vegetable broth
Every girl has her heroes. Some admire supermodels and movies stars. Others? They look up to local celebrities, such as firefighters, or the convenience store clerk who will sell them cigarettes for cheaper than anybody else in town. These role models don't always wear capes; the only thing they all have in common is that they inspire us in our daily lives to be the best we can be. It's a beautiful thing, both to have a hero and to be one.
My own personal wonder woman? Online, she goes by the moniker Mind Over Munch, but when she's not wearing the mask, I think people just call her Alyssia. She's a tour de force of geeky girlpower and she's always there for me on my YouTube newsfeed whenever I've had a rough day and need to unwind with some three-ingredient cookie recipes, or perhaps some DIY frozen fruit pops. It doesn't matter what mood I'm in. She serves up what my heart needs, I can't explain it.
Why do I mention her now? She released this video about reducing food waste through clever kitchen hacks semi-recently, and ever since watching it, I have been obsessed with the idea of brewing my own homemade vegetable broth from garbage. Now, I'm making that dream a reality. We're topping off #BudgetWeek with the best of the best.
about a pound of frozen vegetable scraps
three tablespoons of olive oil
salt
pepper
This recipe does require quite a bit of legwork in terms of acquiring the ball of scraps, but if you're a real adult with an actual job, you can probably circumvent that part of the task and just buy some new vegetables to make broth out of. It might even taste better that way, you never know. Live your life. Find the answers you seek. You know I'm not gonna judge you.
Do you see this? This is the top of every onion I've used in the last six weeks, collected painstakingly for this blog post specifically. There are garlic stumps in here, zucchini ends, carrot tops, mushroom bottoms, potato peels, celery roots. If you can name it, there's a good chance it is contained somewhere within my frozen ball of compost. I tried to include as much as possible. I didn't want this endeavor to disappoint.
This was the first time I had a chance to take a proper gander at it since starting the project in the abject darkness of my freezer in September; I've literally just been tossing everything into the bag without looking. As it grew, I started to become a bit afraid of it.
After you've had an opportunity to feel fully disgusted by the scrap-ball, gather everything into a large pot. Toss in some salt, some pepper, and the olive oil. Add water until everything is completely submerged and get it over a medium flame to simmer.
This is when the party really got going; you cannot possibly imagine what this smelled like. It was like getting a whiff of everything I had cooked that month, all at once. I felt like a witch at her cauldron.
When the water has come to a rolling boil, turn down the heat and cover it with a lid. Check on it frequently. Stir occasionally.
Once you have boiled everything to death, separate the liquid from the solids with a fine mesh seive. When is the appropriate time to do this, you ask? No clue, I just guessed. The water had taken on a healthy amount of brothy color. That was all the encouragement I needed.
One thing I will make a deliberate note of: I was not generous enough in terms of salinity, but I suppose your salt levels can always be adjusted when you set out to use the stock in an actual recipe. Who knows, maybe that extra degree of flexibility is desirable to people who actually know how to cook. Definitely taste it after straining it to make sure everything is suited to your own individual palate.
I admittedly got a bit too into the whole "zero waste" mentality during this journey. As the strained broth cooled, I started to notice how many large, very edible-looking chunks of veg there were left in the pot. I picked them out with my dirty little fingers, sprinkled on a healthy amount of granulated garlic, and baked them off in the oven for about twenty minutes. They tasted just okay, nothing to write home about.
And what of the little scraps that were too small to bake? Not to be outdone in terms of austerity at the very least, I decided to do something kind of gross with those, as well.
I dumped them all into my blender-cup, stems, seeds and all, folded over the parchment paper sheet from the roasted veggies like a champ, spread out the mush, and made a very strange, plant-based tortilla. It actually turned out much better than the whole vegetables; I wrapped up some cucumber, bell pepper, and salsa in it almost immediately after taking it out of the oven. This thing stepped up to the plate and became my unironically delicious lunch for the afternoon.
Bonus snacks aside, I highly recommend giving this a try in your kitchen. These are scraps that were supposed to go into the trash, and here they are, finding a new purpose in life and really turning things around for themselves. The sheer volume of broth this recipe yielded for me was truly astounding and completely unexpected.
So thank you, Alyssia, for opening my eyes to the possibilities that surround me. I am honestly so excited to make some soup with this stuff. I have no idea what kind of soup I will make, all I know for sure at this time is that it is now possible to do so. And that's certainly more than enough for me.
