Crockpot Conundrum

 

Sometimes I eat things that are a little questionable.

I put chicken bones in the crockpot the other day to make bone broth. I always save carrot, celery and onion scraps and chicken bones in a big bag in the freezer, then every once in a while pull them all out to make broth. My cookbooks say the broth can cook for a day, sometimes even longer. Apparently, it is difficult to overcook your bone broth.

I always feel so proud of myself when I manage to get something into the crockpot in the morning before leaving for the day, especially on a day when we have to get up early. My daughter was home for a few days for spring break, but was heading back to LA and had to be at the airport for her 6:25 am flight. A 6:25 am flight in Sacramento means that we have to be up by a little past 3:00 am and out the door by 4:00 am or so.

Early mornings like that are not so fun.

But the day, fortunately, proceeded as planned. We made it to the airport. I drove back up the hill and did not fall asleep at the wheel in spite of our early start. I worked. I did errands. I went to the library, where I often wait if I have a few minutes before it’s time to pick up my son. I was happily searching for books when my son texted to say that tennis practice was cancelled because of the weather.

What?

There was weather?

It was supposed to rain, I knew. It had even rained a little on my way back up the hill from the airport. It was also possible that it would snow where we lived, which was why we brought the AWD car out this morning. But it wasn’t supposed to be much, certainly not anything noteworthy.

When I got out to my car, it looked like it was trying to snow.

In Auburn.

It does not generally snow in Auburn.

The snow started in earnest by the time I was a few miles up the road.  Long before I made it to my son’s school, it was sticking on the road, and the drive was feeling treacherous.

Soon after that, they closed the freeway because of whiteout conditions.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to try to get home.

Which was when I started worrying about my crockpot full of beautiful bone broth that was happily simmering away without me.

What if I hadn’t added enough water? What if the pot was boiling dry and the crockpot would catch on fire and that would be the end of my house?

I was starting to wonder if my good neighbor would be willing to take my spare house key and venture out into the storm to check on my crockpot when the power went out.

How quickly worries can morph!

Because suddenly, I no longer had to worry about my crockpot catching on fire. Instead, I could start worrying about what would happen to my bone broth without power: would it spoil if the power didn’t come back soon? And also, what about all the other food in the refrigerator and freezer?

The power was still out the next morning. The road was plowed, though, so I drove home to feed the cat and restart the fire and check on things, including my bone broth.

Which is when I did the thing which was perhaps not so very wise.

I drank some.

Because it was still a little warm, maybe? And it smelled so good, and I was hungry.

I am happy to report that I suffered no adverse effects from my broth. Maybe food doesn’t go bad as fast if it’s 40 something degrees in the house, which is what happens if no one is home to take care of the fire and it is snowing outside.

Thankfully, the power came back a few hours later. We did not have a multiple day outage like the one we had earlier this year.

Even so? After going through what was left in the refrigerator,  I threw out the mayonnaise.

Because apparently I’m not that big of a risk taker.