How To Make Your Own Vegetable and Meat Stock

M is for Money wrote a nice post about Traditional Frugal Skills awhile back, and it has been on my mind ever since I read it. Basically she talks about a number of skills that our grandparents had that kept them going through lean times - and how many of those skills we have lost. One of those is cooking, something I love to do. There is a lot to be said about how cooking your own meals is both frugal and healthy, but for this post I want to concentrate on one of my favorite super-frugal cooking standards - making stock.

I love making stock and broth! (The way I understand it, stock comes from bones, broth comes from using meat, though the terms are frequently interchangeable. We'll use "stock" here, just to keep it simple. ) I make vegetable, meat and poultry stock. The best part about it? You make something absolutely wonderful, for very little work, out of things you would normally throw away!

Here's what I do:

Whenever I am making something with vegetables, I wash them first - then I peel, slice and dice them. Why? Because all the vegetable trimmings go in freezer bags and are placed in the freezer for later use. Carrot peels, celery leaves, mushroom stems, fennel fronds, the corn kennels scraped from corn cobs, tops of onions and the skins of ginger all find their way into my freezer bags. I love tomatoes - the skins, the seeds, the juice from drained cans, even the too wrinkled grape tomatoes left on the bottom of the carton - they all go in the bag. I only use real lemons and limes, so guess what happens to the rinds? Yep, in the bag. I do this all year around and in the summer, when I eat a lot of produce, I will fill a couple of bags in short order. Once the bags are filled, its time for the pot!

A couple of words of warning here - when you are making stock you don't want too much of one vegetable or the stock will only taste like that one veggie. The big culprit for this is celery. Celery is very strong flavored, so unless you want celery soup, you might not want more than a few handfuls of leaves per pot. The other thing to watch out for is vegetables that get bitter when cooked for too long, like broccoli.

Once I have a couple of bags of mixed trimmings, into the pot they go along with some peppercorns, sea salt, a couple bay leaves and few cloves of garlic. I fill the pot the rest of the way up with water and away we go. There is no hard and fast recipe for this, and it will taste a little different every time. That is okay! I bring the whole mass to a boil, then turn it down to simmer and cook for an hour or so. This is great to make when you are doing housework or some other kind of chore, then when you think of it as you pass by the kitchen, give the pot a stir. Taste it a bit and see if it needs more salt. Although, here again, there is one thing to keep in mind - it isn't soup. You are going to be cooking with this. Less salt is better, because you can always add more to the recipe you are using the stock in, but it is really difficult to take it out if you add in too much!

In addition to vegetable, I also make meat stock...

I keep the meat bones separated in more freezer bags - one bag for poultry, one bag for pork and beef bones. I am not a huge meat eater, so it takes a lot longer for me to accumulate a bag full of bones, but the holidays are a prime time to stock up (Ha!) on bones. For those of you that eat rotisserie chickens - those bones are great in the stew pot!

The process is essentially the same - bones in the pot, followed by peppercorns, salt, bay leaves and garlic. I also add some vegetables to the pot. Sometimes this is a half of bag of vegetable trimmings. It can also be a few stalks of celery, a few carrots and an onion. (just cut the onion in quarters - no need to peel.) Once again I cover the whole mess in water, bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour or so.

Once the stock has simmered for an hour or so, I turn off the heat and I let it cool for a bit on the stove. Then I strain it through a fine mesh sieve. The resulting broth is measured out into .5, 1, and 2 cup measurements, put into tupperware and frozen until needed. The leftovers from the pot get disposed of if they contain bones or meat, vegetable matter only can be composted.

So, there you go - for the cost of of some water and a little time, you have a wonderful, homemade stock, perfect for recipes. The stuff in the supermarket will run you about a $1 a can and is loaded with sodium and other non healthy ingredients. This is delicious, useful - and practically free!


Photo by: Miss Priss