One litre of Campbell's vegetable stock costs $4.25 AUD. If you were making a soup at home say for a family of four and used one litre, that is the price of the soup before you have added anything else.
Making vegetable stock at home is not hard. It is especially easy if you have a vegetable garden. Whilst I throw many vegetable scraps into the compost container, I keep the good scraps in a container in the fridge until I am ready to make stock. The use of seasonal weeds adds flavour for no extra cost.
Chop and onion up finely, heat some oil in decent sized saucepan and cook until at least slightly browned. Do not use olive oil for this as it's smoke point is 180 degrees Celsius. If the oil temperature goes over this the oil breaks down and some of the by products are known carcinogens. Rice bran oil for one has a smoke point of 230 degrees Celsius.
Throw in your vegetable scraps e.g pea pods, celery ends, carrot tops, carrot ends, potato or other peels. Chuck in your other greens.
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| A collection of greens. In this case there is sow thistle, plantain leaves, celery leaves, kale flowers, chickweed, rosemary stem, grapefruit leaf ( any citrus is fine).
Cover with water and bring to the boil. Turn heat down to a low simmer and let is bubble away for about 20 minutes. Do not go on too long as it can get bitter especially if you use a lot of weeds. One counter to this is to add a teaspoon of sugar.
The secret now is to add a handful of dried mushrooms. Here in Australia these are found in the Asian food section of the supermarket, are Shitake mushrooms and cost about $1 for the bag. I would get at least five stocks from one bag.
Give a good stir and let simmer for a further 10 minutes then drain either with careful lid technique with the saucepan leaving the solids behind or throw a sieve.
The resultant amber fluid looks beautiful. Okay, I am sad! I have not seasoned the stock as I will season whatever I am cooking it with later. That way to if you freeze some stock, you know you are getting the basic stock each time.
A thing of beauty!
For the chicken stock, the difference is the addition of chicken bones and bits.It depends on where you get these but you could use a chicken carcass, chicken frame, chicken leg bones, even chicken necks. I routinely use chicken leg bones as we make our own dog food using the meat taken from chicken legs. Chicken legs here in Australia vary between $2.99 and $3.99 per kilo when on special. They are almost always on special but even when they are, we buy extra and freeze them so we are always using cheap chicken legs.
We boil up the chicken and obviously use the resultant liquid for stock. Once the chicken meat has been removed when the legs are cold enough to handle put the bones and odd bits into a roasting tray and roast in the oven for around 20 to 30 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius. i.e a hot oven. You want these bones browned but definitely not burnt. Then add a good layer of water into the pan, roast for another five minutes then carefully pour everything including the bones into a decent sized saucepan.
Cover with water, throw in all the vegetables as you would in the making of vegetable stock and boil slowly for about 30 minutes. Using aforementioned lid technique or a sieve, pour the resultant liquid into a container. Let cool then place in the fridge overnight. In the morning you can scrape the lid of fat from the surface leaving you with a beautiful basic chicken stock with low fat.
It is amazing how useful good stocks are in adding flavour to soups, stews, casseroles, stir fries, even as a replacement for water when cooking vegetables. And you know where it came from, what is in it and it did not cost you much other than time and love.
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