Veg Stock/Broth

[sss3]

How do you make vegetable stock or broth?

[themotherhen]

How much stock/broth do you need?
When I make veg broth, I cut up 3 onions, 5 large carrots, 1 garlic, 5 celery stalks w/leaves and 1 white potato. Cover with cold water, medium heat until it boils, then simmer for 1 hour. Adjust salt/pepper to taste. At that point you can either put the soup into the blender and blend it up for a thicker stock, or strain it and feed the veggies to your children and chickens :-)
If you decide to blend it up, please either allow the stock to cool or slightly vent your blender. Ask me how I know :-)

[Deleted]

Boil water with dehydrated vegetables or use fresh vegetables in season after sweating the vegetables in a little butter. We make a dehydrated mix that tastes a lot like Mrs. Dash. We like carrots, onion and celery. Most of the time we make broth and/or stock when we butcher chickens, boil the neck, bits and odd pieces, then add vegetables, strain that if we want clear broth. Use what we strain off for pot pie, soup, etc. We use the liquid for raw pack when canning chicken plain or with the vegetable broth....James

[gardenelf]

I second what themotherhen uses to make hers. it's pretty similar to mine, but I use less onions, and the celery I buy doesn't have the leaves on it. Though I must say I never thought of blending it to make it thicker. I usually just use the stock as a soup as I make it, but on the rare occasion I want the stock only, I just serve the veggies on their own...minus the onions & garlic as I only like their flavor, not their textures.

The nice thing about homemade veggie stock/broth is you can add as much salt as you want. The dry veggie broth cubes you buy in the store are loaded with salt, and it makes them hard to use a lot of the time.

[themotherhen]

Jan 18, 2016 22:56:20 GMT gardenelf said:

I second what themotherhen uses to make hers. it's pretty similar to mine, but I use less onions, and the celery I buy doesn't have the leaves on it. Though I must say I never thought of blending it to make it thicker. I usually just use the stock as a soup as I make it, but on the rare occasion I want the stock only, I just serve the veggies on their own...minus the onions & garlic as I only like their flavor, not their textures.

The nice thing about homemade veggie stock/broth is you can add as much salt as you want. The dry veggie broth cubes you buy in the store are loaded with salt, and it makes them hard to use a lot of the time.

I came up with the idea to blend it last winter, gardenelf , because all 3 of my little boys got a horrible cold and I was desperately trying to get some good nutrients into them. They don't like the texture of some of the vegetables either, so I just blended it up, put it into mugs and called it "magic tea". It worked like magic and they loved it! I have also cooked rice and noodles in it with good results. 
  I don't usually have to use much salt at all, the flavor of the veggies is enough.

[motdaugrnds]

I make my stock a bit differently than some. I like meat broth and rarely create a veggie broth alone.

When I make meat broth I like to use chicken "feet". Yes, scald and skin those feet (after cutting off nails) and cook those in with whatever meat/bones you're working with. Creates a wonderful thickness/taste that is hard to beat...the "secret ingredient".

[farmchix]

Jan 16, 2016 21:39:13 GMT themotherhen said:

How much stock/broth do you need?
When I make veg broth, I cut up 3 onions, 5 large carrots, 1 garlic, 5 celery stalks w/leaves and 1 white potato. Cover with cold water, medium heat until it boils, then simmer for 1 hour. Adjust salt/pepper to taste. At that point you can either put the soup into the blender and blend it up for a thicker stock, or strain it and feed the veggies to your children and chickens :-)
If you decide to blend it up, please either allow the stock to cool or slightly vent your blender. Ask me how I know :-)

My recipe is similar.  If I am making it for a particular recipe, I will add more/less of another item.....

[Maura]

I never make a vegetable broth, always meat. I save up bones in the freezer, pork, lamb, chicken, whatever. When I make a whole chicken I strip it and put the skeleton into the pot along with the bones I’ve saved in the freezer. Simmer it for a minimum of two hours, usually four to six. Near the end I put in an onion. Now, I have a great broth to use with soup or stew or as the liquid in cooking rice.

[gardenelf]

I noticed in another post that you have health issues and allergies to certain foods. What's great about vegetable broth is you can omit veggies you don't/can't eat, and add in others if you want. I just searched allrecipes and found one with no potatoes, and another that doesn't use celery but does use squash. In order to find one you really like using food you can eat, I would make a bunch of small batches from any recipes that look tasty and see which ones I liked the best. I may test out some of these broths just to see if there is a new one I like to mix things up some.

[sss3]

gardenelf  Think the same way about making veg broth.  That's one of the great things about cooking.  Easy to adapt recipes to likes/dislikes.

[Deleted]

I save all my vegetable trimmings in the freezer )until I need to make soup, then throw it in the crock pot with extra veggies I need to use up or add something that is missing. I've also added some tomatoes and mushrooms. Even though I'm a salt lover, I don't add salt to the stock until I'm using it.