stock & such

Whenever Blake comes into town, it's virtually guaranteed that we're going to cook together. For this particular visit, we made ourselves dinner (sweet potato gratin) and cooked up some appetizers for tailgating down in Tuscaloosa for the Mississippi State game (stuffed mushrooms and pinwheels). I've posted about pinwheels before, so I'll just include the gratin and mushrooms.

To top it all off, I used all my leftover vegetable remnants to attempt my first homemade vegetable stock. It was delicious, and I've already used it in my cumin squash soup (which I detailed two posts ago), and a carrot soup I made for a Hanukkah potluck last night.



Vegetable Stock:
(quantities don't really matter -- use whatever you have leftover. Including stems, peels, etc. because you're going to strain everything once it has cooked)

mushrooms
radishes
thyme
green onions
mustard greens
onion
garlic
carrots
salt
pepper

Add everything into a large stock pot with some olive oil and let saute 15 minutes or so before filling the pot at least halfway with water. Let simmer for at least 2 hours. (Just do this at a time when you know you'll be home a while and check on it periodically). Strain with a sieve several times and you're done.



For the gratin:

3-4 medium sweet potatoes
parmesan
1-2 cups heavy cream
salt
pepper
nutmeg
hot sauce
1/2 onion
garlic
2 tbsp butter

Peel and mandolin the sweet potatoes (for gratins I think the uniformity of a mandolin is really appealing. On some things it isn't necessary, but in this case it's really ideal for even cooking and appearance). Saute the onions and garlic in butter, and add to a baking dish on bottom, afterward arranging the sliced sweet potatoes on top. Season with nutmeg, hot sauce (of course I use this on everything -- but seriously I think it's a nice contrast to how sweet the potatoes can be) salt and pepper, then add the heavy cream. I didn't include an exact measure because I usually just pour it straight from the container into the baking dish until it's at least halfway up the side.

Top with parmesan and back at 350 for 45 minutes. Everyone loves gratins.

Stuffed mushrooms:
1 package of baby portabellos
1 red onion
2-3 cloves garlic
olive oil
breadcrumbs
parmesan

The hardest part about these is cleaning and prepping the mushrooms. I like to use a small spoon, and patience. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and scoop out some of the innards, being careful not to break the mushroom. The amount you choose to remove is up to you. If you wanted to add some additional veggies to the filling you could remove almost all of the inner mushroom, however if you leave the filling as-is, I wouldn't scrape them too cleanly as it is quite rich.

Basically just saute the onions and garlic, season them with salt and pepper, and mix with breadcrumbs and parmesan. Stuff and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. These are great at room temp, too.