourage you, if you do not already, to regularly make your own broth. It is so easy and can add so much to your culinary delights and to your health.

I'll leave you with seven reasons to entice you to make homemade broth for your family before I promise to give you a recipe. For I've been 'told' that you don't mention food on a blog without leaving the recipe.

Homemade broth is delicious. 

When you add vegetables, spices, herbs, vinegar and a bay leaf the broth that 'magically' appears is tastier than any bouillon cube or canned broth that I have ever sipped. It makes such a scrumptious chicken soup my children usually want mostly broth in their bowls.

Bones are Wonderful Resource—Refuse to Waste Them

If you prepare a lovely chicken dinner for your family and throw out the bones, you are wasting a wonderful resource in your kitchen. Think twice before you throw out your bones! They are not finished with you yet!

Saves your Hard-earned Money

If you make your own broth, you can save on your grocery bill. Last week, after our original chicken dinner, I made Chicken Chilli, Chicken A La King, Chicken sandwiches, Chicken Soup, Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, sent a travel mug filled with broth with my husband who was going to work a little under the weather, and still put broth in the freezer for a later date.

Extremely Healthy

If you make your own broth, you are making medicine. Well, almost. It is so nutrient rich that for centuries it has been prescribed for improving health and warding off illness. Many traditional diets included broth or stock regularly. It's been around a lot longer than any flu shot, and the shot only "protects" agains three viruses each year so even if you rolled up your sleeves, chances are you are not immune to the many other viruses. In flu season, you really need to have a healthy broth on hand for your family. (As well as getting plenty of rest, vitamin D, and exercise, decreasing sugar intake, washing your hands with water and regular soap, reducing stress, and avoiding places that are prime breeding grounds for viruses. But, I've digressed.)

Almost Effortless

Homemade broth is super easy to make. Throw the bones in the Crock-pot, add some vegetables, vinegar or wine, and water, of course, and 12-24 hours later you have your delicious broth. Our left-over bones go into the crock pot right after we've cleaned up from dinner and in the morning there's a pot-full of broth simmering. (I've included a wide range for simmering time as some people use the broth after 12 hours and others leave it up to 24 hours. I don't have a set time, rather I use it when I see that there is a rich broth.) You could take broth as you need it and replace it with more water and keep it simmering. It's essentially fool-proof, really.

A Little Goes A Long Way

One carcass can produce a vast amount of broth. Don't you dare throw away those bones yet! After you make your first batch of broth, strain the broth and leave the bones, add more vegetables, spices and herbs again and in 12-24 hours you will have your second batch.  It may not be as rich, but you can use it in to make some soups. I've even made a third batch, but only used it to cook rice.

A Fine Cook You Will Be

You will be increasing you culinary expertise. Kitchens in fine restaurants are known to use their own home-made broths simmering away on back burners for their soups and sauces. Wont' you be able to whip up some impressive dishes!

I would love to get into the health benefits, but as this is only intended to whet your appetite to make you want to make healthy broth for your family, I'll leave you with my simple instructions and let you do a bit more research on your own. (Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon, is a helpful resource.)

This is not a food blog, but as promised, this is the simple recipe I use to make homemade:

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Chicken Carcass
Water (enough to cover bones)
Apple Cider Vinegar
Carrots
Celery
Onion
Garlic cloves (optional)
Parsley (optional)
Bay leaf
Black Peppercorns (optional)
Sea Salt (optional)

Directions

1.) After you have enjoyed a delicious meal of Roasted Chicken and removed the remaining meat from the bones, place the bones in a Crock-pot and cover it with cold water.

2.) Pour 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar over the bones.

3.) Add vegetables.

4.) Toss in a bay leaf.

5.) Salt and pepper to taste.

6.) Turn your Crock-pot on high until it comes to a boil and then turn it down low and let the broth simmer until you see occasional bubbles rise to the surface.

7.) Leave the broth on a low simmer for 12-24 hours.

8.) Strain your broth using a metal strainer.

9.) Repeat the process.

You can let your broth cool and scrape off the fat that will harden on the surface.

Use your broth right away or store in the fridge for up to five days or freeze.

You will know you have made rich, healthy broth if it looks like jelly when it has cooled. This is the gelatine from the bones and it's extremely healthy. Don't just take my word for it, you can check it out for yourself. 

See how easy it is to have this beneficial food in your kitchen, ready to serve to your beloved family!

If you make broth already and have any further suggestions, please leave them in the comments for others to glean from your wisdom. 

Titus 2 Tips

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in behaviour,
not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands,

that the word of God may not be reviled."

{Titus 2:3-5}

This is the first 'tip' in this series. The plan is to have guests post as well with women sharing their tips and hearts to encourage and mentor women. 

Some weeks may be tips from the kitchen or healthy recipes, tools they have used to grow spiritually, hints to help us build up and love our husbands, and lessons they have learned as they have walked along with their children to teach them to love God wholeheartedly, habits they have developed in keeping their home, ways they have worked on to keep their behaviour respectful, or rhythms that allow peace and rest in the home and hearts that dwell there within.