Days Remaining to Finish Cooking Class: 70 Average Grade: 97%
About six months ago I started saving all of my vegetable scraps and putting them in gallon size bags, keeping them in the freezer. Several days ago I filled the fourth gallon size bag and decided it was time to get on it.
I have this 6 quart crock pot that was the perfect size when I was raising a family but ……. not so much now that they are grown and out of the house. But I will say, I’m ecstatic that I still have it and I have continuously found new ways to use it, one of which is making vegetable stock. It works great for this time-consuming task, although some recommend that you cook it on the stove for an hour with the lid off to intensify the flavor of the broth. I also learned this in my cooking class, but I have made it both ways and I’m impartial to the difference.
The crock pot method allows you to leave the house if needed.
My 1 gallon size bag of frozen scraps fits comfortably in the pot. I added peppercorns and a few bay leaves and filled it up with water. 12 cups for my crock pot. I Covered and secured the lid, set it on low and left for work. It definitely doesn’t get any easier than that!
As you can see from the picture, there are many different kinds of scraps. Look at the beautiful color. I love onions and garlic and I use them both in almost everything I cook. Along with the ends of the onions and garlic, you can see that I also saved the skins from both, as they add flavor as well.
I have read that you shouldn’t add anything cruciferous or the hard cores from broccoli and cauliflower and, if you do, keep it to a minimum. They are considered “starchy.”
There was also the shell from an acorn squash in there, which apparently is OK to add as long as you don’t add the flesh, which is considered starchy.
I do try to save everything that is salvageable from my cooking scraps.
After it cooked on low for most of the day, roughly 8 hours, I strained it, threw out the scraps and divided the liquid into 2 and 3 cup containers.
I have contemplated buying those large silicone trays and freezing some stock in those babies, so I can pop ’em out and dump them into a freezer bag. Sometimes you just need a little stock for a recipe and this would work perfectly for those times.
Amazon ……. here I come
……. AGAIN!
My 4 gallon size bags turned into 30 cups of broth! I think you might pay $2 or so for a box of vegetable broth at the grocery store. They are usually sold in 32 oz boxes or 4 cups.
You do the math. All I know is that it didn’t really cost me anything to make, except my time.
Each batch I made looked a little different. I think it must depend on what scraps are in the bag. The containers on the left are lighter in color. (It wasn’t the lighting, they really did look that way). I tasted each batch and although they did taste different, they were all good.
I know there are people who only put carrots, onion, celery, and the traditional spices, but I’m not one of them!
Fundamentally, I’m a simple cook. I am excited to have a homemade stock that doesn’t have a lot of unknown and unpronounceable additives. Who doesn’t want to save money as well?
“No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.” – Julia Child
xoxo, Katy
*Transferred from my original blog post on 5/24/17
