Fasting for Russian Orthodox Christians: Vegetable Stock

Making your own vegetable stock is easy and fairly foolproof, but what you can do with it during a fasting period?

Make soup: add mushrooms, kale, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, or whatever you have handy. If you like you can thicken this with a little alternative milk (cashew milk works well).

Use as a flavoring agent for rice, lentils, beans, or whatever grains you enjoy such as quinoa, barley, buckwheat. In my house a pot of rice and lentils cooked with vegetable stock instead of water, mixed with a few salad greens to wilt at the end, and perhaps a leftover potato, is a favorite.

You can also use this as a broth to cook shellfish in (more on that next time).

So how do you make vegetable stock? You can use a pot on the stove, a slow cooker, or a pressure cooker.

Add trimmings from vegetables: root vegetable tops, trimmings from asparagus, celery leaves, or whatever else is left over after prepping vegetables. In a pot on the stove or slow cooker, cook until vegetables are mushy. In a pressure cooker, that's about twelve minutes on high. Remove from heat and let cool until you can sip it without burning yourself.

In my house we freeze this as is in freezer bags, so that we can spice it up according to the dish we're making with this. Think beyond salt and pepper; experiment with oriental spices, central American spices, until you find a combination that works for you. You'll find your dinners a lot more interesting!