Recipe: No-waste method lets you customize a kitchen staple
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Great broth in the making: Veggie scraps, water and heat. (Photos: Kathy Morrison) |
It’s finally the time of year when I don’t mind heating up the kitchen to make soup, stew or risotto.
I like chicken broth just fine, but prefer to use vegetable stock or broth for these type of dishes. The handy aseptic packages in the grocery store hide a lot of information, however. Is this kind tomato-y or more oniony? How earthy is that broth that has mushrooms listed in the ingredients?
The easy answer to this (no surprise) is to make your own. The recipe below is more method than prescription, as you’ll see.
Since we’re all gardeners or aspiring gardeners here, I’m going to assume you’re already composting your kitchen scraps. Many of those scraps can be used to flavor vegetable broth for several dishes -- and they still can be composted afterwards.
The trick is to use your freezer, and to assess every vegetable bit before it hits the compost bin. Onion tops? Yes. Dried-out garlic cloves? Yes again. Carrot peelings? Absolutely. Other favorites in my house include mushroom stems, celery leaves and ends, limp tomatoes and wilted spinach. I keep them in a gallon freezer bag and add to it over the course of several weeks. Sometimes I have two bags going, for different ingredients.
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Food in My Back Yard Series
July 1: How to grow summer salad greens
June 24: Weird stuff that's perfectly normal
June 17: Help pollinators help your garden
June 10: Battling early-season tomato pests
June 3: Make your own compost
May 27: Where are the bees when you need them?
May 20: How to help tomatoes thrive on hot days
May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can
May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success
April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?
April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting
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Garden Checklist for week of June 29
We're into our typical summer weather pattern now. Get chores, especially watering, done early in the morning while it's cool.
* It’s not too late to add a splash of color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.
* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers. Plant Halloween pumpkins now.
* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.
* Water, then fertilize vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost. Feeding flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom.
* Don’t let tomato plants wilt or dry out completely. Give tomatoes a deep watering two to three times a week.
* Harvest vegetables promptly to encourage plants to produce more. Squash especially tends to grow rapidly in hot weather. Keep an eye on zucchini.
* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.
* Harvest tomatoes, squash, peppers and eggplant. Prompt picking will help keep plants producing.
* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.
* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves.
* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.
* Give vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting.