Making Stock

The pot smells woody, earthy, fresh and alive. Vibrant red beet stalks with leaves of green and yellow, veined and speckled red. Tops, bottoms, outsides, and innards of vegetable misfits and castaways come together to make tonight's stock.

The frozen bag smells like beets, an amazing smell. In my freezer lives a gallon ziplock freezer bag, for the purpose of collecting veg scraps. Today it is brimming with chard stalks, beet greens, garlic and onion papers, beautiful stems of blue/green dino kale, pepper tops, innards, and seeds, onion ends, mint stems, and carrot corners. A delicious medley of vegetable goodness, frozen at the peek of their freshness. And tonight I'm topping off the pot with the contents of the bones bag from the freezer: a carcass of a whole Terra Firma chicken that Eric BBQ'd to beer can chicken perfection, and a few pork chop bones from the week before. Waste not, want not.

The contents of the stuffed veg bag and the bones bag joined the fresh veg clippings from dinner in our largest stock pot, and was topped of with water and sprinkled with (not enough) salt and pepper. I can't wait to see how this turns out! Since opening the bones bag, I've been mondo hungry. The smell of those BBQ'd chicken bones (even frozen) are mouth watering. That chicken, was quite honestly, the best chicken I've ever eaten. Seriously. Mmm...the house is gonna smell good tonight!

Before putting the top on the stock pot and letting the veg scraps, unwanted bones, water, and salt and pepper do their do, I took one final look at it. It was a cacophony of colors. Red beet stalks and pink water. The beets have an amazing ability to color everything around them. Green pepper tops from the pardons and the green-yellow-orange pepper tops of the bells. The aforementioned green and yellow beet leaves speckled and veined with red deliciousness. White and purple garlic papers. The chicken and pork bones, intertwined in a black and brown and white and pink and red tangle of perfectly prepared and picked apart meals of last that have no part gone to waste. And finally, dotting the party like confetti, the white and brown pepper seeds.

I love making stock. I freeze it in 2 and 3 cup portions as well as in ice cube trays. This allows for easy use of this liquid gold. The reasons to make your own stock are varied. I use it for nearly everything. Every time I make rice or quinoa or beans, I use stock in lieu of water. An amazingly delish boon. I have to get creative with the uses for it, so nothing goes to waste. Sometimes I make soup with it and freeze nothing!

The way I collect all the castaway goodies is typically in two 1-gal ziploc freezer bags. In one bag I keep organic veggie scraps, and in another I keep the cooked bones from the local, pastured meat we get. I make sure not to cross contaminate them, and I reuse the bags over and over and over and over and over again. The bags have a home in my freezer and I never cook without pulling my veg bag out. Once a bag is full, I dump it into an empty stock pot, cover with water, and salt and pepper to taste, and let simmer until the house smells amazing. I don't cook with a timer. In fact, there's no clock in our kitchen. I cook by smell. When it smells ready, it is.

Now comes the fun part. In my sink, I place my next largest pot with a sturdy strainer/colander and slowly pour the veggie and (or not) bones broth mixture, and separate out just the broth. If I'm making veggie stock, I dump all the leftover veg in the compost pile. Our compost doesn't get hot enough for the bones, although many do.

Next I freeze it in small, easy, serving sizes. Now any time a recipe calls for, or will benefit from, stock I have have a plethora of a homemade, more flavorful, FREE, waste cutting way to deliver.

Enjoy! Please experiment and see what works best for you. I hope you get as much pleasure making, using, and eating your homemade stock as I do.

Tips for making stock:

Good things to throw in stock: Peels of onion, garlic, pepper, celery, chard, collards, kale, root veggies tops and peels.

Don't use: Potatoes, fruit, lettuce.

Can use bones and veg or just veg. The more you add, the more flavors will meld together for a symphony of deliciousness. If your stock isn't flavorful enough for you, then boil it down to condense the flavor.