- Vegetable Broth - Making Something from Nothing

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Being creatures of land, we dogs are extremely resourceful and economizing. We don't waste anything.

Our person, Me, has a stock bag she keeps in the freezer door for easy access. It's a bag that is constantly opening for new deposits of the inedible-yet-flavorful vegetable and fruit parts that the average cook would discard. Any part of the plant that has flavor, but that you would not eat outright. These scraps are saved for later making a delicious vegetable stock.

Here's Me's rough listing of examples:
(We are organically minded dogs, so there are some parts of conventional vegetables especially rife with pesticides and chemicals that we don't save - like the peels or the top of conventional carrots...)

- the sprouts or root ends from bulbs like garlic, onion, fennel, and what have you.
- the outer layers of onion or outer stalks of celery (remove any spoiled part)
- the root ends, leaves (even wilty), and strings of celery
- the peel of organic potatoes, carrots, apples, and other vegetables
- the tops of organic carrots or beets
- wilted (but not yet slimy) greens of spinach, beets, celery and the like
- broccoli ends or stems
- cauliflower core
- cabbage outer leaves and core
- the peel (and fibers) from fresh ginger, as well as ginger nubs too small to grate
- pepper tops and white innards and seeds (if you add a lot of Hot Pepper scraps, you may want to mark the bag to remind yourself so you know you're making a powerhouse broth later.)
- woody asparagus ends
- tomato "cores" or any hard white bits inside, or peels (no green stems though, as our elder man tells us tomatoes are from the Deadly Nightshade family and the greens could sicken a person or dangerously poison a pup or cat)
- lime or lemon peel (not orange peel)

Can you put in meats? you may wonder. Yes, but Me tends to save these in separate bags so she doesn't forget which meat she put in. (While we dogs enjoy the good variety of cooking chicken, pork, and beef together with a little lamb, the Persons of our acquaintance tend to find this unappetizing.) Save any cooked or uncooked bones. Uncooked give the most flavor to the broth, of course, but probably cooked ones have a little left in them too.

On the topic of broth, we are very adverse to using any bouillon that is rife with MSG. We will tell you later in a post why MSG is so bad, besides that it gives us headaches and makes us hounds ADD. However, there is a wondrous broth cube that does not have MSG and is the best one our girl has ever found. It's called Rapunzel brand Vegetable Bouillon with Sea Salt and Herbs. You can buy it in the natural foods section of the store or online. Our Me adds one cube even when she is making her broth from scratch as she loves it so.

Homemade Vegetable Stock
Vegetable trimmings from your stock bag
1 onion
2-3 stalks celery, with leaves
1 carrot
Other vegetables
Rosemary or bay leaf
salt
pepper
Dried herbs such as thyme, oregano, marjoram, basil, sage, or ginger
Rapunzel vegetable bouillon (optional)

Place vegetable trimmings you've been collecting in a 3-quart sauce pan. Chop up one onion, a few stalks of celery, and a carrot to augment your stash. We also recommend looking through your crisper drawers at this time and adding any vegetables that you have been meaning to use and alas did not and now will not. Cut off what is yellowed or ailing, and include the rest in the pan. (Set aside a few good pieces to add to the soup later, after the broth is cooked, if desired.) Also add dried rosemary and a bay leaf at this time so they can be strained out later.

Fill the pan with water over the vegetables and cover. Heat to boiling. Reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour. Pour the broth through a sieve, discarding the vegetables (great for the compost pile). Return the flavorful broth to the saucepan and season with salt and pepper and dried herbs. As mentioned, we also add a cube of Rapunzel bouillon to fill out the flavor. Now you have an aromatic and delicious stock for the soup of your liking. You can also freeze this in quart bags (or jars - wait til it's frozen to tighten the lid completely) to pull out on the fly as needed.

Note that we call for dried herbs, which fare better in something that steeps like this. Fresh herbs are best added at the last, before serving, rather than cooking all day in a broth where their power is depleted. Leave a comment if we're wrong about that. It seems to be what we've learned along the way.

Forever yours -

The Hounds Who Cook
Elias and The Gute