Saturday, November 29, 2014

Waste Nothing

Don’t waste a bit of that turkey. After you’ve carved off as much meat as possible, put the turkey carcass in a big pot, cover it with water and pour in half a cup of vinegar. Put a lid on the pot, bring it to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for several hours.

Vinegar will dissolve some of the minerals in the bones, making a mineral-rich broth. Don’t worry about the broth tasting of vinegar because its acidity is neutralized as the minerals are leached from the bones. This broth is a far better source of calcium and phosphorous than supplements you can take.

Use the broth to make soup or gravy for turkey potpie.

I extract the minerals from any kind of bones – chicken, beef, pork, or turkey. Here’s a pot of broth from chicken bones.


Finally, pick the remaining bits of meat from the bones. I save the cartilage and skin, along with some bits of meat, for our dog, Annie. The remaining bones go to the chickens to supplement their diet. Chickens’ beaks are incredibly strong and can peck bones down to nothing.

Waste nothing. That’s my motto.


Copyright 2014 by Shirley Domer

2 comments:

LawrenceLinda said...

I chew on the cartilage. It has all the stuff in those hylauronic acid chondroitin sulfate pills sold for joints.

Shirley said...

I should have credited Lawrence Linda for telling me about cooking bones with vinegar. Linda is one smart cookie and has an advanced degree in biochemistry.