I keep a small glass "compost bowl" with a tight fitting lid in my crisper drawer. You could also use a plastic container with a lid or a zip-lock bag, but onions can tend to escape the confines of a zip-lock bag and the plastic container will eventually smell like onion. In it I'll toss not-so-perfect vegetables (whole or coarsely chopped), ends and skins of onions, stems of parsley, carrot/celery/leek tops and ends, wilted greens, parings, etc. and use this as the base for vegetable stock. I avoid cabbage cores because that is where the "gas" is. Cabbage leaves are fine. Make sure you wash all your produce thoroughly before use.

When I get several cups (every 4-5 days) I'll cook it using 3-5 cups of water (or enough water to cover). I often add some sea vegetables to the mix (kombu, wakame, dulse, Irish moss) for added minerals.

After it simmers for about an hour I'll break-up any large pieces of veggies that have softened. You can season it, if you'd like, or not - your choice. Continue cooking for another hour to concentrate the flavors and deepen the color.

Strain your mixture. Cool the broth quickly by placing the pan in a sink full of cold water, or ice and water. Divide into freezer containers. I also like to freeze some in an ice cube tray for small amounts. Pop them out when frozen and store in a container.

-Grainlady

I keep the bag of scraps in the freezer. Just dump the frozen block in the water and simmer as above.

I use to bring vegetables for a week at one time.I use to preserve it separately packing each variety of vegetable in a plastic cover in vegetable box in a freezer,Leafy vegetables are cleaned,chopped packed in a paper and kept in cover preserved nicely in freezer.Vegetables are fresh for 7 or 10 days if we preserve like this.

This post was edited by kushy28 on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 5:36

I'll saute some onions, garlic, celery and carrots first for a while, then add water and the frozen veggie scraps I have to the mix. You can also roast the veggies first for a darker vegetable stock.

Sally

This is a little OT, but I often add a spoon of white miso to veggie stock. To my tastebuds, the miso adds some depth to the stock which is usually supplied by meat. If you do this, don't boil the stock once the miso has been added. Stir it in off the heat.

Cheryl

I also have a scrap bag of vegetables in the freezer, all the limp celery leaves, outside cabbage leaves, carrot ends, things that are getting past prime but are still good go in there. When I get a bag full, I make vegetable stock or use it in soup, so I always have a bag of veggie "scraps" started.

They stay in the freezer until I need them because I never know what I'm going to make from one minute to the next, LOL, and I dump them into the pot frozen and cook at my convenience.

I do add fresh herbs if I have them, I like bay leaf, maybe garlic depending on what I'm using it for.

Annie

I like the cubes in the link. If I have veggies I add them, if not these are pretty tasty on their own.

Eileen

Here is a link that might be useful: The Organic Gourmet Low Sodium Vegetable Bouillon Cubes

Posted by jadeite "This is a little OT, but I often add a spoon of white miso to veggie stock. To my tastebuds, the miso adds some depth to the stock which is usually supplied by meat. If you do this, don't boil the stock once the miso has been added. Stir it in off the heat. Cheryl"

Why is that OT?

I do the same with miso. I also add powdered dried mushrooms. miso + mushroom make wonderful veggie stock.

dcarch

dcarch - I guess I'm a little wary of crossing the GW moderators, after recent events. The OP asked for a way to keep vegetables for stock. I wasn't sure if miso was part of the topic.

I also use dried mushrooms for stock, and I keep the liquid I use to rehydrate dried mushrooms when I'm using the mushrooms for another dish. The mushroom-liquid makes a stock, whether vegetable or not, more complex.

I started using miso to replace meat to make dishes vegetarian when the meat was more of a flavor. I'm still surprised at how well it works. It makes a great substitute for bacon in salads. It's healthier too.

Cheryl

Thanks for the tips!

Jadeite/ Darch --> Miso and dried mushroom are interesting. I love the mushroom broth by Pacific natural foods that comes in a box. Can you tell me why white miso and no cooking after the miso is added? Does it matter if the froxen stock is added to soup later and cooked?

Would love some tips on dried mushrooms - What kind etc..

GWlolo - white miso is less assertively flavored than red miso. If you like the taste, I'm sure red miso would be fine. You don't boil miso which is a fermented product containing healthy enzymes - see link. Cooking will kill the enzymes, though taste will not be affected. I would defrost the stock and add miso at the very end, right before serving. Miso will last for years in the fridge. I think I go through about a pound a year. BTW black cod in miso is fabulous! You can find the recipe online everywhere, it's originally from Nobu.

I keep dried shiitake mushrooms routinely because I really like them and use them a lot. You can buy them from most Asian grocers. They have to be soaked in water to rehydrate. I keep the water in a container which lives in the freezer, to be reused with the next batch of dried mushrooms, until it has some potency. Then I usually add it to stock, or use it thickened with a little cornstarch in stir-fries.

I've also used dried porcini and morels which are quite a lot more expensive. You can buy ground up dried mushrooms which are good to add for concentrated flavor.

Cheryl

Here is a link that might be useful: miso

I realize this is one of those "I've done it this way for years without a problem" issues, but I would suggest refrigeration over freezing fresh vegetables. Make smaller batches of vegetable stock more frequently if you don't have enough veggies for a large batch, rather than freezing the vegetables.

Why? The enzymes in unblanched fresh vegetables continue to be active during freezer storage and can cause off-colors, off-flavors and toughening, even after as little as one month of freezer storage. Onions and green peppers are the exception and don't require blanching.

-Grainlady

Cheryl - I don't believe miso would be OT for this thread in the least. I don't know why I don't think of it more often for vegetable broth!
In addition, regardless of the recent events - the forum moderators are not interested in a thread where people are having a food or recipe discussion in an adult like manner - talking to others in a courteous manner.

Grainlady - I've never had any luck with saving veggie scraps and freezing them. I only have a small freezer in my fridge - so I have not given it a decent shot in all fairness. But your explanation gives me all the more reason not to keep trying. I did freeze whole sweet cherry peppers I grew in 2009. I would take them out of the freezer and puree them. I added them to soups and pasta sauces. Well worth the effort.

A friend stored her belongings here a couple years ago while she went to Thailand for 8 months. I used her juicer for fresh veggies and added them to a pot with water with the herbs I wanted and made a stock. The selection of veggies depended on what I would be using it for. I am thinking of getting a juicer of my own. I don't drink coffee and rarely tea. I really like drinking a cup of warm vegetable broth in the morning.

If I keep them in the refrigerator they become chicken food or compost far before I accumulate enough to make them into stock, so it's the freezer or nothing here.

We eat a LOT of vegetables, so things very seldom get old, but I have trimmings and it takes longer to accumulate enough for stock, so long that the first trimmings are spoiled before the final bunch is added.

It makes the chickens happy, though, and they give me wonderful fresh eggs, so it's still good.
Annie

Morel mushrooms, both dried and fresh are very expensive.

You can find more than ten kinds of dried mushrooms in an Asian store.

dcarch

Here is a link that might be useful: Monkey head

I've got to try homemade veg stock. Never really used it before. Swanson makes a relatively good chicken stock IMO - their Certified Organic line, and a while back I accidentally bought their simarly packaged organic veg broth. It tasted so bad to me that I didn't know what to do with it and threw it all out.

I've never tried making it either and usually rely on those little cubes or powdered ones. However I'm really trying to reduce my sodium and hidden salts intake along with sugars. I'm thinking you could probably cook the left over veggies in a pressure cooker quite well with little water and then run all that through a blender to liquidize it and then freeze?

You can add starch to thicken the veggie stock, and use agar agar to make vegetable gel.

dcarch

If you have a lot of cabbage (or veggies in that family) in your stock, you may want to use it quickly (keeps for 3-days in the refrigerator) instead of freezing it. The flavor of cabbage gets much stronger when frozen.

I like to use vegetable stock in split green or yellow pea soup instead of water. Or as a base for other soup recipes instead of water.

If you have an extra 45-minutes you can roast the veggies in a 425-degree F oven first. Be sure to deglaze the roasting pan and include that in your stock for a dark, rich color and added flavor.

I have a friend who includes the veggie pulp extracted from her juicer in her vegetable stock. So that's another use for something that normally goes into the compost pile. If you use both vegetables and fruit in your juices, be sure to use only the vegetable pulp for stock, not the fruit pulp.

The flavor of your stock will vary from batch-to-batch depending on the vegetables used. You may want to make a mental note of what's in it so you can make a similar batch. The color of your vegetable stock will vary with the vegetables used, as well, or will be darker if you roast the vegetables.

-Grainlady

I'm learning so much from this thread. I did misunderstand the original question, and thought the poster was asking how to make vegetable stock.

Jadeite, I never would have thought about adding miso to vegetable stock. Thanks for the tip.

Grainlady, is what you're describing the cause for that "freezer taste" things get while in the freezer? (I guess that really is an O.T. question.)

Sally