Broths

The basis for any great soup; the ingredient in many other recipes.   While there are some really good store-bought broths out there nowadays, there's nothing like homemade broth, and it's so easy to make.  I'll start with the basic veggie broth, and then give directions for how to add various meats or seafoods. These can be made in huge batches and frozen for long periods of time so you'll always have some ready when you need it.

Basic Vegetable Broth

1 pound of whole, unpeeled carrots
1 pound of celery
1 large yellow onion
1 head of garlic
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper
Bouquet garni (details below) of rosemary, thyme and sage

Wash the carrots, slice the bottoms off, cut them in half, and then into chunks.
Slice off the bottom of the celery, wash it, and cut into chunks.
Slice the onion into quarters -- don't bother peeling it
Slice the garlic in half, exposing the middle of as many cloves as possible.

Put all of this into a large soup pot, with the olive oil in the bottom. Saute it on medium heat for about 20 minutes, until everything gets a little browned around the edges.

Cover it with cold water -- the water should just barely cover the veggies -- no more than 1/2 inch over them.

Add the salt and pepper.

To make a bouquet garnee, take fresh or dried thyme, sage and rosemary, and tie them up in a piece of cheesecloth. Add the cheesecloth sack to the pot.

Bring this all to a low boil and then turn onto low heat and simmer for 2 hours.

Strain everything through a fine sieve and adjust the salt and pepper as desired.

If you want to make meat broths, follow the variations below:

Chicken -- The best thing is to save chicken carcasses after you've picked a roasted chicken clean.  You can bag them up in the freezer and keep for at least a month or two.  Or you can brown 4-6 chicken wings in the olive oil and then add the veggies to brown some more. Then follow directions above.

Beef -- get a half-pound of beef bones from the butcher or your supermarket, or save them when you buy bone-in steaks. Brown them in the oven for 30 minutes on 400 degree heat before you add them to the stock, and then follow directions above, but omit the sage from the broth.

Fish/Seafood -- add fish carcasses, shrimp shells, crab shells, or lobster shells to the veggie broth recipe, and omit the sage and rosemary. Use parsely instead.

When making any of the broths that are not veggie broth, you'll likely have some fat in the broth. If you want to remove it, wait for the broth to cool and it will all float to the top so you can skim it off. If you boil these broths too fast, you might also get some "scum" in the broth from the marrow in the bones. You can do a second straining, lining your sieve with cheesecloth and most of this will be removed.

Enjoy!