Soup for a Sickie

I have a dear friend who has been dealing with serious health problems lately and is having trouble eating much of anything. Because I'm such a fan of soup, I decided to make her some broth. She told me that she has been able to manage a simple broth made out of water, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and nutritional yeast, so I knew those were safe. She's had more trouble with fiber and fat, so I wanted to keep those levels low. I also know that onions and garlic worried her.

I always start my stock by roasting vegetables. You should, too! It deepens the flavor, makes your stock richer, and improves the color drastically. For hers, I tossed five mushrooms, a couple of chopped fingerling potatoes, a cup of fry-cut sweet potatoes, a stalk of celery, and a cup of baby carrots with about 1/8 cup of Bragg's and a teaspoon of olive oil. (I normally use a tablespoon or two of oil for each pound of veggies/scraps.) I put that in the oven at 375.

While that was going, I cleaned up the green part of a leek, a clove of garlic, a few cherry tomatoes, and some onion scraps. I tossed that with a tablespoon of olive oil, a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, and some thyme and rosemary. Into the oven it went in another dish.

When the first tray was starting to get brown and caramelized, I scraped it into a pot, then deglazed the roasting pan with hot water. I added enough water to cover the veggies, and let them simmer for 20 minutes. I tasted, added some more Bragg's, then drained it through a colander into a bowl. I dumped the veggies back into the stock pot, and added the roasted onions. I deglazed the onion dish, covered the veggies with water, and simmered.

Meanwhile, I strained the non-onion broth through four layers of dish towel into a jar and put the lid on. Because the broth was still so hot, the jar sealed itself. Nice!

I added more Bragg's to the onion broth, then strained it through another four layers of dishcloth. It was very concentrated.

My plan is to drop off my friend's broth tonight. I've labeled it so she knows to dilute the onion broth. I kept the acidic ingredients (tomatoes, vinegar) in there as well. Hopefully the mushroom, carrot, celery, and potato broth is okay for her and helps give her some variety.

If you are making stock for yourself and don't object to onions, then you can roast everything together. If you're not making stock to be eaten on its own, you can also use scraps. Scrub your vegetables before you prepare them, and save the bits that you don't eat in a tightly-covered container. I usually use carrot peelings, bits of garlic and onion (I usually remove the skins, as they can occasionally make the stock bitter), the green part of leek (super good!), mushroom stems, celery strings (not too many, they have a strong flavor), potato skins, and any little end bits that I chop off. I season with soy sauce (use tamari or Bragg's if you don't like wheat), salt, pepper, and fresh thyme, rosemary, and/or bay leaves. It's always different, and it's always good.