Chicken broth in the crockpot...how have I not thought of this?!?

I am back, still not studying, to tell you about something I can't believe I hadn't thought of myself.  I actually use a lot of chicken broth in my cooking and have come to depend on having it in my freezer.  Awhile ago, I roasted a chicken for dinner and then used part of the chicken that was leftover to make homemade chicken pot pie.  What I was left with was a fair amount of chicken meat and three very full days of work ahead of me.  I knew that I needed to do something with it before I was off again so I did a quick Google search just to see what other people did and low and behold there was someone that used a leftover roasted chicken to make chicken broth in the crock pot.

Yahoo!

This isn't so much a regular recipe so I am just going to write out what I did.  The night before I was going to make the broth, I put the leftover chicken in my crock pot   (I have one of those that the ceramic part lifts out and can be put in the frig.)  I chopped up an onion, threw some garlic cloves in, added some celery and some carrots and a couple of bay leaves.  I put that in the frig until the next morning.

The next morning, as Taelin was putting her shoes on, I pulled out the crock pot and filled it with water.  I turned it on low for 10 hours and left.

When I got back home, I had the most amazing chicken stock already to go.  I pulled out the veggies and the chicken and pulled all the rest of the meat off.  Then I used my mesh strainer to catch all of the things I wouldn't want in my chicken broth and made a really good chicken and rice soup.  I didn't measure how much I got, but I know that I put several good sized containers in the freezer for later.

Do you see how good that looks?  Maybe I have a problem?

I don't know that I would do it every time this way, just because I can get way more stock when I am using my big stock pot.  I generally throw more veggies in when I am using my stock pot to add flavor and color but when I am doing that, I have to commit myself to be home (which isn't a problem...I like my house) because I am not going to leave my stove top running when I am not here.  But, it was certainly great for being able to use the chicken leftovers I had in a time frame that wouldn't waste them.  

I still had enough chicken leftover to make some chicken salad for the next couple of days for my lunch and extra broth for the freezer.  That is quite a bit for one little chicken!