More About Broth

In addition to making homemade chicken or other meat broth, I like to make my own veggie broth out of veggie scraps. What I do is keep a large plastic container with a lid in the fridge, and whenever I'm prepping vegetables for cooking, I put the scraps & trimmings that aren't exactly compost but aren't really the good parts into the broth-to-be container, which then goes back into the fridge. Things like mushroom stems, the bottom ends of asparagus stalks, celery leaves, and the top & bottom of the onion you're going to chop are perfect. You can even use the peels from potatoes, yams, or carrots, as long as you wash them well before you start peeling. You don't want to keep anything rotten or dirty or otherwise bad (compost those parts), just those trimmings that have good flavor and nutrients but for one reason or another aren't what you need for your current cooking project.

Once the container in the fridge is full of vegetable odds & ends (it usually takes me about a week to fill it up), you are ready to make broth. Just empty the veggie scrap container into a pot and add enough water to cover it, and cook on low for a couple of hours, until the veggies are limp and pale. Then strain out the remains of the veggies (toss them in the compost) and season the broth. Depending on the mixture of veggies you've collected in your veggie scrap container, your broth will have different flavors that you'll need to take into account when seasoning, but I find that a couple good squirts of soy sauce or braggs is a good place to start. Once the broth has cooled you can use it right away, or freeze or refrigerate it for later.

Once you get in the habit of saving your good veggie trimmings for broth making it really is fun to do. Plus, whenever I use the broth I've made I feel really good about having made it myself. It not only saves money and packaging waste vs buying store bought broth, it also prevents good food from going to waste!

Tips from Addie

Chicken Broth

I love to have homemade chicken broth on hand--it's great for soups and sauces and even rice and grains. If you don't do chicken you can do vegetable broth too {though I don't have a recipe for that}.

This is what I do: Enjoy a roasted chicken, add some rice and broccoli and you've got a superb meal. Put the carcass in the crock pot and cover with water, cook on low for 10 hours. Remove the carcass and if there is a lot of meat still on it pick it off and use in soup or enchiladas or feed it to the dog. Then you can either freeze or refrigerate the broth depending on how soon you are going to use it...sure beats buying broth!

Welcome to Community Cooking

Welcome!

We started this blog to facilitate the exchange of new ideas for eating. We both believe that the problem doesn't necessarily lie in what we eat, but how we eat. Go ahead and have that cheeseburger, just be sure to add some lettuce and enjoy every bite. It seems that we as a culture are too busy to slow down and enjoy the things we are eating when we should be savoring every bite. We all have our own relationship with food. At times it can be daunting and negative trying to navigate the "American" diet.

In response, we created this blog so that we can have forum to connect with one another, talk about out own personal relationships with food, and exchange ideas about how food is grown, obtained, prepared, and consumed. Feel free to share not only recipes but traditions, tips for shopping, eating out, gardening, eating with a crowd, feeding our families, and of course, recipes for beverages (alcoholic and non).

Please send submissions to community.cooking@gmail.com. Don't forget to send as much information about yourself (including pictures of yourself and/or the subject of your submission) as you would like to see posted.

We're excited to start cooking together!

With love for food,
Iris and Aimee