Yesterday, we had a family from church over for dinner. I made mac and cheese (for the kids) and roasted whole chicken (the skin was for Kayla and George). I've been hearing about how people make homemade chicken broth (Ina Garten always talks about it on her show and I've always thought it would be a long, time-consuming process). I decided today was a good day to try it out since I had a perfectly good chicken carcass left over. I love my crockpot (though George would be perfectly happy if it walked itself to the trash can. I've unfortunately made many dishes where the meat came out too dry. Or the meal didn't taste good and I forced him to eat it anyway.) I followed this recipe from the Crockpot Lady (she challenged herself to make 365 crockpot meals in one year). Although instead of blending everything afterwards, I used a mesh wire strainer to strain out the bones, garlic and veggies. The broth is cooling on the kitchen counter right now.
I'll let it sit in the fridge overnight to let the fat congeal, then scrape it off tomorrow. Later this week (maybe tomorrow?!) I'll make tomato egg drop soup or Chinese corn soup. It looks dark and flavorful, and I hope it tastes yummy too! Even George (who is anti-crockpot 99% of the time) said that it smelled good. I'm hopeful that it turns out well -- I may have to make broth every time I've got a whole chicken carcass.
I hope I'm not sounding too cheap. Frugal, maybe. I like to think of it as using my resources to their fullest extent. I prefer buying organic when I can, and while this chicken wasn't organic, I feel better about having control over what goes into the chicken broth. No salt, additives or msg or anything like that. Plus, foodies say that homemade broth tastes way better than the stuff you buy in the stores. I guess I have multiple reasons for making homemade broth. So we'll see how it turns out.
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Some of you know about Kayla's attachment to a yellow baby spoon. Most kids pick a stuffed animal or a blanket as their "lovey." Kayla, however, likes her yellow Gerber baby spoon. Don't know why she chose it, but she sleeps with it at night, brings it into the car with her (thank goodness she's okay with it staying in the car) and when she realizes she doesn't have her spoon, she stops everything and exclaims, "Where's my toy?!" and we look for it until she has the spoon safely in her hands.
The spoon doesn't have a name, but it has taken on different identities. Sometimes, in the car, Kayla will make the spoon have conversations with whichever other toy she brought with her. One instance that comes to mind is when Kayla had her spoon and a T-Rex Dinosaur Train toy. The spoon became another dinosaur. Kayla wouldn't tell me a single thing about what she did in preschool that day, but the T-Rex and spoon sure were engaged in conversation the whole ride back home.
Once, Kayla found a pink shoelace and asked George to wrap it around the handle of the spoon. In that case, the spoon became a doll. Eventually (like MONTHS later), the shoelace unraveled and Kayla asked George to wrap it around again. He didn't wrap it up exactly the same way as it had been before, and couldn't remember exactly how he had wrapped it, and to Kayla, if the spoon wasn't wrapped exactly the same as it was before, it wasn't acceptable. George ended up taking the shoelace off and after some tears, Kayla had to come to terms that the spoon would have to stay shoelace-less from that point on.
Another thing that's been hard for Kayla to accept is that we are not going to get up in the middle of the night to look for her spoon. Kayla wakes up a few times throughout the night (which I think is typical of kids her age) and usually tosses and turns before falling back asleep on her own. However, falling back asleep becomes more complicated when she can't find her spoon because it's tangled up in the blankets, hiding under the pillow, or stuck between the bed and the wall. We've had several visits from Kayla at 3 a.m. because she can't find her spoon. Hunting for the spoon is disastrous because (a) it's dark in the room (b) I'm half asleep (c) Jocelyn is sleeping in the same room (d) Kayla will start sobbing if I tell her I can't find the spoon and lastly, (e) sometimes George is snoring when I get back into bed and then I'm the one who can't fall back asleep until I poke George hard enough that he stops snoring but then he is awake and mad that I've poked him and interrupted his sleep.
Last week, we reminded Kayla at bed time that if she wakes up in the middle of the night and can't find her spoon, it's okay and she will have to wait until "good morning time" to find her spoon. So far, so good [knock on wood].
I think this whole spoon thing is a little odd and don't know if I should be concerned. I was telling a friend at church today about Kayla and her spoon. My friend thought it was really cute (she even said that she wished she still had her baby spoons to give me an extra yellow one to have on hand). She told me that I should take pictures because before we know it, Kayla will outgrow this phase and we'll miss this whole spoon-attachment thing. My friend's oldest is almost 8 years old (I still remember holding him when he was a newborn!), so I guess she knows what she's talking about.
Here's Kayla posing with her spoon:
Now here she is tucking herself into her bed, with the thousand other toys she insists on sleeping with:
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