Category: Cooking

Posted on

The cost of my bone broth

Previously, I bought excellent bone broth from a source that provided broth made from local, regeneratively raised beef. I like it and would have no problem buying more. But I’m also cheap. At almost $11 for a sixteen-ounce portion, it’s pricey. I have no trouble supporting local businesses and want these folks to succeed. But I am cheap. Mind you, I still buy ground beef from them at a very fair price. I think their bone broth price is fair, too. It’s just that I can’t butcher cattle or store bulk beef. I can, however, make bone broth.

I’ve discovered, as I’ve noted, that I can make a single batch of bone broth with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 lbs. of bones. I’ve been buying locally sourced, regeneratively raised beef bones at $5.99 a pound.

Yes, that sounds expensive, too, and there are much less expensive bones around I could use. I also save the bones from my bone-in steaks, but currently, I’m using more bone broth than bone-in steaks.

In my last batch, which was darn near perfect, I made eleven cups of broth for $21.48 and my time.

21.48 / 11 * 2 = 3.90545454545455

There’s the math. Instead of $11 for a sixteen-ounce serving, I can make $3.91 if I round up a wee bit or $3.90 if I don’t.

And this way, besides the savings, I know exactly what I’ve put into the mix. That’s a win-win situation in my books!

Posted on

Dry aging progress

As mentioned, I’m home dry aging a strip loin in my fridge using UMAI Dry Age bags. The color of the meat has changed in just the past couple of days.

The first image, dated October 28th, shows that the meat has darkened, but there’s still plenty of red, meaty color.

The second image, from today, has wholly darkened and looks more like wood than meat.

Normal.

There’s still a month to go to add up to thirty-five days. That’s scheduled for December 1st. Of course, I may go for a full forty-five days.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s left.

Posted on

More bone broth

Part of overdoing stuff during my recovery was buying bones for more bone broth. Once again, I got my bones at Whole Foods.

This time, I did my best to determine how much I could make in one batch and still have tasty broth. I went for about 3.5 lbs. of bones, which was just about right.

Here are the bones in a pot ready for blanching.

After bringing this to a boil, I let it simmer for a few minutes to draw out the impurities, and sure enough, it created a pretty ugly scum. That draws out everything you don’t want in your broth, which can taint the flavor. I didn’t cook it for too long though, as I wanted to be sure I kept all the tallow I could.

After that step, I put all the bones in my Ninja Air Crisper on the roast setting for about twenty-five minutes. I wanted to get them to a golden brown. As I’m still foggy with COVID-19, I didn’t get more images of all this.

After roasting, I kept the tallow, almost half a jarful! Yay!

Then it was into my Instant Pot. It took about eleven or twelve cups of water to cover the bones. I’ve got the eight-quart model, and it was filled to almost the mid-fill line.

I set the pressure cooker for two and a half hours and let it go. I’ve overcooked a batch once, and it never gelled. I was hoping this batch would gel.

Posted on

Aging…beef that is

I’ve been using an UMAI dry aging bag process a big strip loin for the last week or so. I’ve written about this before, so this is just an update.

I have discovered that I should have left the fat cap side up for 7-10 days, not 2 days. Oh well. But in looking through the help forums, this should be fine. Maybe I’ll gently turn it over again for a bit.

The meat looks like this today, a week or so after putting it in the fridge. You can see that the color is a lot darker than it was in the images below. There’s still a month and change to go! December 1st is the target date. Yay!

This is what the meat looked like when I first put it in the bag.

Posted on

Here is another update on my COVID

I’m feeling a lot better today, but still testing positive. I noticed that last night my appetite, which was always present but a bit subdued, came back, and I ate twice yesterday! Yay!

I had this single NY Strip in the evening, matching one I’d had earlier in the day.

Today I’m hungry again already, so I’ll be cooking shortly.

Posted on

Morning bone broth

Here’s some rich homemade bone broth in my pot with butter heating up for my morning dose.

And this is what it looks like a big mug, perfect for this use, though too big for coffee.

I’m upping my bone broth intake while suffering from COVID-19. I’m doing better in some ways, but I am still sick and feel it. The bone broth helps keep me hydrated, full of nutrition, and, because of the oils and butter, coats my throat to help with pain and scratchiness.

Posted on

Today’s carnivore feast…during COVID

Yes, I have COVID-19. It’s been a thing since Friday, which was the worst day so far. I started Paxlovid on the evening of Day 0 as the first day of symptoms is counted. By Saturday, my temperature had dropped, my O2 had returned to more or less normal, and the worst headache I’ve ever been gifted with had gotten manageable.

The good news is I’ve not lost my sense of taste, nor has my appetite fallen off much. That’s not quite true. I’m eating about half of what I had been eating. But it still tastes good. I think I’m a little blunted taste-wise, but this was yummy.

I’m also not expending any energy through exercise or even getting out of the house, so I’m sure I don’t need quite as much food. I can’t say much about how much I need to fight the virus, though. Heck, I might need more food and not want it.

Anyway, that was today’s steak. It’s a smaller ribeye that dry brined in my fridge for several days. It was delicious, even with COVID.

Posted on

Eating for a friend

I ate this one for a friend!

A good friend of mine woke up late today and needed to get out of the house before he had a chance for anything besides coffee. As I had some sirloins dry brining in the fridge, I told him I’d be more than happy to enjoy a steak for him so he didn’t need to worry about that this morning. Hopefully, he’ll return the favor and eat one of his ribeyes for me this evening!

All the best!

Posted on

New Instant Pot…Yes!

I noted the other day that I was looking around to see if I could get a bigger Instant Pot to use for making larger batches of bone broth more easily.

Amazon Prime Days is on and yes, they had a pretty good deal on one of the eight quart models I was checking out.

It should be arriving on Saturday and I plan on making more bone broth just as soon as possible!