Beef Stock

• 5 lbs. beef bones
• 2 lbs. stew meat
• 4 large carrots, chopped
• 1 yellow onion, quartered
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 4-5 large whole cloves garlic, peeled
• 3-4 bay leaves
• Optional: red wine for deglazing
• Salt, pepper to taste

Roast the bones (and if desired, the stew meat) in the oven at 375F for an hour. Put garlic, bay leaves, carrots, onions, and celery in a stock pot, and add the bones and beef. Optional: deglaze the roasting pan with red wine and add the drippings to the pot. Fill the pot with enough water to cover the bones. Add pepper (but not salt!). Bring to a simmer and allow to cook covered with the lid cracked for no less than 8 hours, 12 preferably. Periodically skim the fat and scum off the top with a spider, small screen, or ladle.

When the stock tastes right, add salt. Many people don't, and I understand that, but I can never get the flavor right without it. Since I don't concentrate it further, this isn't really a problem for me. Run through a chinois screen into another vessel, setting aside the bones and other solid matter. (I save the beef for dogs.) Clean the pot of any residual material and return the stock to the pot after running through a fat separator. Bring to a boil.

Can in quarts at 10 lbs. for 25 minutes.