by Erin Losie
With two foods under the baby’s belt, I moved onto a third—chicken broth! I discussed the reasons for choosing broth as a first food in my last post, Stock for the Baby! In my house chicken broth is probably the easiest to make, as we usually have a store bought rotisserie chicken in the refrigerator.
A quick side note….I know that by the letter of the Paleo law these chickens are not the best, because they are probably not organic, free range chickens. However, everyone in his or her Paleo journey has to draw the cost-benefit line. For me, the price and convenience of having this ready-made meat is worth the non-organic status. If I didn’t have this meat readily available, I’d eat dairy or root chips for every snack.
Ok, back to broth. To make the broth I pulled all the meat of the chicken and threw the bones in the crock-pot, filled the pot with water, added a little vinegar, and let it simmer for 12 hours. After 12 hours I let it cool, took the bones out, strained the broth with cheesecloth. I then poured some into ice cube trays for freezing and left some out to feed baby girl.
When mealtime arrived, I fed her the chicken broth, with a spoon, like soup, and she again LOVED it! 
I’ve since made chicken broth from a CSA chicken. The broth turned out to be richer and have more gelatin. Both good things! So now when I make the broth with a store bought rotisserie chicken, I add chicken feet to it, to get more flavor and nutrients.
Chicken feet are great for broth because they contain collagen and minerals, which help the gel factor. They are creepy to look at though! But, chicken feet are cheap! Harvey’s Market at Union Market sells a pack of them for a couple dollars. I only use two at a time, so I wrapped two together in plastic wrap (so they don’t all stick together), then put all the pairs in a freezer bag, and freeze them for the next batch of broth.
Chicken Stock for the Baby Recipe!
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 12 hours
Total time: 12 hours 5 mins
Ingredients
- 1 pound (or so) of Chicken Bones
- 1-2 Chicken Feet (optional)
- 1 TBS of Vinegar
Instructions
- Put the bones in a crockpot.
- Put the vinegar in the crockpot.
- Pour in enough water to cover the bones and fill-up the pot
- Let the sit for about an hour
- Turn the crockpot on low and cook for about 12 hours
- Let cool (put in the refrigerator, to make the fat easier to take off)
- Skim fat off the top (place in a container and place in refrigerator. Use as cooking fat!)
- Pull out the bones
- Filter the broth through cheesecloth until the bones and particles are gone (I had to do this 3 times)
- Serve, place in the refrigerator, or freeze.