Cooking

I am on a cooking tear and have the following revelation to report: making vegetable stock is the best thing ever and it is delicious. I think Mark Bittman is kind of snobbish or something, or maybe I am sore about him slagging on the Portland food scene when he visited recently. But in any case, I very generally (not really) followed his simple vegetable stock recipe and I now I have an unexpected zeal for this humble liquid. Here's what I did:

Vegetable Stock

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 onion, roughly cubed
1 celery stalk, chopped
3 peeled cloves garlic
10 or 20 flat-leaf parsley leaves and stems
Kosher Salt and pepper
6 cups of water

1. So I put everything except the parsley onto a baking sheet. I drizzled it all with the olive oil. I put the veggies into the oven on high heat for about 20 minutes until it was getting a little browned and carmelized on the edges of the carrots.

2. I took the veggies out of the oven and dumped them into a stock pot. Added the water, added the parsley, added 6 cups water and some pepper.

3. Brought it to a boil and then simmered for about 45 minutes.

4. I strained off the soggy vegetables and Ta-Da! Amazingly tasty!