This is Winter’s way of cleansing, nourishing and restoring. Put down those cold foods, cereals, salads, and start inviting in the warm and warming. Bone broth is an excellent addition to your cool weather routines as it is an extraordinarily nutrient dense drink! It’s excellent for clearing out garbage from the digestive tract, warming you up of you are prone to cold hands and feet, and adding in good-for-you fats for your brain, your hair, skin, and nails. It supports the liver, the kidneys, the spleen, and the heart. It really is a wonder food. Anyone I treat who is immuno-compromised such as someone undergoing chemotherapy or with chronic illness gets this recipe as homework. It gives you energy, vitality, and warmth.
Bone Broth
2 lbs bones (always search out local, organic, grass fed bones)
1 gallon filtered water
2 T apple cider vinegar
3-6 carrots
3-6 celery stalks
1 large or 2 small onions
1 bunch parsley
2-8 cloves garlic
Add salt to taste
Optional: Adding 2 chicken feet will give more collagen to the broth. This is often not as easy for us Americans to get into but when you travel, you can bet there were chicken feet (and perhaps some other things we should not mention) in the broths of your soups!
This is going to give you a basic bone broth recipe to follow! You can begin to add things at your leisure. For instance, sometimes I will add fresh ginger and turmeric to warm it up even more. You can season with chilis, rosemary, and thyme, or with nothing at all. You may find some recipes that suggest you roast the bones for better flavor but I don’t recommend it especially if you re making it to drink as nourishment! Any extra cooking is going to deplete nutrients from the bones.
Drop bones and filtered water into a stock pot with the apple cider vinegar for about 30 minutes then transfer pot to stovetop where it will stay for the next 48 hours on simmer! A true simmer means that you will see a bubble come to the surface from the bottom of the pot every 30 seconds or so. Add the chopped carrots, celery, and onions and let it fill the house up with broth smells for the next two days.
About 30 minutes before the 48 hours is up, add the bunch of parsley and however many cloves of garlic you like (I prefer to add A LOT, especially if there are a lot of people around me getting sick!).
When time is up, strain the stock to get out all the veggies and bones (I keep the carrots and offer them as dog treats for the days following…). Be sure to scrape out the bones if they are large beef bones as the marrow is what you are after when it comes down to it! I put the marrow chunks and the garlic cloves back into the stock pot with the strained broth and use a little blender wand to mix it all up. I like to also portion out the broth so that I can grab a jar on my way out the door if I need to on a busy day.
1-3 cups per day is a delicious and healthy dose. And of course you can add it to soups or sauces as well. Enjoy!