This post is in honor of my friend Ambre, whom I idolize for the way she can use little bits of leftovers in totally creative new ways.
Wondering what to do with the trimmings off your veggies? I bet that question has been on your mind for months now. Save them and make homemade veggie stock. It's easier than you think! Here's how:
1. Anytime you trim up veggies (ie, cut the tips off a carrot, the leaves off celery, the root off an onion or even the peelings of a potato) save them in a freezer bag in your freezer.
2. When the bag is full, empty into your slow cooker, cover with water and add 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper, and any stray herbs you have like thyme or parsley.
3. Set the slow cooker to high and cook for 2-3 hours, depending on how strongly you want your stock flavored. Adjust salt as needed.
4. When the stock is as strong as you like it, pull out the veggie piece with a slotted spoon, then using a strainer, pour into freezable containers-keeping with the frugal theme we save our old cottage cheese, sour cream, and big yogurt containers for this purpose. I figure a single time of freezing is safe. (Once our food is thawed we recycle it.) If you think it's too tricky to pour the stock directly into containers, you could use a colander and pour it into a soup pot, but then you have another dish to wash.
Wahla! You have homemade stock to impress your friends with! Both the stock and the veggies pieces you are saving should keep in a freezer for 3-6 months easily. Use your impressive stock to cook rice, cous cous, or in homemade soups. Enjoy!
Ps. I just did this for the first time and only had a quart sized freezer bag filled with veggie pieces that I added to probably the last 2 months. I got 6 cups of stock out of it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Cool, thanks for sharing!
Hey! We just started doing that a month or so ago. Additionally, my mom used to put pretty much all our veggie or meat leftovers into a big container in the freezer and once a quarter make soup from the whole lot. Sounds kind of iffy, but it was always really good...
Amazing tip!
Sounds like a good way to get creative with scraps that would normally throw away. It also sounds like something our mom would advise... :-)
Haha! I totally debated about putting up this post at all because it was very "mom like". :)
Post a Comment