HOW I MAKE VEGETABLE STOCK FOR SOUPS AND STEWS
       
       I used to think that making stock from vegetable scraps was a waste of
       time. I didn't see the point of producing large quantities of a
       brownish liquid that would spoil before I could pour it into a dish. I
       tried to make it, sure. I used to store vegetable scraps in the
       freezer. Once or twice I simmer them into a stock. By that time they
       had accumulated flavors of freezer burn. The outcome was not enticing.
       
       Happily I have learned a better approach to vegetable stock. It's
       easy, really: I make the stock as I need it with scraps of vegetables
       that are immediately available from the current or previous meal. For
       example: my harira recipe requires garlic, onion, ginger, and
       carrot. Each of these things produces chaff: peelings and skins. So
       after preparing the ingredients I throw them into another pot on the
       stove, boil them with water, and pour the resulting stock into my
       recipe. The outcome of this approach is two fold: I feel good about
       extracting more nutrients from the ingredients, and I make a meal
       that's just a wee bit tastier.
       
       Of course, the implication here is that any scraps accumulated from a
       recipe that doesn't need a stock get binned. That's true and I'm fine
       with that. I was binning them before anyways, now I just bin them a
       little less. Maybe someday I'll go back to freezing scraps, or find
       another clever way of integrating them into my cooking. For now, I'm
       happy with this small improvement in my kitchen.