Pandemic Pancakes

Vegetable Stock | Even Oren the Cat Votes!

Have we already been 7 months at this shelter..? Between politics and lemur-napping from my hometown zoo, not much more can be said.

Writing | In Progress

In my blog, I wrote a little bit about a pandemic pancake experiment with unfavorable results - but that’s what recipe development is about.

Kitchen Kernels

The forecast highs are less than 90 degrees in Sacramento! Which means, time for hot pot, right? (As someone who will happily enjoy soup anytime, even in 90 degree temps + sauna-like humidity while backpacking through Asia in the summertime, I really am not joking.) In generic national food media standards, autumn automatically signals hearty soups, cinnamon in everything until February, and of course all things pumpkin.

The staple most of these food media outlets forget is the building block for so much of fall cooking - good soup stock. Admittedly, making your own soup stock doesn’t save you any money or time - but it does save you taste and the depths of its flavor is incomparable. The Tetrapak stock cartons are convenient but too salty for me, so I usually freeze quarts of stock to replicate that convenience. Below is my base recipe for vegetable stock. Note that I don’t usually salt my soup stocks to allow for more creativity in future recipes.

Vegetable Stock

2 large carrots, peeled

1 parsnip, peeled

3 celery stalks

2 leeks or 1 large onion

cloves from 1 head of garlic

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1/2 bunch parsley

3 sprigs of thyme

1/2 tablespoon whole black peppercorns

1 bay leaf

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare two sheet pans by lining with aluminum foil and spraying with oil.

Clean all vegetables and dry as much as possible. Roughly chop carrot, parsnip, celery, and leek in 1 1/2 to 2 inch pieces. Divide veggies and garlic between sheet pans, and roast in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and glaze the veggies with the tomato paste (it doesn’t have to be even). Return pans to the oven and roast for 10-15 minutes more, until the garlic has begun to soften and the other veggies have browned.

Transfer the veggies to a stock pot. Pour in 10 to 12 cups of water, or enough to cover the contents by two inches or so. Bring contents to a low boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Add parsley, thyme, peppercorns, and bay leaf and simmer until the stock has reduced by about half, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Taste the stock along the way and adjust the simmer time from there. It should taste like a richly flavored vegetable tea versus bland vegetable water. Strain through a cheesecloth-lined sieve.

The stock will keep for a few days in the refrigerator and up to three months in the freezer. The yield will be about six cups, depending on how much you reduce. Use in your favorite fall stews, soups, and sauces! Or, hot pot.

Kitty Kernels

Oren was caught in a real act here! He’s consulting the kitty-progressive voting guide on the laundry list that is California’s ballot propositions. As an indoor cat with occasional outdoor privileges, Oren’s concerns are: 1.) “Will this proposition allow for more outside squirrel-chasing time?” and 2.) “Will this proposition’s fiscal impact allow for more wet food for dinner?"

Has anyone else caught their pets voting? (And, in all seriousness, I did submit my own ballot to an *official* ballot box, and the ballot was just counted as of this writing.)

How I’m Surviving Current Events

Listening

• RaceMob: About running but also touches on other topics of interest (especially episode 18 - Latin rock, San Francisco history, and recovery). I don’t think I’ve met the hosts, I do know 1/3 of the people who were interviewed so far.

Reading

• Eat Me by Kenny Shopsin and Carolynn Carreño: My friend sent this cookbook for me from Green Apple Books (where I have bought many books over the years and would have happily spent the quarantine hidden in an upstairs aisle). I never ate at Shopsin’s 900 menu item restaurant in Greenwich Village, but his cooking philosophy (and bluntness) does resonate. The writing also makes me nostalgic for New York.