Fall is my favorite time of year for food, and even if you beat your fists against the Hallmark holidays, you’ll inevitably find yourself attending many pot-lucks and parties, or at least hosting a dinner now and then when friends and family flock in from out of town. It’s simply the perfect time of year to pack warm bodies in small kitchens with hot food. With so much emphasis on Thanksgiving and traditional holiday food, many fantastic treats get overlooked. So, over the next week I will be sharing some of my favorite fall dishes with you. They are simple, beautiful, and impressive alternatives to the boring standards.

Making stocks is such a simple practice I’m always amazed it’s not an everyday household habit. It really is as simple as throwing your waste vegetable and fruit bits into a pot or a jar instead of the trash or compost. The hardest thing about making a vegetable stock is learning what sorts of vegetables leave a good flavor when boiled into oblivion, and what constitutes something you don’t want to eat, but can still use, versus something is just plain bad. We can start with a list of the most commonly used vegetables in a stock; ones that are often used as a stock base. You should always use at least a little of these vegetables, and if you want to prepare a quick stock you can use any combination of them and end up with something fantastic. As for choosing what’s fair game and what’s trash, a good rule of thumb is something that doesn’t smell bad, but just doesn’t look good. So, rubbery or dried out is find, but molding is not.

• Celery: use trimmed off ends, wilted leaves or stalks, and the base
• Onion: use the skins and trimmed off base or edges, the skins impart flavor and color
• Carrots: use the skins and trimmed off ends, or whole carrots that have gone rubbery, you can even use the tops
• Potatoes: use the skins or whole potatoes that have started to sprout
• Sweet Potatoes: use the skins or whole potatoes that have started to sprout

Next, you will want to learn to improvise a little with vegetables that you might not use everyday, but will add excellent flavor. You can add as much or as little of these as you happen to use around the kitchen, but you don’t necessarily need them to create a good stock.

• Apples and Pears: cores, skins, or apples that are turning soft or browning
• Winter Squash: skins and seeds, or any part you would normally discard
• Garlic: skins, trimmings, whole pieces, old pieces
• Sweet Peppers: seeds, trimmings, old or rubbery peppers
• Mushrooms: any kind, trimmed off edges, older unsightly mushrooms
• Beets: skins, tops, trimmings
• Chard: leaves, stocks, trimmings, wilted or dried out leaves
• Corn: kernels, cores

Last are vegetables you will want to use somewhat sparingly. Many of these are in the mustard or cabbage family, and include things like broccoli, kale, collard greens, and cabbage. These vegetables can add a wonderful flavor to a stock when somewhat fresh, but the older they get the more sour they begin to taste, and the more of them you use the more they will overpower your stock. A quick list of common mustard and cabbage vegetables should help you out.

Kale, Broccoli, Collard Greens, Bok Choi, Mustard Greens, Cabbage, Radishes, Turnips, and daikon. I usually include green beans and peas in this list.

The process for collecting and cooking a stock is easiest part. When I know I will be doing a lot of cooking, or possibly making a lot of soup, I start a jar or bucket which I keep in the refrigerator and fill with trimmings as the week goes on. When it is full, I empty it into a pot and search around the refrigerator for old vegetables I’m not going to use for anything else, fill the pot with water and cook it up. It’s really that simple. You don’t need any particular amount of water, or any particular amount of vegetables, you really can just wing it. Any thing you cook will be tastier than plain water, right? I usually leave it on the stove for a while as I’m cooking other things, but you will want to cook it for a minimum of 10 minutes. When you’re finished, strain it with a mesh strainer or a few pieces of cheese cloth, ladle it into a jar, and keep it in the refrigerator until you need it again. That’s it!