Day One Hundred Sixty-Eight: Homemade Bone Broth

A year ago, we purchased a quarter of a grass-fed, pastured-raised cow from one of our friends. Once it was processed, one of the things we ended up with was a couple of bags of beef bones. My friend told me they would make excellent bone broth, which was something I had been reading about and wanting to try, so it seemed perfect. Obviously, making homemade bone broth didn't immediately make it to the top of my to-do list, and here I am, a year later, just getting around to it. One of the things that kept me from doing it earlier was that it seemed to be quite a lengthy and, by many accounts, smelly process. Motivated by my knee injury to increase my collagen intake and knowing that bone broth was a good source of collagen, I started looking more seriously at recipes. It turns out, you can make bone broth in the Instant Pot, cutting down on cooking time as well as odor. Win-win. It actually smells fantastic, and we are so excited to give it a try! (We're thinking maybe French onion soup! Ooh, my mouth's watering already!)

Bone broth and all it's goodies still in the Instant Pot

Finished product

Day One Hundred Twenty-Five: Instant Pot Chicken

We have had an Instant Pot for more than a year, but we really haven't explored all its possible uses. I have mostly used to make beans. But, tonight the dinner crunch caught up with me (again!), and I really needed to get the chicken cooked in record time. I threw several raw chicken breasts into the cooker and hoped for the best while I busily worked on the rest of the dinner preparations. Eighteen minutes later, I had five fully cooked chicken breasts, ready to be shredded and put into my enchiladas. No mess, no fuss. I'm kicking myself for not employing this handy device more often, but I can assure you it will see more action in the future.