Making pork stock

The bones from the chops we had on Sunday were put into a pan along with some pork bones from the freezer (we need the space in the freezer for the approaching glut of vegetables) and some bashed up leeks and other vegetables. Making stock does not necessarily mean using up the best veg. Instead, it is a useful way to use vegetables that are past their best.

The pan looks over-full but the leeks in particular reduce down to a fraction of their size. I left the pan to simmer for a couple of hours. Once strained, the bones were put to one side. They will be roasted a few times in the oven when we are baking and then ground up to make bone meal.



This is the stock after it was strained. I then added chopped vegetables and some pork to it. We also had a packet of chorizo sausages which, alas, were not produced by us (they came from a supermarket). They were chopped up and added as well. I also found a jar of our pickled tomatoes from last year. I added them all to the pan along with the spiced brine in which the tomatoes were pickled. Afterwards I decided this added too much salt. The stock had had no added salt at all whilst I made it and the brine was meant to make up for that. In effect I had overdone it. So we added more vegetables to counteract the salt. The result was that we had far more soup than planned and have been having it for dinner for the past three days. The last bowl was eaten tonight!