Today was a beautiful day. The afternoon was amazing, and after spending some time at the lake fishing I decided that I needed to go ahead and start on a project I had been planning on ever since I got my new Instant Pot.

Many years ago I had a wonderful conversation with a man who was a professional long distance runner and personal trainer. We discussed many subjects that day, but one of note was his diet. He told me that every week he prepared himself a pot of chicken soup and ate that every day throughout the week.

Homemade soup has long been a staple of human civilization, but in modern times has been replaced by more portable foods; or easy to prepare canned soup. Neither has the nutrient availability and value that a good homemade soup has.

In my continual effort to live a more healthy lifestyle, I am going to begin following the practice of prepping myself some soup to have on hand. I have a recipe for amazing chicken lentil soup that has been floating around in the back of my mind for years now. The first time I made it was almost a decade ago during one of my kitchen experiments, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

I will get in to the recipe tomorrow when I actually make the soup, but for tonight the first step to a good soup is of course to prepare a homemade stock. To go with the healthy farm-to-table vibe, I pulled out one of my roosters that I slaughtered last year from the deep freeze.

If you are going to use it right away then the most basic of stock is really simple to make. You just need a whole chicken, some salt (I used 1 tbsp), and a gallon (4 quarts/16 cups) of water. You simmer until all the meat is falling off of the bone, strain, pull the meat off of the bones and set aside for later, add a small amount of white vinegar (<1 tbsp), 3 split cloves of garlic, one quartered onion, a bay leaf, and continue to simmer the bones overnight.

Considering how simple it is, it’s a shame that more people don’t make their own and instead buy nutritionally dead stock from the grocery store; or don’t even bother and just eat soup out of a can.

Now obviously there are better ways to make a stock. Some people will make a vegetable-chicken stock, or add more spices. I’ll be adding spices during the soup making process, and prefer a heartier soup so will be leaving my vegetables in the soup itself. I also want the chicken fat and collagen for nutrients and flavor so no skimming required - thus, my stock is dead simple to prepare.

I look forward to seeing if it turns out like it is in my imagination. It’s not like you can really mess up too bad making stock though…