Archives for May 2012

Today I’m participating in the Ultimate Blog Swap. You’ll find me posting over at Adventures in Life, Love, Librarianship about building your digital cookbook library for FREE, and I’m excited to welcome Kate from Modern Alternative Mama to Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy:

A few weeks ago, I was looking at my grocery budget in despair. The amount I’d decided on a year ago and the method of working with what I bought were just not making it anymore. My kids are bigger now and I have another eater (and man, can that baby eat!). My husband’s starving all the time because he goes to the gym five days a week, which he didn’t a year ago. Something had to be done.

Money concerns aside, one thing I decided I needed to do was to get more out of what I was already buying. There has to be use for all those things I’m throwing away, right?

And in many cases, there is! Here are five “kitchen scraps” and how you can put them to good use:

Bones, Gristle, and Skin

I always buy bone-in, skin-on meat (or almost always). When we finish a meal, the scraps go into the Crockpot or a stock pot to make stock. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a pound of bones or less, I still use it. It might make a quart of stock, but who cares?

If I cut up a steak to marinate for stir-fry, I roast that small amount of bones and use those too. I pretty much always have a pot or two of stock going in my kitchen! I strain it every day or two and add any new bones and re-fill the pot. It might keep going like this for a week before I actually throw the bones out. That’s several quarts of stock I wouldn’t have had otherwise. (And I use my stock to make gravies or sauces to stretch the meat further. Once I managed to use a single pound of ground beef to feed all five of us for breakfast and lunch!)

Citrus Peels

It always seems like such a waste to throw out those beautiful peels! Luckily there are a couple ways to use them. If you’re baking or cooking something that features citrus, use the zest in the dish along with the juice, even if it doesn’t call for it. The zest adds a depth and richness of flavor.

If you don’t need it for this, you can use a vegetable peeler to pull the zest off in strips and dry it an oven on low or in a dehydrator. You can also choose to keep the pith (the white part) with the zest and just chop it up and dry the whole thing. The dried peels can be used to make tea, herbal medicines, or potpourri.

Root Veggie Scraps

If you cook as much as I do, you constantly have carrot peels, onion ends, and celery ends around your kitchen. Right? Don’t throw them away! If you make stock constantly like I do (see above), toss them straight into the pot. I’ve been known to peel my carrots directly over my stock pots. If you make stock less often, save them in a bag and tuck them in the fridge or freezer until you’re ready to do it. I never use whole carrots, onions, or celery in stock anymore unless they’re on the verge of going bad anyway. Floppy, pale celery gets tossed into the pot too, rather than thrown out!

Fruit and Veggie Pulp

Do you juice foods? Sometimes I make apple-carrot juice to use as a smoothie base. When I’m not just using plain yogurt, anyway. That leaves me with pulp, though. I also use juiced lemons and limes a lot…more pulp. There has to be a use for this, right?

Toss it in with your baked goods. If it’s really moist, reduce the other liquids a bit. It’ll give it a unique flavor (for something strong like lemon; less so for apple or carrot) and extra nutrition. If you aren’t baking, toss it into a soup or tomato sauce, if it’s savory enough that you wouldn’t notice. I “got rid” of a bunch of shredded zucchini and carrot pulp this way when no one wanted it.

Leftover Mashed Potatoes

Okay, this isn’t exactly a “scrap” like the others, but it’s something I seem to have around in my kitchen a lot. I found recently that they make a great replacement for bread crumbs in meatballs or meatloaf. It’s a great way to use up mashed potatoes when you have not quite enough for one serving (nowhere near enough for a meal!). Plus, it’s completely grain- and gluten-free, so it’s a safe and frugal substitute for many on special diets.

If you’re not making meatballs anytime soon, you can also toss them into soups to thicken them, or use them to give baked goods a tender texture.

Using up all the little bits that you already have in your kitchen can save so much money over time, and it allows you to be really creative in using what you have. Try it out – you might come up with a totally unique meal just by using up scraps!

What’s your favorite way to use “scraps” or leftovers in your kitchen?

Visit Life Your Way to see all of the Ultimate Blog Swap participants!

Linking up at Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways