Beef Bone Broth

Guys,  I think I made the best soup of my life.  And those of you who have followed me for a while know my love of soup and how many soups I’ve made over the years, so that’s saying a lot!  Ever since I saw a Beef Bone Broth Soup on the menu at The Dearborn, and then my sister and I couldn’t get in, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  Pretty sure I am not going to find it in my neck of the woods.

But a little housekeeping first.  I worked late on Friday night, and if you follow me on Instagram, you know that I was pick pocketed.  I had my change purse hanging on my wrist because I was going to stop at Walgreen’s before coming home to buy some water (okay it was wine!).  It was cold – like 38 degrees when I was leaving, and I reached to get my gloves out of my pocket, when a guy bumped into me.  I of course apologized because I wasn’t looking forward, and said no problem, and I kept walking.

It wasn’t until I got to Walgreen’s and my change purse was gone that I immediately knew what happened.  I was about 8 minutes from the train station, so I booked it to the train so I could call Chase and Capital One.  Within those 8 minutes there was already a $465 charge on my Capital One Card, but I was able to flag it as fraud, both that card and my debit card were canceled, and I lost $20.  

While I could be mad about it, I wasn’t (well, by the time I got home I was fine!).  What I really thought was that my Dad used to tell us ALL THE TIME growing up is that we always had to be aware of our surroundings.  And while I don’t blame myself, since this is the second incident after having my cell phone grabbed out of my hand, I need to be extra vigilent.   I could have been shot for my wallet, so the fact that I was only out $20 is not so bad – so much shit going on in the world, that this is just a blip on the radar.

So more housekeeping.  I hadn’t been to Weight Watchers since September 23, but I was determined to get a weigh in for the month of October.  After Hannah & Jacob’s wedding shower, wedding, all the wedding cakes (yes, that’s plural!) and alcohol around my house, this isn’t a big surprise.  While my actual breakfast, lunch and dinners were point friendly, it was all the other crap that kept entering my mouth that added up over the course of almost 5 weeks.  

But I am owning it, and moving on.  I was almost not going to ask to see the weigh in, but decided I needed to know what the damage was.  I am refocused, close to starting my Metobolic Reset, so again, it’s all good. 

Hannah and Jacob were off on Saturday morning, so Hannah went grocery shopping with me.  We met my WW Connect friend Chris at my favorite grocery store to return all the wedding decorations she loaned me.  Hannah was too funny, she took over my Instgram story and we laughed a lot.  I love hanging out with that girl.

‘I’ve only made chicken bone broth before, but I had my eyes set on making a beef bone broth.  Luckily my store has a great butcher department.  Since I was going to be making a beef pho (not sure if its really a true pho, but I am going with it!), I bought two beef shanks and a femur bone – both had the marrow still in the bones.   If my brother is reading this right now (and my sister for that matter too!) I think they are both throwing up in their mouths just a bit. 😀

On the car ride back home from the store, I did a quick search for beef bone broth recipes and came across a couple that said roasting the bones first made all the difference.  I didn’t salt or pepper anything.  I just put all the meat and bones in my cast iron skillet at 300 degrees, topped it with sliced carrots and garlic and roasted it for 60 minutes.

I left the carrots and garlic on top so they would still be fork tender, – the garlic was so tender I was able to make it a paste and added that to my stock for my flavor.

I trimmed off the meat from the shank to add to my soup later.  The meat was so tender.

I set half the carrots aside for my soup, added the other half of the carrots and the bones to a stock pot, and covered the bones with 8 cups of beef stock.  I also added a scoop of this collagen peptides.  I grated a tablespoon of ginger, added 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper and a tablespoon of peppercorns, and let it simmer for 60 more minutes on low.

I always recommend beef stock vs. beef broth when making soups – beef broth is just the liquid that the meat is cooked in, while beef stock is basically what I was doing, cooking bones to make the liquid – if you were to do a side by side taste test, you will see that beef stock is darker and richer and just more flavorful.

I let the stock cool for about an hour, then strained it and put it back in the stock pot.

When the bone broth cools, the fat will rise to the top.  While you can scoop it away, I always add a tiny bit back into my soup for extra flavor.  

To make this soup, I just heated two cups of the bone broth, added the carrots that I had set aside earlier, added chopped baby spinach, the chopped beef from the shank, and then I bought these pho noodles that cook in literally 10 seconds – once the broth was almost boiling, I removed the broth from the heat, and added 1/2 cup of the noodles and stirred until the noodles softened.

The depth of flavor is outstanding – roasting the bones makes all the difference!  The only thing I forgot to add was that I bought shiitake mushrooms that I was going to saute and add to the soup.  I may have to make it again tonight with the mushrooms.  So good.  And that bowl of soup came in at just 8 smart points.

It was a fun weekend – very relaxing and productive at the same time.   The kadults got me hooked on Stranger Things and I think I watched 4 episodes over the weekend.  I of course spent lots of time in my kitchen.  Yesterday Hannah and Jacob both worked so I had the house to myself all day which was nice!  I got to jam my tunes and not keep it quiet because of their napping schedule 😛

Coming up tomorrow I’ll share my 4 point pumpkin waffles, and later this week, a creole seasoned sweet potato mash.  

How was your weekend??  Have you ever been pick pocketed before??!!