Dateline: April 16, 2020 What to do with all of the stock that I made last night

I made 2 batches of stock last night, chicken and then pork with veggies.  For the chicken, I put 1 quart into a large ice cube tray and froze over night.  Unmolded and put into a plastic bag in the freezer.  The other 1.5 quarts are in the fridge.  I use chicken stock all the time, so it will be gone soon. 

The pork and veggie stock was done in the instant pot slow cooker over night and turned into a bean, parmesan, veggie stew for dinner and eating over the next couple of days.

I used this slow cooker white-bean parmesan soup recipe.  It is easy, and smelled great all day long!
I also happened to have a fennel bulb, some leeks, and collards that needed cooking! The recipe is able to be modified easily.

I de-stemmed the greens and chopped into spoon-sized chunks, I sliced the fennel thinly after taking out the core, and cut up the light green and white part of the leeks into quarter rings.  This happens because I cleaned the leeks the Jacques Pepin way but dividing the whole leek into quarters without cutting thru the root end and running it under water to dislodge any of the silt/sand/dirt that may be there.  In addition, I used a vidalia onion cut in half through the root and then sliced perpendicular to the cut before cutting crosswise into smaller chunks.

fennel

onion chunks

mirepoix

collards

In addition, I also chopped up some garlic cloves.

I first needed to pay attention to the beans, I used Yellow Eye Lady Beans.  (Don't ask, because I don't know.)  Since I hadn't soaked them over night, I put them into the instant pot inner pot and covered with the pork/veg stock and pressure cooked for 10 minutes, enough time to soften them up a bit.  When they were done, I drained the stock back into the red bowl and left the beans to hang out until I was ready to put them back into the pot.  I cleaned out the instant pot and set it to saute on Hi to cook up the aromatics.

The recipe specified an order, I sort of followed it, did onions and fennel first, then leeks and celery and garlic, and lastly, the collards.

sauteing mirepoix

After collards had softened and wilted down, I added the beans, stock, rosemary, thyme branch, and parmesan rinds; setting the slow cooker for 7 hours on low heat.  Every once in a while, I would open the lid and taste and adjust seasoning.  The beans are soft and very creamy.

waiting for the lid to close

Nota Bene:  This was quite tasty, especially when topped with some grated romano cheese.  We also added into the bowls some mozzarella balls, the tiny pearls, which was another source of textural interest and protein.  A definite keeper when I have lots of stock and am struggling for uses.