Desert or Dessert

Remember that cheese from yesterday? Of course you do, that’s why you are here.
I turned them into dumplings and had them for lunch in a broth.
Let’s get to the broth first.
When you roast or cook chicken don’t ever throw away the carcass, bones, neck or insides of that chicken. You can make some fantastic broth out of it. You don’t have to do it right away either. You can freeze all those bit's and pieces and cook one when it’s convenient for you.
I have been telling you that I am cleaning out my freezer so today I got out the remaining bags of those chicken bit's and pieces and made some broth. Here is how I do it.
In this picture you see three different bags. One has a chicken carcass (leftover from a roasted chicken), one has different chicken bones from former meals and the other had the neck and innards from another chicken in it. I dump it all into a big pot and fill it with water. Bring it to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for hours and hours (Great project for a crock pot over night). Depending on what I want to use the broth for I often add all sorts of veggies to it right away too  (leeks, celeriac, carrots, leeks etc.). That’s it, see how easy it is to make a great chicken stock?

Now we have the broth for our soup, it needs some flavoring. What I like to use is homemade vegetable seasoning. Here is how I do it.

In the fall when root vegetables are dirt cheap I get tons of celeriac, leeks, parsley root (sort of like parsnips) and carrots. I usually have parsley and other herbs like lovage in my garden. Sometimes I add tomato powder or dried tomatoes. I wash and dry all those veggies than put them in my kitchen machine to make them real small. The smaller the pieces the better.
Now I mix salt under (this will help preserve it) in a ration of 4:1 (4 parts vegetables to 1 part salt/ 1000g vegetable to 250g salt). Fill it into glasses and store one jar in the fridge and the others in the freezer. This will last a long time if you don’t use it up even faster.
I make other mixes in powder form where I weigh out my veggies (so I know how much salt to add later), clean, dry and dehydrate them. After they are dehydrated I mix them with salt and  pulse them in kitchen machine for a courser powder and in the Vitamix for a very fine powder. Those are the only seasonings I use in my stocks. No need to buy beef/chicken/vegetable cubes or there like. You can combine the vegetables in a way you like them.
Not to long ago I had a recipe from “The Kitch’n” on my feed for homemade bouillon. From there I took the tip to add cilantro and fennel to my fridge mix. Wow, I got to tell you, I was hesitant about the fennel in this but boy is this good. I make it with fennel and cilantro all the time now (only the fridge version). Why not give it a try yourself.

The broth is all done now. How about the cheese you ask? We are getting there.
A few days ago I saw this recipe at “Proud Italian Cook”.  Perfect for Michelle’s cheese I thought.
And perfect it was. Very light dumplings and very tasty.
I used the last of the Pecorino cheese I had leftover from this recipe. I had exactly 3.5 oz left over and with the 1/2 lb of cheese I had made that was just what I needed.
Very good and a very satisfying lunch. Life is good!

I have another idea in my head on what to do with this cheese and I will get to you with that tomorrow.

Hint: How does Ravioli sound?