mulberryshoots

We have a relative who has been in the hospital for almost 3 months and just beginning to eat again. G. and I thought that some homemade vegetable broth might be palatable and at the same time help to boost her immune system. There’s no oil whatsoever in the broth – no cooking oil, no chicken broth, no beef broth. No animal oils. I used a large stockpot and put in these ingredients:

1 gallon of spring water

Cleaned and chopped:

6 large carrots

1 head of celery hearts

2 onions

cousa squash, patty pan squash and zucchini (small)

1 small white potato, 1 medium Japanese sweet potato

1 bag of baby kale

I put on the lid, brought it to a boil and then simmered it for a couple of hours WITHOUT the  lid. Cooking the broth without the lid on it is what a) reduces the stock so that is enriched and tastes really good; and b) makes the room you’re cooking in hot and humid even if you have the exhaust fan on. In my very large stockpot, I managed to reduce the liquid by about an inch from where it was before.

When cool, I removed the vegetables from the pot. Then, I poured the stock through a fine mesh sieve. I returned the vegetables bit by bit to squeeze out all the stock and discarded the remains.  I then poured the clear broth into 1 quart plastic containers, filling them a little over half way. This batch yielded about 8 cups of vegetable broth.

Vegetable broth has also been a large part of a macrobiotic diet and is sweet tasting from the vegetables alone:  a heartwarming soup to sip slowly either warm or at room temperature. It can also be used as a base for other homemade soups.

Now that I’ve made the vegetable broth at this large a scale, I’m excited about making beef bone broth and chicken stock but not until the Fall when there’s a chill in the air.