Domestic Bliss II

Here's how to make vegetarian stock:

You must have: some kind of onion. the equivalent of one big yellow onion, but leeks are just fine too. One heart of celery (with the leaves!), a couple of carrots, and a goodly handful of parsley. You can go with this only, but you'll want to do a lot of browning to make the stock richer.

I also used left-over peas from dinner, about 1/2 cup. Oh, and a small potato. And you know what else I put in there, come to think of it? I had about 1/2 cup of cucumber chopped for a salad that I never used. In it went with the peas.

Chop all the vegetables coarsely. Heat 3 T. of oil in a stock pot over medium heat. Saute the onions and celery (and maybe carrots, mine were frozen from the too cold fridge, so I withheld them until later), stirring and scraping anything that sticks. If you allow them to get brown around the edges and stick to the pot a little, the stock will be darker and richer for it. As long as you don't burn it, you can go as long as you're willing to scrape and stir, but 15 minutes will do.

Add the other veggies (but not delicate things like the peas or the herbs, I added the potato and the carrots now) and some salt (I used about 2 t. of sea salt), and saute them to coat with the oil and soften them just a bit (5 minutes). Add 4 quarts of water and the more delicate veggies and herbs (no need to chop the herbs). Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook for at least an hour. Leave it on the stove overnight, if you like. If you cook it the next day for about 1/2 hour, it will be even better. I put it through a seive, squeezing as much liquid out of the vegetables as is practicable. I seive into a spouted container and store the stock in the fridge in 1qt. Ball Jars. I never have it beyond two weeks, since I'm always ready to make stock again by then. You can freeze it, certainly.

Tips on herbs to use: fresh thyme or majoram is excellent in stocks. Both are mild and gardeny, like parsley. If you're using celery hearts, and you should be (don't buy that other shitty celery. The hearts are worth the extra money), you've got celery leaves in there. Dill can be good, especially if you're using this in a potato soup. Go very easy with herbs like garlic, rosemary, cilantro or fennel greens and stalks. They are very assertive and will kill the other delicate flavors. Sage and oregano can be used profitably, but taste it first -- they very tremendously in their resiny flavors. If you're using the stock for something specific that that flavor will go with then use as much as you would put in a soup. For instance, if you've got basil you want to put in there, you might want to add a tomato (those lackluster winter tomatoes are good for this purpose) and use the stock for minestrone soup or lentil soup.

For veggies, most things work. I'm sure mushrooms would be great, but we don't eat them, so we never have them. I'm guessing you want to add them with the onions and celery, but I really couldn't say. Green beans and edible pod peas are great to add. Fresh corn is good too. Peppers in general (even green bells) are too strong, IMHO. Green cabbage, oddly, does not seem too strong to me. Just don't go crazy with it and the same goes for cauliflower and broccoli.

You can use most anything that's not terribly strong and not something you should really throw away. Potato peels from organic spuds can definitely be used (though if I were using them primarily along with the base of onions, parsley and celery, I'd start it with butter instead of oil). Anything horribly wilted or with *gasp* mold on it cannot be used. You can also keep a stock bag in the freezer that you add to when you have things like potato peels you want to keep. I've also frozen and used pea pods after shelling the peas. If you're going to freeze it though, make sure you wash it beforehand so that you can just dump it in with the water. Don't start with the "base" vegetables (onions and celery) frozen. It needs to be something you can add with the water and herbs.

You can add the tougher lettuce leaves, and you can use spinach too. I tear the centers out of romaine, and they can definitely go in. I've never tried field greens (never any leftovers that aren't brown mush...they seem to go from good to un-good instantanously), but I bet they'd be good, especially dandelion greens and baby arugula (hah! like arugula wouldn't get eaten fresh by me...fat chance).

I'm making this sound harder than it is, really. If you want to make stock regularly (every two weeks or so), you'll learn how to cull your crisper drawer for the excess stuff. I always have some fresh herbs in the fridge, so I try and build the other flavors around what I've got. If you've have everything *but* the herbs, try buying the "poultry seasoning" pack that many stores sell fresh. It's a good value, and it usually has thyme and majoram, along with some sage and maybe some oregano.