Vegetable Broth

I wanted to make black bean soup, but realized I needed some stock first. I looked through a few recipes for vegetable stock...some called for roasting the veggies first, others told you just to throw them in water. I decided to go the route of roasting the vegetables first. The veggies I used were those that were on hand -- carrots, onions, garlic, red pepper, celery -- many recipes recommend leeks, potatoes and apples. This was good...next time I may try this recipe (it's similar but is flavored with herbs de provence).

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 carrot (about 5 baby carrots)
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 small red bell pepper (or Italian frying pepper)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 12 black peppercorns
• a few sprigs of thyme (optional)

I chopped the vegetables up into approximately 1 inch pieces. I put a little oil in a pan, threw in the vegetables and roasted them for about 30 minutes. I actually did this on the grill over medium-high heat rather than using the oven...for the oven use 450°F. I dumped the vegetables into a small pot, filled with water, added 2 bay leaves, a teaspoon of salt, and about a dozen black peppercorns. I didn't have any fresh thyme, but that would be a good addition. I let this boil for about an hour. I strained out the vegetables.

This came out really good, very nice and light, and a little sweet.

I really like to make risotto (which obviously needs some sort of stock)...mushroom stock really works well for risotto, so for that purpose I think I would add mushrooms into the mix.