Measurements in this recipe are all approximate and the ingredients are flexible. This way, you can use up everything in your vegetable drawer and have a different tasting soup/stock every time. Exciting stuff!

Ingredients:

Olive Oil

1 medium sized white/sweet onion, chopped

A few stalks of celery, chopped

A few carrots, chopped

2-3 cups diced tomatoes (canned is fine, and you can add the tomato liquid as well for extra flavor)

2 Bay leaves

A handful of fresh thyme sprigs

A handful of fresh rosemary sprigs

About 1 teaspoon salt

Several grinds of black pepper

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Several cups of other vegetables, such as zucchini, broccoli, kale

Instructions:

1. Heat up a very liberal splash of olive oil in a big pot. 
2. Chop up some celery, onion, and carrot and fry on low for several minutes to sweeten (this procedure/ingredient combo is called a mirepoix. You can think of the mirepoix as the “atom” of classic veggie stock; they both have 3 main components –celery/onion/carrot & proton/neutron/electron– and are the fundamental building block for everything else). 
3. Add some chopped tomatoes (canned or fresh, doesn’t matter), stir it around, and then dump in 4-8 cups of water. Add in bay leaves, fresh thyme, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste. I like to add cayenne too. 
4. Add additional chopped vegetables in order of longest cooking time to shortest cooking time (for example, add kale just before serving but add carrot medallions early on). 
5. Simmer for at least 30 mins, take out spice sprigs, and serve. Cool in the fridge for a day and reheat for even more flavor.