Recipe: Vegetable Stock

Recipes title

Vegetable Stock

Serving Size: 1
Preparation Time: 0:30

Ingredients

1 gallon water
4 each mushrooms dry and stems
1 lg. tomato
6 each celery ribs
4 lg. carrots
4 lg. onions
2 lg. parsnips with tops
1/2 head garlic—crushed
4 each potatoes
1/4 each cabbage
1/4 bunch dill
1/4 bunch parsley
Vegetable trimmings

Preparation

Peel and trim all veg. Crush garlic. Cut veg any way you like.

Tie all trimmings (plus any from the freezer) the crushed garlic, dried mushroom stems and herbs in a cheesecloth bag.

Sweat (cook slowly on low fire) all veg in oil. Add water. Add cheesecloth bag with trimmings. Bring to a boil and simmer for thirty minutes.

Discard cheesecloth bag. Strain or purée. Freeze excess.

Of course you can just eat this as soup, if you season it. They only reason I see for making it is you haven't enough vegetable stock for some other recipe. Ordinarily, I would save all my veg trimmings etc. in a plastic baggie in the freezer, and kind of eyeball them when I had a full bag, to see what was needed in the way of adding prime veggies to make stock. When I buy a bag of Shitake mushrooms I take a clipper to the stems and save them for stock. I frequently hunt the bag for skinny or broken ones to use for stock. You can also buy mushroom powder or even the less expensive dried mushrooms for stock. Change any veg or herb you like and any proportion to suit. The "leftover" veggies can be combined with fried onions, shredded greens and mashed potatoes, to make veggie cutlets. Pan fried and topped with melted cheese, they are the perfect reason to make this recipe frequently.