Roasted Vegetable Stock

Today begins my 21 day cleanse.  So I am going to be merging my two blogs.  On The House of Boys & a Girl I will discuss the cleanse and link to this one for the recipes.  Want to see how I am emotionally fairing and my meals play by play?  Check it out.



For the first recipe I made a double batch.  So this will make a LOT of stock.  I needed it for the next 21 days, so just doubled.  Feel free to cut this in half.

Nice and dark and pretty.  :)

Roasted Vegetable Stock

Ingredients:

• 12 oz portabella mushrooms, washed
• 6 oz white mushrooms, washed
• 2 small and 1 LARGE Yellow onion, unpeeled (about 2 lbs.  Substitute shallots if you feel like it.)
• 2 lbs carrots, unpeeled
• 4 green peppers
• 10-12 sprigs of thyme (I used 12, my thyme plants are small.  Also I did a combo or German and Lemon thyme)
• 9 Garlic cloves
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil 
• 2 cups of apple juice (I was out of white wine.  Feel free to use that or even just water)
• 2 cups canned crushed tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried thyme (or...use a 4 bay leafs.  I have no idea when I ran out of bay leafs. Sigh...)
• 4 quarts of water (I used filtered water from the fridge.  My tap water tastes odd)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
2. Chop mushrooms, onions, and peppers(seeds removed) into 1" chunks.  Chop carrots into 2" chunks.  No need to peel anything.  Just chop, chop, chop away.
3. Stir together mushrooms, onions, carrots, bell peppers, parsley and thyme sprigs, garlic, and oil in a large roasting pan.   Might as well use it for something other than a turkey at Thanksgiving!

  4.  Roast in the middle of the oven for about an hour.  Since I made a HUGE batch it 

       took about an hour and 10 minutes.  A normal size batch, halved, will take about 

       30-40 minutes.

I could have probably kept them in a bit longer, but I had things to do.  :)

   
5.  Transfer vegetables with  tall narrow stockpot. Make sure you use the largest one you 

     got.  Remember...this is a huge batch!  Set roasting pan across 2 burners, then add 

     apple juice and deglaze pan by boiling over moderate heat, stirring and scraping up 

     brown bits, 2 minutes.  This happens fast.  Make sure you scrape up all the little bits!

6.  Transfer to stockpot and add dried thyme, or bay leaves, , tomatoes, and water. 

     Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 45 

     minutes. Pour through a large fine sieve into a large bowl, pressing on and discarding 

     solids, then season with salt and pepper. 

This is what I used.  As you can see it is VERY fine.

I actually used 2 pots since I made a large batch.  I had my straining spoon over a pot.  I poured the

stock through the spoon SLOWLY.  Then I would get a spatula and press on the remaining crushed tomatoes that collected in the spoon.  Bang spoon out over the garbage disposal and repeat.  

This process takes a while, but ensures you get all the bits out. 

The stock will last 1 week in the refrigerator and up to 3 months in the freezer.

Original Recipe: Bunkycooks