Stock Pot

Anyone who's ever run a really frugal kitchen knows that one of the best ways to save is with a bubbling stock pot. Saving up leftover vegetables, chicken carcasses, and so forth are second nature, because you can get another meal or two out of what most people think of as table scraps to be thrown out or composted.

For me, the chicken is pretty much where the stock pot begins and ends. Beef in my house tends to come in roast, London broil, or other boneless form. The occasional ham or turkey breast makes its way into the house, but that's really quite unusual (and ham ends as split pea or bean soup, not stock).

Chicken, on the other hand, is the most-often consumed meat here. It's one of the least expensive, and it's pretty much everyone's favorite besides.

Stock, for me, varies a little bit for each batch, depending mostly on what's in the house. At the very least an onion and a sprinkling of poultry seasoning find their way into the pot every time, but any number of other things go in too, if they're around.

Today's pot holds the leftovers from cutting the last chicken into pieces - skin, backbone, that sort of thing - with fresh sage, fresh rosemary, a fistful of garlic mustard, two small carrots, and half a local onion. When it's all done, I'll be freezing it for next week, when I'm finally going to make this fantastic soup. Delish.

Incidentally, for those of you who lead busy lives (read: most of you), you can do this in a crock pot, too - so it cooks while you're at work or otherwise occupied.

Not local today: absolutely nothing!