Our Houston Real Food Nutrition meetup group hosted another great class Saturday, May 25, where we learned how to make delicious and nourishing stocks and broths using a variety of meats and bones.  Our instructor, Susan Doiron, gave us many useful hints and tips how to make the best use of pastured and wild caught meats, fish, and poultry. She highly recommends that we all eat some variation of stocks or bone broths every day for our nutrition and health.

Susan has extensive experience in teaching nutrition and cooking classes.  Her unique style is both entertaining and informative.  She brought samples of stocks that she had made previously for us to taste.  We tried all of them plain without seasoning and also with various additions to enhance the flavors.  The samples included a beef and venison stock, a chicken and turkey stock, and a fish stock made with crab, fish, and shrimp shells.

I thought all of the stocks were delicious just plain; however, the variations Susan provided for sampling would make it easier to eat the stocks every day.  The additions included pureed vegetables, tahini, avocados, spices, and herbs, plus much more.

Although I’ve made stocks and broths many times, I learned some very good tips to make broth making easier in the future.  For example, Susan recommends using Ziploc plastic bags (they don’t have BPA) for freezing the broth.  I’ve always used glass Ball jars, but, with glass jars, there is a slight risk of cracking, and they aren’t the most efficient shape for maximizing freezer storage space.

Another great tip for making flavorful stock is to save vegetable ends and peeling, such as carrot and celery ends and onion peels, to add to simmering broth.  Susan says she keeps a bag in the freezer just to store these vegetable pieces ends until broth-making time.  She does not recommend adding seeds, such as bell pepper seeds, to broths because they can make the broth bitter.

Susan even showed us how to use the leftover bones and vegetables from broth making to make treats for our pets.  Nothing goes to waste at Susan’s house.  Anything not eaten by people or pets goes into the compost pile.  Way to go!

Jeanette Pearson, owner and chef of Partners in Paleo, was a gracious host for our meeting, and served a delicious dinner of beef or chicken soup, made with, of course, bone broth and stock.  The soup was accompanied with a mixed greens salad and a variety of house made dressings.  Dessert was a special treat–paleo orange cake with orange slices.  It was superbly moist and delicious–just sweet enough!  Jeanette explained that much of the food at Partners in Paleo is local, and most of the rest is organic.  She buys pastured meats, including grassfed beef and pastured chicken.  She buys produce from local CSAs, and is even beginning to grow some of her own vegetables.

Everyone who attended seemed to enjoy the class and dinner.  Many stayed after the dinner to discuss recipes, nutrition, and health issues.

If you live in the Houston area and are interested in nutrition for your health, please join our meetup group, Houston Real Food Nutrition. We have a great time together and enjoy nutritious meals while we learn.

Houston Real Food Nutrition is sponsored by the Houston-Galveston Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation.