Vegetable Stock Made from Scratch

Recipe by my good friend, Emily Mcfarlane.

Stock makes everything more delicious and adds layers of flavor to your homemade dishes. Use it in place of water when cooking rice or pasta, as a base for soups and sauces, and to simmer veggies, fish, or chicken on the stove top. Buying it can get expensive especially if you want the stuff without a lot of extra sodium or other crap. The solution is to make your own on the cheap. Don’t worry, it takes very little time or effort and can be made out of things you would normally throw away.

Keep a gallon-size bag in your freezer and as you chop veggies, put the leftover peels, odds and ends in the bag.

What to include:

Celery that’s gone rubbery

Carrot peels and ends

Mushroom stems

Outer layers of onions and papers

Garlic bits- papers, the knob on the bottom of the head, cloves that are too tiny to chop up otherwise

Herbs that you forgot about and have dried out

Beet scraps- peels, bottoms and tails (but not too much or you will have bright pink stock!)

What not to include:

Anything with high water content- lettuce, cucumber etc

Anything that is very starchy- potato, butternut squash

Any veggies that are too far gone- celery and carrots that have gotten a little limp are ok, but if they're brown and rotting then don't include them- the flavor will permeate your stock.

Make sure you’ve cleaned everything BEFORE you put it in your freezer bag, it’ll make things easier when it comes time to make stock. When the bag is full, you’re ready! Make sure you have at least the equivalent of 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery and one onion (the aromatics). In addition make sure you have plenty of herbs to flavor your stock: garlic, basil and thyme work well; tying them up in some cheese cloth will make them easier to fish out later. Put all of your veggies (no need to thaw), herbs, and a pinch of salt in the bottom of a large pot and cover with water (about 12 cups). Bring water to a boil then turn down and allow to simmer for an hour or so. Your kitchen will smell awesome and in the end you will have delicious stock. Wait for it to cool down a bit, then using a slotted spoon remove all of the vegetable bits and the bunch of herbs.

To store your stock, I would recommend pouring it into a few different containers for your freezer so you don't have to thaw the entire batch to use it in a recipe. Even better, use a liquid measuring cup to parcel out one cup measurements so it will be ready for recipes (risotto, I'm looking at you). I also like to freeze some in an ice cube tray covered with plastic, in case I only need a little bit.