Veggie Broth

In my omnivore days, it was very important to me that I always have homemade chicken broth in my freezer.  I would spend a great deal of time making the chicken broth, and I jokingly called it my "liquid gold". 

When I started a plant based diet, I was really disappointed in the flavor of store bought vegetable broth.  For some recipes, it was okay, but if the recipe had a delicate flavor which highlighted the broth, I felt like the store bought broth was very lacking in flavor. 

My son made a visit to our home, and at that time he was cooking at a very fancy shmancy restaurant in Montana.  He told me that the restaurant saved their veggie scraps in the freezer and then made huge vats of veggie broth with the scraps.  He encouraged me to start saving my veggie scraps.

I thought it would take me a long time to save enough veggie scraps to make a pot of broth.  I was so wrong.  I generate about two gallons of veggie scraps per week.

This weekend I made my first batch of broth.  I used 2 1/2 gallons of veggie scraps from the freezer.  I was afraid there may be too many carrot scraps, which might make the broth sweeter than I wanted.  For that reason, I added two fresh onions and three fresh ribs of celery.   After tasting the broth, I think I could have added only one fresh onion and a couple of ribs of celery, and that would have balanced out the sweetness.  I am very pleased with the outcome. 


Here is a list of the veggies which were in my freezer scraps-  carrots, lettuce, celery, red bell pepper, yellow onion, green onion, garlic, asparagus, tomato (small amount), green beans, white potatoes, parsley. 

I had been warned not to use cabbage, as it can overtake the flavor of the broth.  I also would never use much tomato, as I don't want it to turn into a tomato sauce.  I just put five cherry tomatoes in my broth. 

I think I came out with about 5-6 quarts of broth.  I packaged it in containers ranging from 2 quarts to 1/2 cup, to accommodate the variety of uses for the broth.   After the broth has been made, the cooked veggie scraps can be added to the compost.  I think they will break down quickly.  I love the fact that "trash" can be used to take the place of expensive broth and then used for compost, which is also expensive to purchase.  The best part of this experiment for me was the fact that veggie broth takes about one fourth of the time that chicken broth did. 

I still have three gallons of scraps in the freezer, plus what I will have leftover from cooking this week.  I guess I will be making more broth next weekend. 

What's Cookin'

This is the first of a series of posts that will briefly describe what we came up with for dinner.  I will not do it every day, but hopefully often. 

This first post was not a terribly inspired dinner, but we enjoyed it.  I wanted to use up some fresh green beans which were particularly nice for store bought, middle of the winter beans.  They were nice enough that we were able to simply steam them, my favorite way to fix really fresh green beans.  Usually I only do this with green beans from my own garden, but these worked out just fine. 

We also had sautéed cabbage and mashed potatoes, kind of a deconstructed colcannon.  The last item on our plate was marinated tofu.  I used two blocks of tofu, as I wanted extra to keep in the fridge for a couple of days to munch on. 

Oven Smashed Potatoes

I had a request to give this recipe.  I have made it for several years, but I have edited the original recipe.  In the original recipe, the potatoes were fried in a skillet.  This required that the potatoes be turned over during the cooking time, which sometimes resulted in the potatoes falling apart.  Also, I find the new recipe uses much less oil. 

The original recipe also used parmigiano reggiano, the king of cheeses in my book.  I didn't think I would miss much in the cheese world, except for parmigiano reggiano.  I am a frugal person, and yet I would buy this cheese for $24-$26 a pound.  This was the real deal stuff, and it was so delicious.  I used it in a lot of my cooking.  It is true that the shredded cheese went a long way, since the taste was so aggressive that it did not take much.  But that was still a lot of money for cheese.  At first I missed it quite a lot, but for the most part, I have been able to move on quite well. 

For this recipe, I subbed nutritional yeast for the parmesan cheese. I am able to find it at Whole Foods.  It is also available on Amazon for a little over $9 for a 4.5 ounce jar of the Bragg brand, which has been touted as the best flavored nutritional yeast.   I had to warm up to it a bit, but now I really like it a lot.  I think it works great in this recipe.

When I think the potatoes have cooked long enough by impaling one with a small knife which easily goes through the entire potato, I put one on the cookie sheet and smash it to make sure it is easy to smash.  If it is not, probably need to let the other potatoes cook another couple of minutes and then try another one to make sure it is done enough to easily smash. 

OVEN BAKED SMASHED POTATOES

12 small red potatoes (approximately 1 ½ inch diameter)

1 Tbsp. salt for boiling water
1/4 cup olive oil, maybe much less
salt and pepper to taste
nutritional yeast, approximately ¼ cup
 

Preheat oven to 425.

 

Wash potatoes.  Generously cover potatoes with cold water in a 3-4 quart pot.  Add 1 Tbsp. salt.  Boil until tender, about 20 minutes.  Drain potatoes onto a kitchen or paper towel. 

Spray oil onto a baking sheet.  Transfer the potatoes to the baking sheet and lightly crush each individual potato to about 3/4 inch thick with a spatula, keeping each potato together as much as possible.

 Sprinkle a small amount of olive oil over each potato, (or spray with oil for fewer calories).  Salt and pepper each potato to taste.  Sprinkle a small amount of nutritional yeast onto each potato. 

 Place potatoes into oven.  Cook for approximately 25-35 minutes, or until browned on the bottom.  No need to turn the potatoes over during the cooking time. 

 

 

Tempted by Tempeh

Almost all of our meals start with a whole food product.  I don't use many manufactured foods at all.

One thing I have bought a few times now is tempeh.  It is a fermented soy product, originally from Indonesia.  It comes in one solid cake type form.  When it comes out of the package, it is definitely not a thing of beauty. 



It has a good refrigerator shelf life.  I think it had a "best buy" date about one month out when I bought it the last time, which makes it a good product to keep in the fridge for those crazy busy nights.



There are many recipes for using it, but every time I have made it the same way.  My husband used to be a barbecue meat lover, and he misses the taste of barbecue sauce.  I cut the tempeh into thin slices, brown it in a skillet on both sides, then pour barbecue sauce over it.  I serve it on a bun or a nice crusty bread, with some lettuce added to the sandwich.  I serve pickles on the side.  If I am being a real over-achiever, I make oven fries out of white or sweet potatoes or "smashed" red potatoes.  That makes the meal quite wonderful. 

My husband usually compliments me numerous times while we are eating this meal.  If I don't make the potatoes, the meal takes me 10 minutes to make.  We will be keeping this in our meal rotations for sure.

Husband note:  Sweet Lord this stuff is good!
Seriously, it looks nasty at first, but once cooked the taste is fantastic!

Another Meal With Help From Leftovers

This weekend I was feeling less than spectacular, so I decided to use up some of my freezer contents.
  Usually I cook on the weekends in order to fill my freezer, but the freezer is actually looking a bit crowded right now, for which I am very thankful. 

Some time ago I gave the recipe for Roasted Butternut Squash Soup.  A couple of weeks ago I made a triple batch of the recipe.  I had two really huge butternut squashes which had been sitting on my countertop for about a month, so they needed to be used.   I love a vegetable that can sit contentedly for a few weeks, waiting to be used. 

We had eaten the soup once for dinner and several times for to-go lunches.  I had seen recipes for pasta with sauces made from different types of squashes, and in particular made with butternut squash sauce.  That sounded really good to me.

Some of the recipes were very similar to the soup recipe I had made.  I simply heated up the soup, then added a little almond milk to thin it to the consistency I wanted.  I served this over pappardelle, an egg noodle which I had bought previous to becoming a plant based eater.  I think this is the last non-plant based food in my kitchen, and I made the decision to use it.  However, this sauce will be perfectly fine over a pasta that does not contain eggs, which is what I will do next time.  Since I was wanting an extremely quick meal, I just paired it with some garlic bread and frozen veggies, (cooked of course).    This made for a meal that was done in way less than 30 minutes. 

The next day, we had two plates of the pasta meal leftover in the fridge.  To make it a little different, I sautéed some fresh green beans.  With the addition of the fresh green beans, we didn't feel like we were eating exactly the same meal as the day before. 

The bottom line is that the next time I make the Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, I will put aside some in the freezer to use as a pasta sauce.  We both thought it was quite lovely.

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

One of my favorite things to order in  a restaurant are sweet potato fries.  I finally found a way to make sweet potato fries baked in the oven.  For years I have made oven French fries with white potatoes. 

When I started trying to make sweet potato oven fries, I could not get a crispy texture.  I love sweet potatoes made most any way, but my husband won't eat them unless they have a crispy texture.  He has tried many times to eat a baked sweet potato or a sweet potato casserole, but he cannot get past the texture. 

I finally tried the recipe below, and the potatoes come out with a crispy texture.  When they first come out of the oven, they don't seem that crispy, but after a couple of minutes, the crispness starts to develop.  They are not as crispy as deep fried sweet potatoes, but I like them very much, and the hubby approved. 

CRISPY OVEN BAKED SWEET POTATO FRIES

2-4 Tbsp. cornstarch

2-4 sweet potatoes
small amount of canola oil
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

 Preheat oven to 425.

 Peel the sweet potatoes, then cut into very thin strips.  Place the sweet potatoes into a bowl and cover with cold water.  Let them sit in the water for an hour or up to overnight.

Cover a half sheet pan or pans with foil, then spray with oil.

 Drain water from the potatoes, then place in a kitchen towel to dry thoroughly, although a very small amount of moisture can remain.  Place potatoes into a large plastic bag and add the cornstarch.  Roll potatoes around in bag to distribute the cornstarch evenly. 

Place potatoes on the prepared foil and put a small amount of canola oil on them and move them around to distribute the oil.  Do not put salt on them at this point. 

 Place potatoes in the oven and cook 15 minutes.  Turn potatoes over with a spatula and cook another 15 minutes, turn over again, and continue to bake until to desired degree of browning.  When they are to desired amount of browning, turn oven off and prop oven door open and let them sit in the oven for another 10 minutes. 

Remove from oven and apply salt and pepper to taste.

  

Groceries Post #2

My husband very, very seldom helped me with the purchase of groceries in the past.  On the few
times he did accompany me to the grocery store, it was very hard for me to concentrate and get the job done.  He did not really know how to help me, and his frequent requests to "give  him something to find" really rattled my brain. 




Since being plant based, he has become much more interested in both cooking and gathering the groceries.  I never thought I would see the day.  He often goes with me now, and he has enough knowledge to really be helpful.  He knows how to pick out a lot of the produce, (which makes
up most of our groceries).  He knows to buy the lemons which are heavier in weight, (because they contain more juice), rather than just picking out the largest lemons. 



He knows to pick out some ripe bananas and some green ones, so that we aren't overrun with bananas the beginning of the week and then run out of bananas for the rest of the week. 

He is even starting to read some labels on the few canned and packaged goods we buy.  He knows to
check the date on everything.  He knows that if the almond milk use by date is far enough out, we can pick up many cartons. 

He also knows that we save a lot of money by buying a large number of items if a product is on sale for a great price.  He didn't even blink today when I bought 14 red bell peppers.  He knows I will sauté them and put them in the freezer for future pizzas, burritos, etc. 

Best of all, he hands me the key to the vehicle and tells me to get in out of the weather while he puts the groceries in the vehicle.  Then when we get home, he fusses at me if I carry even one light bag into the house myself. 
         

Yes, I think I will keep this guy.












Husband's note:  Ahhh Thanks honey.  I have found that the sooner we put up groceries, the sooner we eat.  So I do have a vested interest here.  Plus, I see all the hard work you put into shopping for us!