Vegan Vegetable Stock

For the life of me, I could have sworn I had already talked about this vegetable stock I made last year.

But, after poring over all my previous posts, I couldn't find any mention of it.

I thought I've even mentioned the stock as having been used in other dishes too... but I guess not!

Oh well...

Last year I made some kick-ass vegan vegetable stock.  I specifically qualify it as vegan only because many vegetable stocks are actually not vegan.  Go figure.  I'm not sure why... I guess it just tastes better if you have some fat in there (whether from dairy, or meat, either way), which is a no-brainer... but it doesn't really need to be in there.

In fact, if you ever order 'vegetable soup' in a restaurant I would bet good money it's not vegan.

Anyway... I made some vegan stock out of a shit-tonne of vegetables.

Again, I could have sworn I took photos... but oh well...  I will try and remember what went in there, just gimme a sec...

OK, I know there was a lot of onion, and leek, there were a few shallots, a tonne of carrots, celery, a fair bit of potato peels, I think a small amount of garlic... uhhh... there was more... I seem to remember saving a lot of vegetable 'scraps' over the preceding weeks, including everything from green bean tips to asparagus ends...

<sigh>

Again, I could have sworn I took photos.

Anyway, even though I had a lot of 'scraps' and leftovers, I did still dedicate some good fresh veggies (namely the leek and onion) to the pot.  I was making a LOT of this stock, and I didn't want it to taste poorly simply because I was being stingy.

I chopped everything up into small(ish) cubes or chunks, and began (as I do with most everything) by sweating the onion (and in this case leeks) in some vegetable oil.  Normally this is quick and easy, but for this endeavour I had to sweat them in batches as there were so many.

Into my super large stock pot everything went and then the whole pot was topped up with water (clean, filtered, water)... 

I like a very, very, very concentrated stock, so I cooked this down for over a day.  It was almost two if I remember correctly.  It makes the house smell... but it's not a bad smell.

Anyway, I sterilized a dozen of my small mason jars, and then carefully canned the stock, and then boiled the sealed cans for another 8-10 minutes in boiling water, to finish them off.

Nothing alive in there anymore.

So... I've been using this stuff for everything from cooking quinoa to making soups, but I guess I've never mentioned it... oops.

I did, however, take a couple photos just now, months later, of the canned stock.  Better late than never I suppose...

I tried to get some light behind it, just to show how opaque and concentrated this stuff is!

Yum!

Soooo much flavour!