Monday, March 11, 2013
homemade vegetable stock à la Food Loves Writing
Hi all, just a quick one from me today. We are about half-way into our trip back home and are currently staying with my mum and little sister in a teeny tiny little sea-side town on the East Coast of New Zealand. We've been eating loads of freshly picked figs from the tree that hangs over mums fence, so I'm hoping to find a spare second to come up with a recipe using them and will share it on here in the next few days. But until then I'd like to leave you in the hands of another of my talented blogging friends, Shanna from Food Loves Writing. Shanna has such a beautiful way with words, shares my views on eating 'real' food and shares loads of recipes that tickle my fancy, like Coconut Milk Mexican Flan and Roasted Onion Carrot soup with Dukkah. Thanks so much Shanna! ~Emm
I have this vivid memory from when I was a kid, out grocery shopping with my mom, strolling aisles of fluorescent lighting and elevator music. I had one hand on her wheeling cart and the other outstretched to touch snacks we passed, eyeing potential treats I wanted her to buy. Even though I liked groceries, I didn't like grocery shopping. Walking through a store filled with fun food just made me feel want. But then, right in the midst of my lower-elementary-school angst, it happened. Somewhere between the dairy case and the snack aisle, I spotted it: a shiny quarter on the floor, mine for the taking. I picked it up, clutched it to my chest and shouted.
"I can buy anything I want!" I told Mom, a smile
on my face. I may have even jumped up and down.
Suddenly, with the discovery of a small coin, the world had
changed. I was no longer merely a wanter; I was a buyer! I had money! What
would I buy? Through the next aisles, I glanced anxiously at items, trying to
find the one I'd select. Fruit snacks? Granola bars? Candy? It took time before
I began reading the price tags and comparing them with what I had in my hand.
Only then did disappointment strike. By the time we left the grocery store, I'd
learned what some would call a valuable lesson and what I would call a loss of
innocence: Now I knew $0.25 wouldn't buy more than a candy sample from the bulk
bins. Also, in most of life, you can't get something from nothing.
Except that is, my friends, in the kitchen, when you make
yourself some homemade vegetable stock.
Truth is, it would be decades after my grocery discovery
when I'd finally see exceptions to the nothing's-free rule: daily sunrises on
the evil and the just, which come, undeserved, faithfully each morning; sweet,
sweet sleep, the kind of thing you cannot see the value of as a child but come
to treasure as an adult, busy and harried and tired; the undeserved kindness of
a husband who loves me steady as a mountain range and still surprises me; and,
finally, the pure and simple magic of making vegetable stock, a veritable
kitchen treasure made of nothing more than water, time and leftover vegetable
scraps you were going to throw away---things like onion peels, broccoli stems,
tips of carrots, roots of celery.
I first learned about the beauty of homemade vegetable stock in Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal
, a life-changing cookbook if ever there was one. When she described saving all the scrappy vegetable bits I've always tossed and combining them to make a stock, my mouth fell open. Of course! Why hadn't I thought of this?
And from that point forward, this is what I always do, less a recipe and more of a habit:
Every day, when I'm cooking---chopping onions, slicing
carrots, tearing apart cauliflower florets---I keep a container or bag nearby
to throw the scraps in. Stems, leaves, ends and so on all get thrown together
and tossed in the fridge or freezer. Then every week or so, I throw all those
saved scraps in a large pot and cover it with water, bringing it to a boil. I
reduce the water to a simmer and let it reduce for hours, adding water as it
disappears. At the end of four to six hours, I strain the now discardable
vegetables, sapped of all their nutrient glory, and save the liquids in the
fridge. I don't even season it---I save that for when the stock gets used.
That's it. Easy as can be. Practically free. And a treasure
the next time you're making a soup or sauce or risotto that calls for stock and
you realize you already have it on hand; or a recipe that calls for a great
deal of water and you think of your flavorful vegetable stock instead.
It's not as exciting as a quarter that buys you anything you
want in a grocery story---but to the eyes of this adult, I'd say it's pretty
close.
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Lovely post from Shanna, she always has a great story to tell.
ReplyDeleteAnd good to hear we are not the only one who keep a 'stock' container to make vegetable stock. However when friends visit they get rather confused by our compost, worm farm and stock containers :)
Haha, yes mine too.
DeleteHomemade stock is treasure indeed, nothing like those salty, gritty, coloured little cubes of yuck! Lovely idea and lovely story :)
ReplyDeleteBrilliant idea isn't it?! Waste not, want not.
DeleteGreat way to use up vegetable scraps -- I'm always throwing mine out but I should start making stock. I love having something simple like this bubbling away on the stove on weekends. :) Hope you're having a great trip, Emma!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely way to use "scraps."
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely post from one of my favourite bloggers. I am guilty of throwing away so much of what I could actually use and this has proved to be a real inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel so bad chucking our scraps out as they end up in our compost or worm farm, thus continuing the cycle of life. BUT, I do really love the idea of using them to make stock!
DeleteWonderful stock inspiration! And it´s so nice to find Shanna here. I need to finally make room in my freezer for this type of projects.
ReplyDeleteAh yes. My freezer is always full to the brim with my random projects!
DeleteLove this post, Shanna. I make lots of chicken stock (and put some veg in that) but I've never made straight vegetable.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering - are there any scraps/vegetables that you don't throw in? i.e. that might overpower the stock or make it bitter or something.
By the looks of it from Shanna's pics I'd say no. However I was always taught not to add things like cabbage or broccoli as they can overpower the stock. In saying that though I've since learnt the Vietnamese way of making vegetable stock which is made up of mostly cabbage and is lovely! So I'd just go with what you personally like and don't like :-)
DeleteHi Emma! Sorry I'm so late in responding here, but thanks, Emma, for having a sound response! : ) I stick to Tamar Adler's advice here, which is to add whatever scraps you have. I do throw away onion skins with stickers on them, anything that's gone bad, etc., but otherwise, it's all fair game. It helps if I think of the stock as a more nutritious, more flavorful version of water---something to add to soups and stews and marinades and risottos---because then it doesn't need to be much but what it wants to be.
DeleteHow long would you say it keeps in the fridge?
ReplyDelete4-5 days once made I'd say. But you can freeze it for months also xx
Delete