Now this is some chicken stew.
After we gorged on roast chicken, Ghost and Little Bear tearfully watched me push the still-meaty carcass into a pressure cooker full of water. Or they would have, if dogs could cry. They’re very good at reproachful stares. Fortunately the chicken had what seemed like an acre of skin, which I don’t want in my stew and the boys are perfectly okay with.
Stew a RIR laying hen and you’ll get some not-especially-flavorful meat. They’re not very fatty, and the meat can be tough. I’ve got a couple of cases of chicken broth in the shed, just for flavoring stew. Sure didn’t need it in this case.
Look at that broth. You’ve got to heat it for half an hour just to melt the gelatin. Yoiks!
The trouble with making stew, for me, is that there’s always too much for a couple of meals and I’ve no refrigeration. So I have to watch it carefully: eat what I can and give the rest to the boys before it goes off.
You’ve a pressure cooker and (presumably) jars…can that stuff up!Pint jars are just about right for a single serving, and it looks like you could fit at least two if not three of them in your PC.
My brain first interpreted PC as Personal Computer and went “Huh? Eww!” Ha. Now I’m hungry. But seriously, homemade chicken stuff is cannable?
I absolutely would not recommend trying to can leftovers. It’s tricky enough with fresh stuff. If you know you’ll have too much, just can the fresh meat first thing. Don’t mix it with anything else until you are ready to eat it. Do you have a set of good canning instructions? I’ll send you some if you want to mess with this. BUT…
You need at least SOME sort of refrigeration, Joel. You are playing Russian roulette with serious food poisoning with this stuff. sigh People die from that every day. Strong, healthy and very stubborn people can die of it…
Nope, no can do. Last June when it got so hot, with perfect solar power conditions, I borrowed a little dorm fridge and brought it over here. Even with full sun my two batteries couldn’t keep up with the needs of the compressor.
And your concerns are the very reason why I put the pressure cooker away in summer. Once it gets hot, I can’t make pot meals.
MamaLiberty is right. After all the time and money put into your eyeballs it would be a shame to lose the body they are in. Under Help Joel buy…add batteries. Is a small used propane refrigerator, like those in motor homes or campers, in a box and surrounded by 2 inch thick foam insulation, possible?
I have family to store food for so I have a large propane refrigerator and a 12 volt 8 cubic foot freezer which stays frozen with a 145 watt pannel and two golf cart batteries. THat is way overkill for you but I recall seeing 12 volt coolers on cabelas. Also some RV refrigerators are 12 volt or combo with propane. You can always add extra insulation.
We’ve had a great deal of bad luck with propane refrigerators here. It’s a very dusty environment, orifices need to constantly be cleaned, and I can’t afford the propane anyway. A seven-gallon propane bottle costs $21 at last look, it may have gone up since then, and a propane fridge would burn through at least one of those per week. Way too much, better to just avoid the need for refrigeration.
Joel, there are small refrigerator units available to take in the car that would be perfect for a few leftovers like the chicken stew. You would only plug it in when you actually needed it. Same would be true of a small propane refrigerator. No need to run it all the time. We had one when I lived in Mexico, and I sure don’t remember using a lot of propane then. But that was long ago, so maybe I just forgot.
On the other hand, you might consider drying the meat you can’t use right away. I’ve made at least passable jerky from chicken.
Meat isn’t the only thing that can spoil either, of course. The beans (most food) will be happy to colonize bad “bugs.” The thing to realize is that you cannot tell by smell alone when something goes from “not nice” to dangerous. Even with refrigeration, people guess wrong about this often, so you wouldn’t want to leave something in that little cooler box for long in any case. Would simply make the two day old leftover safe as possible. On day three… out it goes.
Just be careful, my friend. 🙂
Joel,
The propane fridge i have will run damn near a month on a 5 gallon tank.
It’s really small, but so what? You’re just one dude.
Also, have you considered a solar earth refrigerator?
Take two cylinders, one bigger than the other, with the inner cylinder being metal with a removable lid of some sort (like, say a pressure cooker?). Put the little one inside the big one, and fill the space in between with sand, or some other organic material like wood shavings or something.
Saturate the organic material/sand with water, and put it in the sun. The sun will evaporate the water, which will carry away heat. I’m told that this process will cool the inner container to 40 degrees for as much as a week in one soaking.
I’ve never played around with this idea, but it sounds like it might be kind of fun to futz around with.
SOrry, it’s called an “eco-fridge”. Google it.
you can pressure can the chicken and broth separately, before you make stew, but you need a canner, not a pressure cooker. the process it a bit tedious but do-able if you have the time. check out jackie clay’s blog and books. and it’s perfectly safe to eat, and for long-term storage.