Thursday's Thriftiness - Even before the recession, I was thrifty! My family budgets monthly, assesses finances bi-weekly, and only spend money we have. Additionally, we almost exclusively eat orgnic foods. It's a nutritional, environmental, and practical choice for us, but it's expensive. My hope for Thursdays is to be an outlet for me to share how I keep our organic grocery bill low and/or make financial trade-offs to eat the way I want to eat.
About a year ago, I was at my friend's house reading a copy of Mothering magazine. In it, there was an article about making broth. When we used to eat chicken, I made homemade chicken broth a lot since it was tastier and cheaper than store bought broth. With my daughter being allergic to poultry, though, I hadn't made broth in a looooong time. And, I didn't know how to make a carrot-free veggie broth.
That article changed my mind about broth (wish I could find it to share with you)! I had no idea that it didn't need to start with carrots, onions, and celery. I made my first batch of homemade, organic, carrot-free broth last week....and it was GREAT! Here's how I made my easy and cheap broth:
Boil/simmer together for thirty minutes:
- four or five sun dried tomatoes (I don't remember if these were organic and I'm too lazy to get up to look!)
- 1/2 of a clean leek (organic; freeze the other half for your next batch)
- 1 medium white onion (organic)
- parsley stems (after I use chopped parsley, I throw the unused stems in a bag in the freezer; I used these for the broth) (organic, homegrown)
- salt
-pepper
Let cool. Strain with cool. Freeze in appropriate sized containers for easy use later on.
You could use all sorts of different vegetables and herbs for this. I'm sure you could even brown the onions and leeks for a deeper flavor. The world of broths opened up for me after I made this batch! There are sooo many options now!
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