Cooking - Vegetable Stock

Having prepared and ate homemade vegetable stock for over a year now, I wanted to share one of my my favorites from a restaurant here in Philadelphia called "Vedge".  The key to making good stock is to using certain vegetables, and the better vegetable -- the better the taste.  Stock is used a lot in recipes, many times calling specifically for meat or poultry stock, but I just substitute vegetable stock instead and it tastes just as good to me. Making you own stock is also extremely cost effective too as an box of this stuff at the store is almost $4 each!

Note: If you don't have canning jars and/or zip-lock bags you will need to get some for storing purposes.

Ingredients:

6 quarts of water
1 lbs of Carrots with trimmed ends and a rough chop
5 stalks of celery, with leaves and a rough chop
1 large bunch of leaks, wash thoroughly (they always have sand/dirt inside them) after rough chop
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsb salt (or salt substitute)
2 tsb pepper
1 buch of asparagus bottoms (bottom third)
5 bay leaves
1 tsb canola oil

Directions:

1. In a large stock pot, heat the oil until it almost smoking, and add all the veggies minus the asparagus.

2. Let cook for 3 to 5 mins. but do not let the vegetables scorch

3. Add the water and set simmer for 25 minutes

4. add asparagus and simmer for 5 more minutes

5. Strain and mash veggies to get all the stock out into another pot; toss the vegetables away

6. Taste the stock, if it is not to your liking, continue to simmer and let the stock reduce to concentrate the flavors (and or add some more salt).

7. Freeze what you won't be using in 3 days.

Recipe courtesy Horizons; New Vegan Cuisine