Chicken & vegetable home made soup.

We had chicken roast for tea last night so I decided to use the carcass to make a chicken stock for soup. I’ve never done this before but have read about in on the moneysavingexpert ‘old style forums‘.

Here’s how I did it.

1. I placed the carcass (skin, bones and any scraps of meat still clinging on for dear life) into my slow cooker. I added about a litre of boiling water, some mixed herbs, a few bay leafs and some peppercorns. I set the slow cooker to low and left it on overnight.
2. After getting the stock going, I remembered to put some “soup mix” (lentils/pearl barley etc) in a bowl of water to soak overnight.
3. This morning I removed the stock from the slow cooker and poured the mixture through a colander into a pan. I left it to drain for a few minutes. I then came back and picked out any salvageable bits of meat and put it in with the stock. The rest of the carcass/skin was binned.
4. I poured the stock back into the slow cooker and added the rinsed ‘soup mix’ that had been soaking overnight. I set the slow cooker to low.
5. The stock smells delicious already! I warmed some oil in a pan and added a chopped red onion, 1 chopped leek and a spoonful of lazy garlic. I left this cooking whilst I chopped a carrot and a parsnip. I then added this to the pan and cooked for about 5 minutes. I then transferred this to the slow cooker along with a large chopped potato. As I didn’t appear to have enough liquid I added about another ½ pint of stock.
6. I have left this cooking all day and I think it’s going to be delicious. It certainly smells scrummy!

How does it look?