Tags
homemade, quinoa, vegan, vegetarian, vegetarianbroth, vegetarianstock, vine
Homemade Vegetable Stock on charlottealvina.com vine.co/v/blHAOHJ516p
— Charlotte Boutz (@CharlotteAlvina) June 12, 2013
I originally shared my guide to making homemade vegetable stock last spring, which walks through some different approaches to ingredients and techniques. There are lots of ways to make stock to your personal liking, so I hope you’re doing it and enjoying it as much as I do!
Now that I’m in the habit of making my own stock, I use a lot more. Within the last month, I went through about 6 quarts in various recipes including balsamic marinated beets, minestrone soup, fennel lentil & sausage, and quinoa.
Sidebar: If you follow the instructions on your bag of quinoa, don’t. They will tell you to use the same ratio of liquid to grain as you would with rice, 2:1. This makes a mushy mess. Try reducing the liquid by a third to a half cup, per cup of grain. I promise you’ll be much happier with the result. I make a pot of quinoa almost every week and use it throughout to sprinkle on salads, or a substitute for rice in Mexican and Asian dishes, or add to breakfast scrambles. Because it’s a little drier this way, it absorbs the flavors of whatever it’s with. And because I make it with stock instead of water, it contributes more complexity to the flavor as well.
What took homemade vegetable stock from an occasional thing to a regular habit for me was freezing vegetable scraps. And I’m not super fancy about it either. I just use big freezer bags. Whenever I’m cooking I get the bag out and add more scraps. They accumulate for a couple weeks and then I make a pot of stock.
As a result, there’s much less waste coming out of our kitchen. If I know something is going to spoil before I can use it – like if we’re leaving town for the weekend – I just add it to the scrap bag. I don’t waste my time with the tiny inner cloves of garlic, throw away the bottom half of every fresh herb bunch, or feel guilty about not using mushroom stems in recipes. All that stuff gets frozen and turned into delicious stock. Then composted.
But the stock itself will spoil so…I freeze that too. Once cooled, I put it in my favorite extra-large ice cube trays, and then transfer the frozen cubes of stock into, you guessed it, another big freezer bag. I always have pre-measured stock ready to use. Super easy, thrifty, and waste conscious.
charlottealvina 
We make our own broths too. LOVE and look forward to drinking them. We use herbs and greens from our garden to add to our soup. We love Leek and make sure we have plenty. We have always added bones to our broths. Thanks for the hint for the way we cook Quinoa. We have started eating it on a lot of dishes and adding it to brown rice. Sometimes I eat it plain with fruit (I add a small amount of Agave syrup) and it is a great snack.
I enjoy reading your posts and thank you for all your advice and recipes! I look forward to your email updates (I subscribe)
Mary Ruth, thanks for your note!
I just used a leek for the first time last week and need to learn more about cooking with them. Any advice or resources for me?
BTW, my mom says hello from Spokane. I hear you’re giving her a run for her money on Words with Friends 😉
It has been hard to find a lot of information about leeks in just one source. I read a lot and then gather what I can for hints. One I read some time back a few years ago, was to cook the leek (I like just the light color column for this, no greens) and cook it slowly until tender, strain (enjoy the leek parts) and reserve the liquid. This can be stored in the fridge and then enjoyed as a drink! It is great to mix with cucumber too, or an herb. It has a different taste, but refreshes with nutrients. I have used this method for a hot drink to as a break from tea.
I also have a dehydrator and slice the leeks drying them, all the white interior parts and then all the greens separately (not the real dark parts). I like the mild flavor of the lighter color interior for soups where I will eat the portions. But when making broths, I use the dried green parts to add to broth that will be strained, and then add the light leek dried parts to the actual soup. You will LOVE the mild flavor. We dehydrate the plants because we grow a lot (when you purchase them, they come in a small bunch which is like 50 or so plants… and if you let them stay in the ground too much past their time, they will turn brown inside. That is why I dehydrate some of the plants so that I will have plenty in my pantry until the next year when we can plant them again.
I trim the roots off, and the tops and ends that are damaged on the leeks. Then I peel back the outer few stems because dirt is usually hiding there and I want to rinse them well. I have seen (Mother Earth News article a while back) empty tp rolls (the cardboard in the center) to put in the ground around new leek plants. By the time the plat is large enough to bypass picking up dirt (from watering and rain splashing) the tp cardboard will disintegrate and then it just gets composted into the soil. MY DH does the planting and he has not done this in a couple of years of planting, so I have to be more careful with cleaning them.
We also grow Elephant Garlic and eat it often. I had read that the Elephant Garlic is like a cross between a garlic and a leek, like part onion flavor in it. We love to cook with both and always have plenty on hand.
LOL your mom is a great defensive and offensive player! She works me hard on Words with Friends!
When I make rice I use a ratio of 1.33 liquid measure to 1 dry rice measure (except with risotto which I don’t measure precisely). Is quinoa the same ya think?