Vegetarian Soup Stock

Stashing away processed jars of food, or freezing supplies to save time and waste is not really Zok's thing, but it is mine.

I tend to make stock when I realize I have the supplies that will go to waste.

Stocks are improvisational and hard to get wrong.

I usually have more fresh herbs (except in the dead of winter) than I can use, so I use a lot of them in my stocks.  I always seem to end up with some onion, celery, and carrot in the crisper that seem left behind, or worse starting to lose all crispness. This is exactly when I would make some soup stock either to freeze or I would jar it up and boil the jars to seal them this way I could store it for a longer period of time.

Here is the basic recipe that I follow.

I will clean and roughly chop my vegetables.  Because you will be straining out the cooked veg, feel free to add parts you might not normally, like the leafy part of the celery or all the carrot.  If this seems too strange - you don't have too, but it won't hurt.

Mostly I use a large stock pot or soup pot to make this, I like it all to have a lot of room to simmer around in.

I use maybe 1 tbl. spoon of olive oil

This is first in the pot.

Roughly chop my veg into 1 in. chunks.

(the below amount should give you about 5-6 cups)

1 large onion

2 large carrots (or many small)

1 bunch scallions

8 garlic cloves (peeled and smashed is best)

8 parsley branches

6 thyme spriges (you could use dried 1/2 tsp.)

3 bay leaves

Handful of fresh, chopped rosemary

Salt 

(Again, you can add in stuff, mushrooms are good, oregano, lettuce leaves, leeks, nutritional yeast, miso, and so on)

Heat your oil, and add in your garlic, herbs and cook for about 5 - 10 minutes

Stir this frequently
Add in all your chopped vegetables

and then add your salt and 2 quarts of cold water (for the amount of veg above)

Bring to a boil

Lower and simmer for about 30 minutes- uncovered

Strain (we compost so veg mush is excellent for compost)

Now you can take your strained stock and either fill jars and reprocess them by boiling for 20 minutes to seal the lids

Or you could let it all cool, and then freeze.

If you really think your mixture was bland you could add more miso, soy sauce, or just add a veg. cube or some vegeta.  But you won't need too.

Zok also uses this same recipe to make his chicken stock for his spicy, shredded chicken