Don’t throw away your onion skins, celery ends, tomato bottoms, and carrot tops! Or any of other bits of raw veggies that you don’t use. Turn them into healthy, delicious vegetable stock instead!
Often, if a recipe calls for beef broth, I’ll substitute vegetable stock because, you know, I can’t eat meat. But sometimes I just want a vegetarian meal, or I feel like using chicken stock in a chicken recipe is taking the chicken part too far, and in those cases, I like to use a nice, rich vegetable stock.
I do keep vegetable bouillion and chicken bouillion on hand on a regular basis, but when I’ve got the ingredients and the time, I make and freeze chicken stock and vegetable stock, because let’s be honest, homemade always just tastes better.
So this one is pretty easy and doesn’t use any set list of ingredients. I’ve made it with peppers, mushrooms, cabbage, asparagus ends, as well as the more commonly used carrot, celery, tomato, and onion. If you’ve got enough to fill a small pot, then you’ve got enough to make vegetable stock.
Just put your veggie leavings in a pot of appropriate size, add water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for several hours.
I generally season my vegetable stock with rosemary and garlic, and if I’m not adding onion bits, I’ll season with onion powder too. I never season any of my stocks with salt, because we’ve got enough salt in our diets without adding it in places it doesn’t really need to be.
That’s it. It’s that simple. Once it’s cooked several hours and cooled off, portion it into freezer bags in whatever increments best fit your needs. I usually do either one cup or three cup increments, but like I always say, you do you.
A Little Bit of Emu 