Every-week Frugal Vegetable Stock

I have a not-so-glamorous secret. I save my vegetable scraps. Carrot peels. Onion skins. Apple cores. Soft tomatoes. Even peach and plum pits.

I keep a big scary looking ziploc bag in my freezer. Every time I have some vegetable (or fruit) scraps, I toss them in.

By the end of the week, the bag is usually bulging with scraps. That means it's time to make stock.

I dump all those nasty scraps in a colander. I turn on the hot water and rinse and rinse and rinse and rinse and rinse.

Then I dump it all in a pot, add some bay leaves, dried mushrooms, kombu seaweed or dry wine if I have some handy, and cook it up for a couple of hours.

When it's cooked through and through, I pull out the colander and drain it, discarding the veggie scraps and saving all that nutritious stock.

And I've got healthy, flavorful stock for whatever soup I want to make!

Do you make stock? What's your secret?


Linking this up to Weekend Bloggy Reading.