Homemade Vegetable Stock

I am afraid I have become one of those people. You know, the people who always put the words (preferably homemade) after "stock" or "broth" in a recipe. Those people.

I always read that parenthetical suggestion and rolled my eyes, imagining a Martha Stewart-esque persona with little containers of stock perfectly labeled and stacked neatly in a freezer. I kind of hated that mental person. I mean really, with the amount of chicken broth and stocks we go through I would practically need a dedicated freezer. Not to speak of the time it would take to make all that stock! It is true that whenever we roast a chicken I dutifully make a stock and then soup with the remains. The results of that labor, however, disappear in a matter of days around our house. Soup and stocks never last long enough to freeze.

But then I fell into a trap. It was a very crafty trap if I do say so myself. When reading the recipe for this chipotle corn chowder in the Canyon Ranch cookbook I noticed that it called for vegetable stock and then gave a page number with a suggested recipe. Flipping the pages I discovered a simple vegetable stock which used ingredients that were already in my fridge and only required an hour to simmer on the stove. With an hour to spare, I quickly chopped up the vegetables, threw them into a pot, and let them simmer. 60 minutes later I strained out the veggies and tasted the clear lightly colored broth left behind (with a pinch of salt). Delicious. Really delicious. As in I had to keep myself from just ladling up a cup of it on the spot and drinking it straight. The light delicate flavors of the leek and carrots blended beautifully with seasonings of marjoram and thyme. It was a vegetable stock epiphany.

When the stock was used as a base for the chipotle corn chowder, the resulting soup had a light vegetable undertone that couldn't be beat. Best of all, using an unsalted stock meant I could season the final soup with just enough salt to taste, avoiding the overload of salt that normally keeps my soup-loving ways to a dull roar. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I have now made this stock every week for the past month. I find myself picking up a leek and carrots at the grocery store just so I can come home and make another batch. My freezer does hold a few containers of the leftovers, but by and large we have enjoyed eating a lot of soup. Since it is only January, I have a feeling that this is going to continue for several months to come. If you also roll your eyes at the thought of making your own stock, let the siren song of this recipe seduce you into trying it just once. You never know, it may just turn you into one of those people...

Homemade Vegetable Stock (Printable Recipe)
Adapted from Canyon Ranch Cooking
Makes 9 cups of stock

Ingredients:

1 leek, well rinsed, trimmed, and chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
3 carrots, scrubbed and chopped
5 stalks celery, without leaves (they impart a bitter flavor), chopped
1 cup chopped parsley stems
2 bay leaves, broken into halves
1 teaspoon dried marjoram, crushed
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
12 cups cold water

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a large soup pot over high heat and bring the liquid to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat and let the stock gently simmer, uncovered, for about an hour.

After an hour, pour the stock through a large colander lined with cheesecloth into a large bowl. Gently press down on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract any remaining flavor and liquid. Discard the solids. Use the stock immediately to make soup, or once it is cool, place it in sealed containers. The stock can be kept in the fridge for 1 week, or frozen indefinitely.