Slow Cooked Beef Stock

It is raining, cold and windy here today. There are whitecaps out on the water and raindrops on the windows. It’s the perfect weather for making a nice soup. Homemade stock makes all the difference with soup. Sure, it’s easy to open up a carton of beef or chicken stock, but it’s just as easy to make a good stock at home, it just takes a little while longer.

A few simple ingredients arranged in the slow cooker, covered with water, and voila! 12 hours later, you have a rich, flavorful stock and a house filled with the aroma of homemade soup. What’s great about using the slow cooker for stock is that you don’t have to keep an eye on it or worry about it boiling over. Even set to high, the water content of the stock keeps it just under a simmer. Marrow lends sweet undertones to the stock and the veggies keep the beat.

Note: After a chat with our friendly butcher, I learned that marrow is sadly under appreciated these days and because it is, it’s always a good idea to ask the butcher for a fresh cut of marrow or soup bone if you’re buying it in a supermarket, because (horrors!) due to low demand, they often don’t replace the bones that are out in the refrigerator case and they could be a few days old.

Slow Cooker Beef Stock – Makes 4 cups

1.5 lb beef marrow bone
1 large potato, peeled
2 carrots
1 onion
1 celery
3 sprigs parsley
2 quarts water

Loosely chop vegetables and arrange the bones, vegetables, parsley and peppercorns in slow cooker.

Cover with 2 quarts water and cook on high for 12 hours.

Using a slotted spoon, remove bones and large vegetables from stock to prevent splatters. Pour the rest through a mesh strainer and into a stockpot or heat proof bowl (or whatever… it’s your kitchen). Discard bones and vegetables.

Allow the stock to cool in the refrigerator for at least one hour. Remove solidified fat with a slotted spoon.

Use the stock to make a tasty homemade soup, sauce or gravy.

Ingredient origins: Beef marrow bone – unknown; Organic potato – Maine; Organic Carrots – unknown; Organic onion – Washington; Organic celery – unknown; Organic parsley – Massachusetts; Peppercorns – India. As you can probably guess, a lot of these ingredients were purchased at a conventional supermarket, which is an unfortunate fact of life in winter in New England. Sometimes the best we can do is purchase as thoughtfully as possible, given the circumstances, so in this case I tried to keep to organic produce. Oftentimes though, even if an item is raised organically, the location of origin is not disclosed because the distributor buys from many different suppliers. I think it may be time though to consider signing up for a meat share