Vegetable stock, surprise ingredients and freezing tips, nutrition.

Why pour away the water your veggies where boiled steamed in, or their skins or peelings, when you can make a vitamin enriched vegetable stock out of them.

The only essentials - in my opinion:
1. Onion
2. A bunch of herbs

Other Items that are great in veggie stocks:

Carrots and/or carrot peelings
Celery, include the leaves!
Mushrooms - If you have mushrooms that have got past their best, put them in the freezer and bring them out next time you need a stock.
Peppercorns
Scrub potatoes before pealing them then add a little of the peelings to the stock
Any greens
Left over vegetables from dinner
Broccoli stems
Asparagus ends
Tomatoes, and their skins
Stock of any vegetables you boil or steam, excellent source of vitamin C and flavor!
The onion skin
Garlic

Before throughing away anything, think about its flavor and nutritional value.

Many nutrients in many vegetables are in the skin or just underneath it, so its a real waste to just discard them.

Methods:

Chop up everything so it’s quite small, this way you will get all of the flavor and goodness out without having to boil the stock for hours, which will murder both the flavor and the nutritional value.

Crock pot:
Chuck everything into a crock pot and cover with water and maybe some wine if there is some available.
Close lid, put on low for 5-6 hours, just enough to simmer it for a little whiel.

Stove top
Alternatively, get a large pan, add a little oil and the veggies and close the lid. Let the veggies 'sweat' for a while, cover with water and wine, bring to just a simmer and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Turn off heat, leave lid on, and let it cool.

Get the stock by running it through a sieve. Give the vegetables a quick press to get the remaining water and flavor out of them.

Freeze in freezer bags. If the stock is distinctive, label it up, e.g. mushroom based stock; and this will help you chose which one you want to use when cooking in future. It lasts ages in the freezer.

Alternatively, freeze in ice cube trays and once frozen add them to a freezer bag - allows you to take just a few pieces as needed, great if you just need a little for a gravy.