November 20th: Much Was Cooked

The big project of the day was beef broth made from two large bags of bones that needed to come out of the freezer before the pork and bacon could go in. I anticipated wonderful smells from roasting bones and was disappointed when a dark, smelly substance oozed from one enormous bone, but I threw out that bone and soldiered on. There was a pleasant interlude when the house smelled of roasting onion, but the unpleasant smell of beef fat and whatever it was that oozed lingered in the house all week, which didn't seem like a fair reward for my labors. Of course, I also had some good stock. Once again, I went to The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution for a recipe.

Thyme and parsley from the yard were still usable and I had tomatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic in the house, so the only recipe-specific purchase was celery. I only needed a stalk or two, but as I'd placed it poorly in the refrigerator such that it froze, my first project with the finished broth was braised celery from The Victory Garden Cookbook: delicious, but sadly unattractive.

The stock had to simmer for many hours so I had to cook other things to eat that day. Baked sweet potato chips and mustard greens cooked with onion and hot pepper flakes were delicious together.

Most of the stock became a perfectly adequate beef barley soup, hearty and undistinguished.