Get Your Money’s Worth

Every time I buy broth at the grocery store, I complain about the price. Seriously, $3 for 1 L of broth?

Seriously?

What if I need 2L? $6 on broth?

(Sometimes, I go through a lot of broth)

I continue in this line of complaint the entire grocery shopping trip. It usually settles down if I find a good deal on something else. But this week, the price of beans was up too. ($1.18 a can now – up from $0.88!)

Something had to be done, or I’m going to go broke. While I still haven’t mastered soaking dried beans (I’ll save that for next week) broth, I can make.

For about a week, I froze any remaining vegetable scraps I had from dinner: sweet potato peels, carrot tops and bell pepper heads. I was also quite liberal in my definition of a celery scrap, because I don’t like it.

I also had a bunch of spinach that was just about to go bad. I combined all of the vegetables in a large stock pot, and covered with water. I added in a few bay leaves. It just seems like the thing to do when making soup.

I let it simmer for a while (about 1 hour after it started to boil). And then I started to get a little nervous. From all the spinach, the broth was turning green!

I might be ok with green smoothies, green salads and green juice, but I draw the line at green soup. Unless it’s some sort of broccoli/cheese deliciousness.

But green broth? Not for me.

I turned to my friend, turmeric.

I don’t find turmeric has a strong flavour, but it does have a lovely yellow colour. I added about 2 tsp (remember, giant pot of soup!), and it managed to turn my green soup into a respectable dead grass normal broth colour.

We’re almost at the end here folks. Strain the vegetables, and let the broth cool.

Once the broth was cooled, I filled large ziploc bags with about 6 C of broth each. Lay the bags flat in the freezer, to freeze. Once frozen, you can stack them any which way you like.

Yes – making broth is that easy. Boil vegetables, adjust spices if you get an oddly coloured broth, strain and let cool. Freeze.

Enjoy the cost (and salt) savings. The bags cost me less than 1 litre of store-bought broth would, and since all the vegetables were leftovers, they cost nothing. Even if you went out and bought vegetables to make broth with, I think you could do an entire batch for less than $10.

No more complaining about the cost of vegetable broth for me!

*********

Basic Vegetable Broth

by EatCleanLiveGreen.com

Ingredients

• Assorted vegetables, chopped (suggested: sweet potato, onion, carrot, celery)
• Bay leaves
• Water

Directions

1. Combine all of the vegetables, and 2-3 bay leaves in a large stock pot, and covered with water.
2. Bring to boil, and let simmer for about 1 hour.
3. Depending on the vegetables you use, you may need to add some turmeric, or another mild spice to adjust the colour.
4. Strain the vegetables, and let the broth cool.
5. Once the broth is cooled, fill large ziploc bags with about 6 C of broth each. Lay the bags flat in the freezer, to freeze.

*********

Why would you need so much broth?

• Make more soup
• Cook whole grains (rice in plain water will seem just boring to you after cooking it in broth!)
• Make sauces

The options are endless, really!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe for updates!

Tagged as: organic, soup, vegetables, vegetarian