Stocking up on stock

"The stockpot," warned Mark Bittman, "is not a garbage can." In a sense, I don't follow this dictum. After all, I am making my stock out of things that would otherwise go in the garbage (or compost). I save onion peels, garlic skins, carrot ends and the like, throw them in a jar in freezer and then turn that into stock. The bottom line is that stock is a great way of adding flavour to your food. This is true no matter where you lie on the continuum between what I do and making your stock from oven-roasted fresh produce from the farmer's market.

Technicially, I guess, what I am making is broth– not stock (because there's no meat). But "Brothing up on broth" doesn't have the same ring for a title. Whatever you call it, it involves simmering vegetables in water and straining the resulting liquid out afterwards.

Vegetable Stock
I start by letting the vegetables in the jar thaw out [You felt the need to clarify that? --ed]. Then, I heat up some oil in a pot and sauté the vegetables in it.


This particular one had carrot, garlic and onion fragments, a green pepper core and edamame pods. I still don't quite have a handle on what not to put in stock. Some say nothing from the broccoli family, others say that family is good but nothing from the pepper family. I guess its a Capulet/Montague situation.
After a few minutes I add water in a 2:1 ratio, put in some black pepper and maybe a dash of soy sauce. Then turn the heat down a let it simmar for about half an hour. I strain it through my pasta strainer, but I should really get a seperate strainer as there's the hassle of cleaning out veggie remnants from it.

I'm left with food-augmenting liquid and a good-smelling kitchen.