Easy vegetable broth (making use of those veggie scraps!)

I got the idea for this vegetable broth from the Moosewood cookbook by Mollie Katzen. It's the easiest most economical and eco-friendly method for making a broth while also minimizing waste and making use of your veggie scraps.

If you cook recipes that require vegetable broth often, or just want to have some on hand for a quick and easy soup, or as a flavorful liquid to cook rice or grains in, you can make a habit of doing this regularly. Just keep a mason jar, tupperware, or sealed plastic baggie in the fridge and throughout the week selectively collect some of your veggie scraps you would normally compost, throw away or put down the garbage disposal. I prefer to use a jar, because you can later use the same jar to make the broth in.

I say to choose scraps "selectively" because you only want flavorful vegetable scraps that will contribute a pleasant and hearty flavor to your broth. You want to avoid fruits or anything rotten. Some examples of veggies I have saved this week include carrot tops, carrot shavings, onion tops and skins, garlic getting a little too soft to use, garlic skin, tomato tops and stems, twiggy and stemmy parts of herbs too hard to eat, radish tops, turnip scraps, greens, and pepper tops. It's okay if you wouldn't normally eat these items in this form (either too hard to chew or a stem or end that seems unappetizing).. just remember that the flavor and nutrition from the vegetable parts is all you're seeking. Stems, tops, ends, middles and whatnot are excellent additions to make a broth.

Once you have a good amount of flavorful veggie "garbage", boil some water and add the water to the jar with your veggies. Allow to steep as though you were making tea, and strain out the flavorful water to use right away. If you're not using it right away, I like to let the jar of veggies and liquid cool, and stick it all in the fridge until use so it can continue steeping and allowing the flavor to get richer. Only keep it like this for up to a few days, and then strain out and heat for whatever recipe you need it for.

There you have it, fresh homemade vegetable broth (without costing you a dime or using up any good veggies you would otherwise use for something else!). Store in a jar for up to a week. Veggie scraps can be composted when finished.