Vegestock

My sister in law, who is fairly early into her vegan journey, asked me over the weekend if I had ever pulled from my garden to make a good vegetable stock. I had to admit that I hadn’t although I had been meaning to experiment in that area for some time.

So two days later I decided “now”, with a bounty of fresh onions, shallots, garlic and herbs, was as good a time as any to do it.

So- the ingredients, (from memory):

2 small heads of fresh garlic, with cloves peeled and “bruised” but whole
4 or 5 small shallots, unpeeled and cut in half
1 medium yellow onion, unpeeled and cut into quarters
4 carrots (two large and two wimpy) unpeeled and cut into 1 inch sections
4 celery stalks cut into 1 inch sections (this was purchased at supermarket, so the stock isn’t entirely from the garden
a couple of small seeded and quartered “sheepnose” pimento peppers I had previously harvested and frozen
a couple or three stems of flat leaf parsley with leaves attached
a couple of stems of rosemary
a few strands of fresh thyme
a stem of fresh oregano for the hell of it
6 or 8 whole peppercorns
a teaspoon of sea salt
3 bay leaves
3 whole “tommie toe” tomatoes

I preheated the oven on “convection roast” 425 degrees. In the meantime I spread the cut vegetables and herbs in a roasting pan and drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil and tossed around a bit.

I roasted them for about 25 minutes, opening the oven every 8 or 10 minutes to toss the contents of the pan around some more.

On the stove top I warmed some water, 3 or 4 quarts, and added the salt, bay leaves and peppercorns (I also added another fresh stem of parsley and a touch more fresh rosemary). When the roasting was over, I poured the charred and partially caramelized contents into the pot and de-glazed the roasting pan with about 1/2 cup of white wine (and of course added this to the pot as well.)

Once the pot came to a boil I reduced to a simmer and after almost one hour removed it from the heat to cool for a while.

The pre-roast of the contents darkened the stock:

Finally I strained the stock through a fine mesh sieve (a tea strainer actually, it worked very well).

Presto, roughly 2 quarts of concentrated vegetable stock ready to refrigerate overnight while I decide what new soup project this go into:

I believe it will keep a couple days as is just fine; I’ll probably freeze it in half pint or pint sized containers until I need it.

Overall it smells like a success- very flavorful with a nice base color. It didn’t make much, but it is concentrated enough to add an equal amount of water to reach the called for quantity in most recipes.

Marcie, I’ll let you know how it tastes. 😉