One of my dreams is to cycle through the Dutch tulip fields with my husband. Yes, it sounds impossible and it may be, considering that someone recently asked me why I don’t have a handicap parking permit! Yet, dreaming is fun and, who knows, perhaps I will get well again.
These days I’ve been working very hard at getting well from all sorts of angles, but the most interesting approach recently involves food.
If you’ve ever looked at superfood lists, you have read how important bone broth can be for all sorts of aspects of health. A simmering crockpot full of bones is nothing new for our family; it makes yummy and healthy soups and, an important factor in our student days, it costs essentially nothing if you buy boney cuts of meat.
In my quest for health I now enjoy a cup or two of bone broth almost every day, seasoned with salt (pink Himalayan salt since it’s supposed to be healthier) and sometimes pepper and garlic powder. It is surprisingly delicious.
Boney cuts of meat are not plentiful enough to support my new habit, though, so the other morning I phoned around to search for soup bones. I did find some, as expensive as a nice steak, and that I could not justify.
Then my son told me of a grocery store that often sells bones so Miss 15 and I dropped by to get them, but there were no bones to be seen. Instead, we came home with a package of salmon scraps, including a head that glared at me accusingly until I dropped it into the pot. I’ve only rarely cooked salmon scraps, so that was an adventure in itself (to debone salmon, cook, cool, and use your fingers). I added onion, sweet pepper, hot pepper, garlic, fresh ginger, cabbage, salt, pepper, and lovage, and the resulting soup was the best we’ve had in a long while. The salmon bones, of course, went into the crockpot with garlic and ginger to make bone broth.
But here’s the best part. A few hours after my husband heard of our failed bone-hunting expedition, he walked in with a present, a huge 25 pound box of soup bones that he bought from his buddy the butcher! So then we had fish stock cooking, a box of marrow bones in the freezer, and the promise of gallons of the most delicious—and nutritious—stock imaginable. What a blessing!
There is something so special about getting exactly the right gift at the right time: bones to make bone broth, fuel for dreams of being well enough to cycle through Dutch tulip fields.
I am very grateful for my husband, who understands what kind of gift means the most.
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Note: I thank Wardee of Traditional Cooking School who reminded me of the importance of drinking lots of bone broth. Although we’ve always made smaller amounts using this chicken or turkey stock recipe, I needed her encouragement that it really is important enough to drink every day.
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This post may be linked to Inspire Me Monday, Raising Homemakers, Friendship Friday, Make My Saturday Sweet.