Basic Vegetable Stock

Preheat oven to 425° F.

Combine the carrots, celery, onions, leeks and garlic in a bowl and toss with the olive oil. Spread out on a sheet pan and roast in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, (stirring once or twice to distribute the browning) until they are starting to caramelize around the edges. If you would like your vegetables a little darker, you can turn your broiler on and broil them to a richer brown. Don’t let them burn!

With a length of kitchen twine, tie the sprigs of herbs together with the bay leaves into a bundle. This is your bouquet garni.

Pour 4 quarts of cold water into a soup pot and add the roasted vegetables, bouquet garni, cloves and peppercorns. Bring the pot to a simmer. You should only see a few bubbles intermittently rising to the surface. Cook, uncovered, for 2 hours. During the cooking process, add a little more liquid to the pot if needed to keep the ingredients submerged.

Strain the stock, pressing hard on the vegetables to squeeze out the juices. Discard the vegetables.

Season the stock with salt and pepper.

Important note: With a batch of stock this size it is important to cool it as quickly as possible. Here are 2 good methods:

1) Place the pot in a bath of ice water in your sink, and stir occasionally until it is cooled, then refrigerate

2) Let the stock cool for about 15 minutes, then pour into individual canning jars (cleaned and sterilized) and put them directly in the refrigerator. Leave a little room at the top of the jar to allow for expansion when freezing.

You can store the stock in the refrigerator for several days or if you are not going to use it within that period, freeze it for up to several months.