Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Tasty Tip Tuesday: Save Your Scraps!


There is something tremendously homey and comfortable in the aroma of chicken stock simmering away in the crockpot or on top of the stove. Knowing that I was going to make the copycat recipe for Panera's Chicken and Wild Rice Soup, the first thing I did this morning upon arising (before I had coffee, so you understand the importance of this), was to put the components of chicken stock into the crockpot so that it could cook on low all day. This was incredibly easy to do. First of all, I had gotten a rotisserie chicken from the market this past week. The chicken was a bit on the anorexic side, but it still had wonderful skin and bones, the key to a great start. I had also been saving vegetable scraps in a marked bag in the freezer just for the occasion. This post is about those scraps.
The next time you find yourself cutting onions, carrots, celery, fennel, leeks, or herbs, don't discard the scraps. Instead, grab a zipper-topped freezer bag, mark it as "stock scraps," and place all of them inside. Put that bag into the freezer, and continue to add to it until the bag is full. At that point, you can either make stock (if you happen to have a chicken on hand, or not, if you simply want vegetable stock), or you can start a new bag. 

From here on out, when the time comes for you to make chicken stock for use in whatever recipe you happen to be planning, you are going to be so glad that you have a bag of stock vegetables handy. I cannot abide food waste, so try to use as much of an item as I can. It makes me feel good to save these vegetable scraps rather than throw them away (I no longer have space to compost), and it makes life just so darn easy.

Use only the best quality vegetables in order to yield the best quality scraps.

 

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5 comments:

Debbie - Mountain Mama said...

You are such a smart woman, Pattie! I compost my veggie scraps for the most part, but I do save some for stock - like mushroom stems. They go into the freezer and they add so much depth to my chicken stock! I also keep the rinds of hard cheeses in the freezer to throw into the stock, and I always have a few chicken carcasses in the freezer as well as a ham bone, a turkey carcass, you name it! I have a big bin in the bottom of the freezer with all my carcasses ready to make stock when the urge strikes. Tis the season, I made some the other day - we had tortellini en brood for supper one night, and I have a big bowl of stock to either freeze or make soup in the next day or two - I love it! Such a difference in homemade vs Swanson, there's no comparison!

annies home said...

grandma used to always have us save scraps to be used at a later time from everything from feeding the chickens, going into soups and casseroles and using in later meals
thanks for sharing
come see us at http://shopannies.blogspot.com

Deborah Lacy said...

I love making broth - but it never occurred to me freeze veggie scraps. Great tip!

Alycia Nichols said...

I do this same thing to make broth for winter cooking! People sometimes don’t realize what they’re tossing out!

Miz Helen said...

We are scrap savers here at the cottage. The scrap's either go to the compost or into a broth. You have some great ideas!I really appreciate you sharing your awesome post and your talent with us at Full Plate Thursday.
Have a great weekend and come back soon!
Miz Helen