[Growster...]

Mrs Growster is entering the stage in the year when she builds monumental soups from various stock-based recipes!

It's the usual way; buy lamb bones/cheap cuts, or chicken pieces, slow cook them for ages, then add all the leeks, potatoes, carrots, and anything else around, and the whole lot then gets liquidised, bagged up and frozen - bar a couple of lunches staying in the fridge.

Has anyone done this with beef at all? It's just that as we don't really buy a lot of beef these days; we can get the bones, but my idea of heaven would be to have some soup with cold real Yorkshire pudding, made under the joint, and extremely toothsome!

There must be someone who's drooled this way, somewhere..;0)

Any ideas anyone?

[madcat]

I have made stock with good beef bones and then soup using the stock (and it makes a good mushroom risotto!)

The real trick is to roast the bones to caramelize the fats before you cook them long and slow.  If you skip the roasting (and I speak from experience here) the stock is disappointing and grey.     But 30 or so mins in the oven so they smell delicious and drive the dog (or the builders  ) nuts, then into the slow cooker overnight with onions and carrots and herbs .... heaven.

[Growster...]

Now that, Madcat, sounds really pretty damn good! Thank you!

We've found a great butcher (our old chum round the corner closed some time ago), and your method beckons extremely beckonly! (Mumofstig/Aunt Sally, it's Crouch's, in Staplehurst, Bearsted and Wadhurst - great 'Winter Warmer' deal on at the moment)!

The smell of beef on the go in the oven is monumental, so I'll suggest this to Mrs Growster when she wakes up in terror in the knowledge that we're having to go to the grandchildren's Halloween party in half an hour..:0(