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Monday, September 1, 2014

Fighting Food Waste: Vegetable stock

It's one of those things that I have always meant to do but never really got around to it: making my own stock.

I got the idea for this stock after chopping a truckload of vegetables to go into a beef stew. I had so many scraps it really seemed a shame to bin them all.


So I googled a bit and came up with the idea to make a stock out of them! You can virtually put anything in this that's a vegetable - I had the ends of carrots and onions, celery stalks and various peelings.



Essentially, I just put all the vegetable scraps into some water and brought it up to the boil. I didn't add any salt because I prefer to add it when I'm cooking a meal.

I skimmed the scum that rises to the top after a few minutes and then left it to simmer for about an hour or two.


Then I strained the whole lot with a fine sieve twice, to make sure I got out all the solids. THEN I binned the leftover veges!


The remaining stock was a lovely dark colour. I froze it flat in a sandwich zip-lock bag for use in a future cooking endeavor! It made about two cups.


Do you ever make your own stock? What kind and how often?


2 comments:

  1. That stock is an amazing colour! Must be those carrot peelings. Great work. I've read about people who even freeze their veges peelings until that have a good amount and then make up a large quantity of stock. I've done that before but the only trouble is, you then have to find room in the freezer for all of the stock!

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    1. Thanks! I did get a good colour, must be the carrots! Freezing vege leftovers is a great idea too, but when freezer space is at a premium perhaps not always practical! But I found you don't need a great deal of actual veges to make a small stock, perhaps smaller batches are do-able for those without a giant freezer!

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