Do you save meat bones for making stock?

This afternoon, I was cutting some beef off of a bone to make beef and vegetable stir fry for dinner. I had some extra time, so I thought I'd make a little stock with the beef bone. Then I remembered the bag of uncooked beef bones that I had in the freezer, accumulated over the past 6 to 8 months. So I made a nice large pot of beef stock, browning the bones first, then simmering in water with simple seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder). It came out delicious, and now I feel like I got full value from the cuts of beef.

I routinely make chicken stock from chicken bones and ham stock from the ham bone, but I've only made beef stock once before. I wasn't thrilled with that batch of stock. I later figured that it lacked flavor. Hence adding some simple seasonings to this batch of stock.

I've been making a lot of soups this winter. I had depleted my supply of chicken stock and have just one more container of ham stock and a few containers of pumpkin stock remaining. So, I will be glad to have additional stock ready for more pots of soup or to add to sauces.

How about you? Do you use leftover meat bones for making stock? Do you a favorite type of stock? Do you have a method that works for you?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! Wishing you a very lovely day and weekend ahead.

We have heat!!! The new furnace is in, and it already feels like it heats the house faster than our old one. Last night was a cold one. 

The living room got down to 57 degrees F overnight and the bedrooms hovered around 50 degrees F. At 5 AM the air felt so cold around my head that I just got up and turned the fireplace and space heaters back on. We didn't want to leave them running unattended overnight, so I turned them off when I went to bed on Thursday.

The four of us had a delicious Valentine's brunch in front of the fireplace. We listened to music on spotify and enjoyed a few minutes together. One daughter had to rush off to her job for the weekend and the other needed to work on her latest commissions. My husband took today as a work from home day to be here for the furnace installation and the brunch. After brunch he got right back to the computer.

I baked the pie for dinner early this morning, keeping the oven going to add heat to the kitchen. Any heat we could get was helpful. Have you ever been so cold that your body seemed to have a memory of being cold even after the temperatures had warmed up? That's how I feel right now, an hour after the new furnace has been working. I'll keep myself moving and will feel warmed up in no time.

The saga of the failing furnace has now come to an end, thankfully. I'm grateful to live in a time when the homemaker doesn't normally need to spend so much time thinking about increasing the heat in the house. We just push a button and forget about it.

Anyway, have a wonderful day and weekend!