Stock is one of my favourite things to make in the Bellini. I’ve made my own stock for about 10 years, since I was diagnosed with a number of food intolerances, making using store bought stock a no go.

In the past, making stock would be a 3-4 hour long mission – and so one I did very rarely, meaning most of our meals were quite bland.

Now – with the Bellini (or your version of the thermo-cooker) it takes about 30 min from wo to go – truly awesome 🙂

The recipe is available in the cookbook of course (iPad, iPhone or Android via Kindle), but it also features in the manual for the Bellini and the EDC for the Thermomix. I prefer the veggie stock version, easy, easy to adapt to my needs and adds a nice flavour to meals.

So – how best to store?

• Recipe option: Glass jar in fridge for 3 months – but this requires adding a whopping 150 g of salt
• Less salt option: You can still store in the fridge, but drop down the expiry as you drop down the salt level, so 100g = 2 months, 50g = 1 month
• My option: Freeze – and leave the salt out altogether. You can then add the salt level that suits you to each meal as you go.

So – how best to freeze?

• Put the stock in muffin cups in a muffin tray
• Freeze tray overnight
• Pop out the frozen stock muffins and store in a ziplock bag in the freezer
• They’ll keep for up to 3 months

Tips and Tricks

• Use the silicone muffin trays so you can pop them out easily
• Mark which trays you use for stock, they do tend to get a ‘stocky’ whiff so I only bake sweets in them if using a patty case
• If you don’t have room for a muffin tray in your freezer you can use single serve yoghurt cups as an alternative
• Think about how blended your stock needs to be, I keep mine quite chunky as that’s the flavour I want in my meals but you can make it much more blended if preferred.
• Put roughly the level of stock you use in each cup, I find a ¾ muffin cup is the perfect size for my cooking, but you can also cut a frozen stock muffin in half easily if need be.

There you go – an easy way to keep delicious home made and salt free stock around – just remember the muffin tin.

Thanks for reading – don’t forget you can get the stock recipe, plus 49 others in my e-book, available and easy to use from your phone or tablet. Get it on: iPad,  iPhone  or Android via Kindle