Tuesday, September 7, 2010

So-Long, Summer.

I just heard the first ice cream truck to pass through my neighborhood all summer, which is ironic because it is Sept. 7, Labor Day has passed, the kids are back in school, and today was overcast.

Yes friends, summer is waning away, making room for the next of seasons.

As an aside, this makes me very happy for a few reasons:
1. The more time passes, the sooner I will be getting married.
2. Cooler weather makes cooking much more fun
3. I got to wash my car today with the knowledge that it will stay clean as the tree I park my car under is done producing the mystery fruit that the parrots (yes, parrots) love to eat. The evidence of which ends up all over my car and thus I have resigned myself to letting my car look like *cuss it* all summer. But now it is clean...muwahaha.

But really, this blog entry is about how I made vegetable broth and put it in mason jars to be frozen.

Today, I made vegetable broth and put it in mason jars to be frozen. It was a wonderful thing to do since I get so tired of buying salt-water-with-a-hint-of-vegetable-essence whenever I need broth for cooking. And I get tired of throwing out veggies that are too old to do much with but not quite bad enough to throw out. Enter broth-making.

It was really quite easy...you don't even need to cut the veggies up, just pop them in the pot. Unless they are to big. Then you can cut them.

how pretty. 

Here's what I used: 
Leftover green beans, some squash, 3 carrots that had lost their crunch, 4 stalks celery, 1 red onion, 3 garlic cloves, some kale, a bay leaf, some fresh rosemary, and a sprinkling of whole peppercorns. The sources I used said you can even use vegetable peelings. One woman said she keeps a bag in her freezer for makeable-into-broth-items. I bet you can guess what she does when it gets full.

Then I filled the pot with water. Enough to just cover the veg. Then I let it simmer for about an hour and a half. Then I let it cool. Then I strained it over a big bowl and ladled it into jars, leaving room for expansion.

so much delish potential

I let the jars cool a little longer and popped them into the freezer. It made 2 1/2 jar's worth, which is about 7 1/2 cups. A lot cheaper than the store bought stuff, and it tasted pretty good!

Happy September, folks. 

Meg

P. S. 

As a tribute to summer, I will include this photo of what I'll call the Summer Fruit Cobbler I made many times this year. The recipe is in Simply In Season (under Fruit Platz), or you could just make some shortcake, cover it with assorted fruit, and sprinkle that with some brown sugar and cinnamon, and bake. That's the rough version. 

until next year, old friend.



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