Every Last Drop

      One of the big focuses in our home for the last couple years has been on reducing the amount of waste (namely trash) we produce.  We've always been avid recyclers, but even that system has it's issues, so we also try to buy products with little or no packaging or reusable packaging, and use re-usable bags, cups, dishes, water bottles, etc instead of disposable.  We've also come up with a variety of uses for our organic matter waste (read: kitchen scraps), of which we have quite a lot since we eat tons of veggies.

      We get every last drop of nutrients and use out of every thing.  We compost, we regrow, we feed it to the chickens (which is actually part of the composting process, but that's a different post), and now, we make broth:

       I read about this recently on another blog (was it yours?  I tried to link to the post, but it failed, let me know and I'll happily credit you) and it was one of those forehead smacking moments.  I figured it had to be pretty easy to make your own broth, and as it turned out, there was just one minor, super obvious step I was missing.

      This is a great way to get even more nutrition and added value out of your veggies, and it can even speed your composting along a little.  Plus, if you use even half as much veggie broth as we do, it's a huge money saver.

      The first step (the obvious step that somehow just never occurred to me) is to freeze all your random veggie odds and ends.  Everything that gets piled up beside the cutting board when you're making dinner (except anything you're going to regrow) - mushroom stumps, carrot greens, onion peels, veggie ends, herb twigs - pretty much anything, even if it's a little dirty - it's going to get boiled and strained anyway.  Um, but not fruit.  Unless you want fruity broth.  Which would be interesting ...  Hmmm... 

       You just keep adding stuff to the freezer container(s) until you have roughly enough to loosely fill your crockpot or whatever pot you want to make the broth in.

       Then, when you have a spare 5 minutes (seriously, it takes no time at all), you just toss it all into the slowcooker with as much water as you can fit, leaving a little room for it all to simmer.  Add a touch of salt (you really don't need much, but a little will help the simmering and flavor-releasing process), and turn it on high overnight (all day, 6-8 hours, whatever works for you and your slowcooker).

       This can also be done by boiling everything in a pot on the stove, you'll just have to watch it a little closer.

       The next day (or after whatever time period you've settled on), you simply strain and squeeze.  I put a cheesecloth "sock" over the top of this bowl, dumped the whole crockpot in, then lifted out the sock and squeezed out every last drop of goodness.

If you ask me, that is one tasty looking shade of brown.

       And when it's all strained, pour it into some handy re-used jars and freeze or refridgerate, depending on when you intend to use it.

      I got two and a half full jars of broth to freeze, plus a cup or two I used immediately, from one crockpot of veggie leftovers.  So I basically made more broth than I would typically get in one $3 - $4.00 container of broth at the store for FREE, and I got more use out of the veggies we had grown/purchased, AND I still got to compost the leftovers after making the broth!  With almost no time or effort at all.  Rock.

       One last word of advice:  watch out for sand.  I throw everything into my freezer container, like I said, including parts that might be a little dirty like mushroom stumps.  This isn't a problem since everything gets boiled, but remember when you're pouring the broth into jars to do so slowly so that any sediment remains settled at the bottom and doesn't go into your jars.

      And an additional effortless tip for eating more ethically:  Switching out veggie broth for meat broths is imperceptible in most recipes but is lower fat, lower sodium, higher nutrition, and is one less dime in the pocket of the sick, inhumane factory farms.

      If you want to get really fancy with it, you can also be more specific about the veggies you use for this - for instance, you could make an amazing all-mushroom broth.

      Please let me know if you try this!

     

High Demand on Kitchen Scraps

      Between recycling and composting, we have drastically reduced the amount of waste we produce as a family.  We've also increased the number of waste containers we have in our kitchen.  First it was just regular recycling, special plastics, a compost bucket on the counter, and our regular trash can.  Then we started giving some of the kitchen scraps to the chickens - which is probably why they've grown so monstrous, as some of you mentioned recently. 

       So then, in addition to the compost bucket on the counter, we also had a chicken scraps bucket.
       Then we started re-growing veggies from some of our scraps.  Remember that?  Then we had the two buckets on the counter and the windowsill lined with little cups of kitchen scraps.

       Well, I recently read a blog about making your own veggie broth out of kitchen scraps.  What an excellent idea!  Especially when we go through at least 2 - usually 3 - containers of veggie broth a week.  But there is one thing stopping me:

       Another bucket!  And having to prioritize my kitchen scraps!  Regrow? Boil for broth? Chickens? Compost? Of course, the stuff used for broth can still go to the chickens and compost afterward.  But seriously, it's a little silly to have to put that much thought into kitchen scraps!

      The first solution has been moving the compost into the back yard where the chickens can get to it.  So now all the scraps go there, and the chickens can take what they want and the rest just stays in the pile.  And deciding what to regrow is easy: if it will regrow, we regrow it. 

      So I guess my pan now is just to start diverting things from the compost into the freezer to become broth.  To make in all my spare time.  HA!

       In our house, kitchen scraps have become a high demand commodity, and I absolutely love it that way.

All but one of these plants was re-grown from kitchen scraps.