Free (sort of) veggie broth!

Way back in March, I promised some postings about veg*n and cheap eating.  Since then the current events of the year (politics) have dominated my online life but now I'll return to the eating part like I promised!

Anyway, my parents used to trim up carrots, radishes, and celery for a "relish tray" which they kept in a Tupperware.....well, box is the only way to describe it.  Anyhoo, they (I assume) always just tossed the carrot peels and ends and the celery bits (you know the ones I'm talking about:  those dried ends where the celery ribs were cut to fit into the bags at the store, plus the--pardon my French--the white part of the ribs down at the butt end of the whole stalk) and celery leaves in the trash.  A while back, I realized that the veggie broth that I wish I could buy at the store, but didn't because it was so expensive, could easily be done at home with those veggie bits!

So, here we go!

Now, I know we all use carrots and onions in our cooking (right??), so when you trim them up, just save the ends and peels and stray bits in a gallon freezer bag plus any other veggie bits that are used during the week.  (One big caveat, though:  DON'T use anything from the cabbage family!  That's broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohl rabi, etc.  They produce a bitterness that just ruins things).  I've used radish ends, daikon bits, turnips (when they aren't waxed, which is rare where I am), and other veggies I happen to have used that week.
There are some prep hints though:
Carrots:  I use organic ones that are a dollar per pound at a local store, scrub 'em.
Onion: don't use the skins from yellow onions; they'll darken the broth and give a rather "dark" flavor.  I usually use white onions anyway.  Red onions in broth don't usually work unless you're making a beef or lamb dish anyway.  I usually peel away the outermost layer of the onion (it's usually a lot tougher than the inner layers) and use that as well.
Celery:  Wash the bottom ends of the ribs!!  And by all means, use the leaves!  That's the best part.
Garlic:  peels, ends, the mush left after you put a clove thru the garlic press, and I usually smash an extra clove or two for each pot of stock.
Lettuce:  Yep, lettuce!  Specifically the bottom of Romaine lettuce heads.  Just chop it off and toss it in the pot.
Fennel:  don't use this.  Licorice soup just doesn't sound appetizing!
Turnips:  I usually only use turnips in beef stew, so don't have much in the way of trimmings for a pot of stock, but it works fine if you only have 1 or 2 turnips' worth of peels and ends in a pot.
That's pretty much it, that I can think of.  By far, my veggie broth is usually just onion/carrot/celery with garlic.

Just toss everything in a pot with a couple bay leaves and some salt and pepper, and cover with filtered water.  Boil/simmer for 30-45 minutes and strain (the strainings are great for compost!)  I have a 4 quart slow cooker and just fill it with water till it reaches the brim.  After you strain the veggies out, run the broth thru a couple layers of cheese cloth or an ultra-fine strainer, and it's ready to use in your recipes.  I usually add enough water to make an even four quarts of broth and store it in pint containers in the freezer.

For chicken broth, it's pretty much the same recipe, except you add in the carcass of a chicken, of course.  I usually get a rotisserie chicken 2-3 times a month, and when I do, I just take the meat off the bones and put the bones, and skin, etc in with the veggies.   Yes, you'll have to skim the fat off if you're doing fat-free (refrigerating the stock works easiest; the fat just lifts off), but that's a small price you pay for some great tasting chicken soup!

Why "hate speech" must be protected speech

Youtube is a wondrous thing!
I watched a panel discussion with (among others) Milo Yiannopoulos a British GAY man, which discussion took place at  UMass, Amhurst on April 25, 2016, during which Milo gave the best example of the truth of the title of this blog post.

Milo spoke about the BNP, the British National Party, a far right (some would even say "fascist") political organization within the UK, which espouses racism, homophobia, and every other bad "-ism" that frightens modern day Social justice Warriors so much.  It was led by (in Milo's words) "a very odious character called Nick Griffin."

He told the audience that for a rather long while, the British media was "boycotting" the BNP; BBC did not report on their activities or opinions and neither did any of the British press.  The people of the UK heard NOTHING about the BNP or Mr. Griffin, the party's leader, other than the sanitized, out-for-votes, soundbits put out by the BNP itself, and thus the party won control of many local councils (the Brit version of city councils and county supervisor boards, etc), and they were growing and getting more control in more local councils, mostly out of anxieties of the public about immigration and the changing nature of local communities.

Then came the day when the media embargo ended.  The BBC had Mr. Griffin appear on the show "Question Time", an hour long discussion program.  As Milo stated, "as anyone with any brains at all would be able to predict the BNP evaporated.   When the British people saw what this guy who ran this party was really like, they stopped voting for that party.  A couple of years later, the BNP is no longer a force in British politics.  This is why it isn't just important to give a platform to ordinary speech, but it's important to give platforms to ALL speech, because 'sunlight is the best disinfectant'".

The best way to deal with people you don't agree with, with people with odious opinions and beliefs is the full glare of the spotlight.   As I've said before in this very blog, the only way to root out bigotry and prejudice and discrimination is the market place.  If we silence the bigots and the racists and the homophobes and all the other favorite "bad guys"of all good and decent people, then society, out of ignorance that they are doing so, will continue to give money and validation to these vermin.  Let them spew their hatred openly.  If they do it loudly enough (and we all know they will because they just LURVE hearing themselves pontificate!) and often enough, more and more people will know exactly what they believe and, more importantly, **Who. They. Are.**  then more and more people will cease their support of these bigots.  If it causes a small uptick in actual discrimination then that must be tolerated for the long-term benefit of getting these people out of positions of power in society.  Any worries about mass discrimination happening are baseless.  This isn't the 1940s and 1950s etc. any more.  There are vastly more people that are non-racist, non-bigots now than in the Jim Crow days.  Plus (and this is the important part) without government-sanctioned discrimination (Jim Crow was, above all,  a set of LAWS) there would have been much less discrimination in the 40s and 50s and early 60s than there actually was.  Even more so today, there are vastly more non-bigots around than before, so any fears of massive uptick in discrimination is just a steaming pile of BS.

You want bigotry and discrimination to stop?  Shine a light on it.  Expose it for the hate that it is and the good people will respond appropriately.  Hide it, cover it up, and silence it, and it will just fester and never go away.