Vegetable Stock

I wanted to make vegetable stock, which turned out to be very easy to do, for a couple of reasons. First, I'm trying to cut processed foods out of my diet and to eat locally. I've also been making a lot of soups lately, soups that call for stock of some kind or another, and I wanted to have my own stock on hand to use in these recipes. I did some research, had a friend pick up some vegetables for me at our local store, and ended up with the following:

Vegetable Stock

Ingredients*

3 carrots, scrubbed and coarsely chopped
3 yellow onions, quartered
5 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
1 zucchini, coarsely chopped
1 head broccoli, cut into medium-sized florets
1 head garlic, peeled
1 bay leaf
salt to taste

*After looking at several stock recipes, I determined that carrots seemed to be a must, so I made sure to include them. Onions also showed up in most recipes, so they were also guaranteed entrance into my stock extravaganza, along with the garlic. Apart from these three, it seems that vegetable stock can be made from whichever vegetables are in season and available, so I used what we had here.

Preparation

Put all vegetables, garlic, and bay leaf into a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for an hour. Strain broth and discard (more on this in a later post) vegetables. Salt to taste.



It's that easy! As far as storage goes, I put about half of the stock in the refrigerator (to be used fairly soon) and froze the other half using ice-cube trays.