Taking Stock

There are a couple of recipes floating around for vegetable stock paste. The Diva has one and so does Frilly Pants, but they are both done for the Thermomix and those instructions are double dutch to anyone who doesn't have one. So I gave it a whirl and was really happy with the results, but had to wait until I ran out so I could make more and actually measure what I did.

The good thing about stock is that you can use all the bits of your vegies that aren't too pretty - the celery that went floppy in the bottom of the fridge, or the upper bits of the leek. A good habit to get into is to freeze your vegetable off cuts. I have a zip lock bag in the freezer that I add to all the time. The light green bits of leek that can be a little on the tough side to cook with get thrown in the freezer ready to be made into stock, so does the odd bit of celery too.

Vegetable Stock Concentrate
Ingredients

• 350g celery 
• 4 shallots
• 350g leek
• 3 cloves garlic
• small handful parsley
• 1/3 cup salt

Method

1. Roughly chop and wash all the vegetables and place in a large saucepan.
2. Sprinkle the salt over it all (it will start to draw the water from the veg quite quickly)
3. Put pan over a low-medium heat and cook, stirring often to begin with. As more liquid comes out of the veg less stirring is required.
4. Turn it down to a simmer and reduce until most of the liquid is gone. It took me about 1hr from turning the pan on to get to this point.
5. Cool and puree. Pack into a freezer container and freeze. (It doesn't freeze solid and can be scooped straight from the freezer)

This made 1 1/2 cups. Use one tablespoon to make one cup of stock. That is almost 19 cups of stock and it doesn't take up the entire freezer. Genius!

Variations
- You can use whatever quantity of veg you have, just make sure you don't over do any particular thing or it will dominate.
Salicylates - Add carrot or onion
Celery tops - I've heard that the celery tops may be higher in salicylates than the stems, I use the tops, but you may chose not to.

Use it to add flavour to risotto, stews or soups, just about anything really.

More Soup.

I'm totally loving this cold weather. There has been frost in the mornings in the reserve next door and this evening I watched fog rise up there too. This weather just makes me want meals like this. Soup that is thick and heavy and warm, that warms your belly and is just good for your soul.

This recipe is almost a straight rip off of a Jamie Oliver recipe from his first book. There were minor modifications to make it failsafe and due to ingredients I had on hand. It is incredibly easy and has few ingredients. Hubby is very soup critical and he gave it a big thumbs up. Unfortunately it seems Miss 3 has decided she doesn't like soup and mostly ate toast. Mr 7 also scoffed the lot.

This made enough for us with a little left over, so would probably happily feed four adults for dinner.

Chickpea and Leek Soup
Ingredients

• 3 medium leeks, split lengthways and sliced finely
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 large potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 400g cans of chickpeas, rinsed (you could soak dry ones for 24hrs. I was not that organised)
• 2 Tbsp failsafe oil
• salt
• 1L home made stock (veg or chicken or water with a bit of whiskey if you don't have stock)

Method

1. Cook the potato until tender (boil or steam)
2. Warm oil in large pot. Add the leeks and garlic and a big pinch of salt. Cook very gently until very tender (about 15mins)
3. Add the chickpeas and potato. Stir in and cook for a minute.
4. Pour in the stock and simmer for about 15mins. Add salt to taste.,
5. Now you can serve as is, or puree the lot, or puree some and mix back together (this is my preference as you get the lumpy bits as well as the thick creaminess)

  
Variations- Salicylates - Add a grind of pepper

It really doesn't need any other variations. It's great as is!