I’ve had a lot of women asking me for my “recipes” as of late, and instead of trying to directly respond via message to each individually, I thought I’d share my love in a more general scape. Here you go internet, all of my not-so-secret weapons in preparing a beautifully planned and executed, healthy dinner in a bowl.

First things first. You must have a good heavy bottomed stock pot. My mom bought me the 12 qt Wolfgang Puck model I own several years ago when I first fell in love with making my own veggie broth. It still looks brand new and I’ve used it. I googled and averaged $35 for one similar to mine.  Getting to basics, the reason you need that heavy bottom is to evenly distribute the heat to the food. It is crucial, you will never get a good browning on anything without it and you’ll spend your time scraping burnt food out of it. Pay the money for a decent one.

Before I get to the fun stuff, I need to tell you, I am in no way a self-proclaimed good cook. I am a voracious reader with pretty fair comprehension skills, and when the planets align and I follow directions thoroughly I can concoct a decent meal gathered from a handful of worthy recipes. That is really the enjoyable part to me, creating my own take, adding what I want to the symphony of flavors. For example, I can’t seem to get enough garlic. If I print 3-5 cloves, minced, in my own galley, 7-8 go in the pot. At least. I try to add the garlic when Nate‘s not looking because of the wary eye he throws me when he sees how much I’ve chopped. That’s important for you to know because one of the first great cooks I personally knew was my friend and recently published author Hal, who told me long ago that massive amounts of garlic and fresh ground black pepper can make anything taste delectable. That theory has yet to be proven wrong.

Ready, set, go!

I’m starting as basic as it gets with the broth because it is the backbone of everything! There’s not a brand (of which I’m aware) on the market that compares. I say so, because there’s nothing like the love you put in personally to make it taste better. On that note, there’s nothing better than using local organic ingredients to amplify the sweet savoriness. It becomes soul food.

Today I tried veggies other than the usual for my broth, and I was so impressed by it’s rich flavor. It was the muse for this post, in fact.

Usually I’ve only used whole quartered peel-still-on onions, carrots, peppercorns, celery (leaves and all) and fresh parsely, thyme, several whole crushed garlic cloves, and a couple of bay leaves (and sometimes tomatoes if I know I’ll be using the broth for a minestrone type soup). This batch consists of cremini mushrooms, yellow bell pepper, a half bulb of fennel (I used half and then took it out halfway through, It’s pungent), peppercorns, onions as I described above, carrots, lots of crushed garlic, celery, a handful of fresh Italian parsley & thyme, 2 bay leaves and about 2 tablespoons of kosher (or sea) salt.  The salt is up to you, again, as is everything according to your taste. Nate likes salty. Me not so much so I do a little and let him salt at the table if need be.

Many recipes say to add all of this to a pot, cover with water, boil, reduce heat, bring to a low simmer for an hour.

No… you’re losing all of the flavor by doing that! The beauty of throwing everything in there and browning it first over a med-high heat is that you get the good stuff out of the stuff BEFORE adding the water. Then it all melds and intensifies and makes music in the pot. I nearly passed out this morning from the intoxicating aroma.  So please, put a couple of Tablespoons of good olive oil in the stock pot and heat it till it shimmers and smells warm and nutty, and then throw in everything but the garlic. Let all of the veggies get all aromatic and hot and then add the crushed cloves. Let them cook for about a minute and add the water to cover the veggies. Now let it come to a boil, and when it does, turn the heat to low and cover. Let it simmer as long as you want, but for at the very least, an hour. Mine went for almost 3.  Sidenote: Today I did not have any, or I would have thrown a splash of good white wine (chardonnay) in this mix before the water, and let that cook down for a minute.

Strain everything when it’s done in a sieve. I triple strain mine actually. It comes out velvety and savory, even healing, I promise.

And that’s that for Part 1.

Advertisement