I am a stock-a-holic.
Every roast, whole chicken and turkey I get ends up being stock eventually. After we have our meals, I take the bones and trimmings, throw them in the slow-cooker and let the slow gentle heat work it’s magic. The result is a ton of beautiful, gelatinous stock.
I also love to can and would love to have shelves of home-made stock lined up in mason jars on my shelf, but I lack a pressure-canner. The next best option? Freezing.
I used to freeze my stock in quart containers, resealable freezer bags or worse yet, ice-cube trays. The quarts took forever to defrost if I did not remember to put one in the fridge a few days before and the waste from the one time use of the bags made me insane. We will not even discuss how using the ice-cube trays has ruined my home-made iced coffee experiences by making my guilty pleasure beverage of choice taste like a french dip sandwich.
So I came up with a solution. See, it seems that my extended family thinks that I make hamburger patties all the time. I mentioned once that I love to grind my own roasts and pre-freeze patties for the grill. Once… This resulted in everyone in the family giving me their Tupperware hamburger patty presses.
This would normally be fine except that I hate having things that do not have more than one purpose. To me that is a waste of space. But I have found that these stackable patty containers hold 1/2 cup of stock…. YAY!!!!!!
I make my stock in the slow-cooker, strain it into a pitcher and let it cool in the fridge for a day or two. This allows any remaining fat to come to the surface to be removed and then I use a 1/2 c measure to fill each patty container. After a few hours, I pop the little stock disks out of the containers and save them in resealable bags that I can now reuse.
The best part is that if I need only a few tablespoons, I do not have to defrost a whole quart and risk wasting the rest. If I need a cup, I grab two. A Pint, 4.
Defrosting them in the microwave or directly in the pot takes no time at all.
I love when I can find an idea that not only makes my life more efficient, but creates an additional use for something I already own.
This also works great for single serve portions of things like Chicken Mole, Shredded beef for tacos/sandwiches and other small leftovers.
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