Veg Broth from Scratch and Perfect Protein Lunches

Because school is back in, and Fall is my favorite season, and I am very fond of soup, Zips decided we ought to try our hand/paw at making our own veggie broth from scratch. I am delighted at how delicious and rewarding it was. We looked at many recipes online, and decided we were just going to take a whack at it and use whatever we had. So we chopped a whole onion, several carrots, some celery, 2 zucchini, a leftover sliver of cabbage, 3 or 4 parsnips, 3 mushrooms, a sweet potato, a couple of yukon gold potatoes, a couple spears of asparagus, and a bay leaf. Well, we heated these in a little olive oil at the beginning, and just piled in veggies as we chopped them up. Then we added about 16 cups of water. (That's right! Clear water!) and boiled it all for about 2 hours. I found some whole peppercorns and added them about an hour in.


Here it is at the beginning, and a little later once everything starts to jive a little:

After the first hour, it starts smelling maddeningly delicious. It is no longer water with veggies in it, but magical homemade elixer! It could probably have continued boiling, but I couldn't take the sweet torture for long. So I scooped out all the veggies after it cooled, and poured the broth into some freezable containers. We are thrilled! This has totally inspired me to make a vegetarian french onion soup from scratch. I can even make my own bread!
And in our continued search for perfect foods for our busy school days, we needed to concoct something for Thursday Lunches. Thursday is our killer day this semester, as we have to be on campus, essentially, from 11:30am to 8:30pm, (with a break between 1 and 3) We HAVE to bring us some vittles that will keep the candle burning. So I looked up a bean and rice dish, since they offer a complete protein. Now, lots of folks have a recipe for Lentil and Brown Rice Soup/ Stew/ Cassarole/ Salad. I don't know what I was looking for, so I kind of cobbled together several things that looked good to me. The result: delicious!

Lovely Lentils and Brown Rice:

1/2 onion. diced
1 clove garlic minced
2 Tb. olive oil
1 carrot finely diced
2 celery ribs finely diced
3/4 c. uncooked brown rice
3/4 c. dry lentils
3 c. veggie broth (even better if made from scratch!)
1/4 c. roasted pine nuts
2 Tb. fresh cilantro chopped
2 Tb. fresh mint chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
sprinkle of ground coriander and black pepper

Heat up the oil and add things in the order listed. Give the veggies and aromatics a little saute before adding the rice and lentils. After adding the lentils, thrown in the broth and bring to a simmer. Cover it and give it a stir once in a while until the liquid is absorbed (about 30-40min.) Stir in the pine nuts and the fresh herbs. Season to taste, and squeeze the lemon in at the end. Zips liked with a diced fresh tomato mixed in. I'm thinking I would like it with something like raisins or dried cranberry cooked in... I'll keep you posted.

Good for complete protein, good for fiber, and good for Zips.