Dark Days Dinner Week 2

Tonight was our local dinner of the week.  Most of our dinners have something local in them as we grow quite a bit of our own vegetables and know some people who raise animals for meat.  Tonight was a beef bone broth soup, roasted chicken, steamed carrots with honey mustard sauce and butternut squash puree. 
The bone broth started cooking on the wood stove this morning, I added sage leaves, leftover vegetable tops and scraps and a few cups of water.  I save the vegetable tips, tops and things in a Ziploc in the freezer.  When the bag is full, I make soup.  It adds some good flavors to broth and more vitamins and nutrients.  After the meat fell off of the bones I strained out the broth and ladled it into soup bowls.  Then we each make our own soup.  James likes this a lot as it gives him the choice of what to add to the bowl.  I had brussel sprouts that had been steamed, thin sliced carrots and apples, frozen tomato slices, frozen leeks hard boiled eggs and bean sprouts.  The only real problem with this meal is that there are so many dishes to do after.  I need to serve a little on everyone's plate instead of putting 6-7 serving bowls on the table.   The apples and eggs were intended as a side to go with our dinner but James ate them in his soup and said it was good.  Not shure I am going to try that, I think I will take his word on it.
For a protein I roasted a chicken from a friend.  I received it in "payment" for helping her to learn to process her chickens and turkeys this year.  Want to know the secret to a really juicy chicken - cook it upside down, back up and all the white meat will stay juicy you can do this with any poultry.  I also steamed a butternut squash and a few apples peeled the skins and then pureed them.  It was really good, cinnamon was optional.
Tomorrow the leftover meat from the chicken and veggies will be lunch and the leftover broth and meat from the beef bones will become a hearty soup when I add some canned beans, frozen cabbage and other things I find in the freezer.  We have a busy day - Church in the morning and the Christmas play in the evening. 
Also, when I steam vegetables or boil them, I save the broth and freeze it in ice cube trays.  It is a quick and easy way to cool the soup for the kids or add a handful to a soup that needs more liquid.

Here is a list of where our things were found for tonight's meal
From our yard/garden
Sage, rosemary, garlic
Tomatoes, brussel sprouts, apples, leeks, onions

From Winter Creek Ranch - 12 miles
Soup bones
Apples (I listed them as ours too, they all went into a mutual bin)
From a friend - less than 5 miles
Chicken

From the store
Bean sprouts - grown in Washington
Eggs - grown in Washington
Honey - from a friend in Stanwood, 20 miles away

Non local things:
Cinnamon
Mustard

For some reason no matter how hard I try, there is always a little boy's hand in my pictures.  He is showing what he is going to eat first.  It is nice that they willingly eat their veggies.  Madilyn had a coffee cup of "soup juice" she doesn't care for things in her soup - just broth.

I need to work on the quality of my photos and spend a bit more time on my writing.  Not tonight though.  Im a bit run down this week, hopefully the good bone broth will kick this cold!