A Lucky Accident

3 sm Carrots, diced

2 sm Parsnips, diced

1 md Turnip, cut in chunks

2 ea Celery stalks, diced

Celery leaves from 1 lg Onion, stuck with 2 cloves

1 cn Tomatoes with liquid

1 cn Tomato paste

1 sm Bn flat-leaf parsley

1 ea Bay leaf

Fresh rosemary and thyme Black peppercorns

Put 3 quarts of water in the bottom of a large stock pot with a pasta insert. Add the tomato liquid and tomato paste. Put all of the other ingredients in the pasta insert. Bring to a boil over high heat, lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 3 hours. Lift out the pasta insert, letting out the liquid fall back into the pot. Press down on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible and return all the liquid to the pot. Discard the solids. Note: This started out to be vegetable stock to use up some leftover stuff I had on hand, but after I strained the stock I decided to use it as a cooking liquid for pasta. The pasta thickened and flavored the stock to such an extent that I decided to save the leftovers to use as a tomato-vegetable soup. I may add some vegetables and small pasta to that. Recipe by Diane Lazarus