Vegetable Stock

Make your own vegetable stock without spending extra money on the vegetables! For about a week and a half I collected all my vegetable trimmings (carrot ends, onion ends, potato peels, mushroom stems, cabbage leaves, celery ends, etc) and threw them in a freezer bag and stashed them in the freezer as I collected them. When I had enough to half fill an 8 quart stock pot I covered them with water, added salt, peppercorns, and a bay leaf and then simmered the whole mixture until the water was reduced by half.  This took a couple of hours, but now I have stock in my freezer for soup, stew, whatever....