Homemade Vegetable Broth
With this little cold snap, I thought I would add some recipes to the site that we use to keep warm. We eat a lot of vegetarian soups and vegetable broth powders can substitute in a pinch but you have to watch the ingredients list if you are trying to avoid preservatives and additives.
I like this recipe because it is one of the times I can feel like I am being really frugal. I tend to use almost all parts of the vegetables that you would throw away for this broth. Onion skins make the broth a lovely yellow color. You can peel several carrots and substitute two cups of peels for the medium carrots. Use the carrots for carrot cake…mmm
3 ribs celery with leaves
1 medium leek with green top
1 zucchini
1/8 cup dried astragalus root
2 cups carrot peels or leftover pulp from juicing carrots
4 cloves garlic,
1 bunch parsley including stems
3 medium onions unpeeled and quartered
4 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp thyme
Put all the ingredients in a 6 quart stockpot with 12 cups of water, bring to boil and reduce heat. Simmer gently skimming scum off top periodically.
Cover and continue simmering for 30 minutes or until vegetables are quite mushy. At this point it doesn’t hurt to whip it up with an immersion blender. Turn off the heat and let sit for at least four hours, possibly overnight. The thought here is that you are making an nourishing infusion of these vegetables and want to allow the water time to extract as much of the goodness as you possible.
Strain through cheesecloth and compost the solid material. This stock can be used in place of other broths when making soup. You can pressure can the stock in quart jars or freeze it in the freezer.
