A good friend of mine, Emily, sent me a link to this recipe, which shows how you can use the bum ends of your vegetables to make your own vegetable stock. Since I love thriftiness, and I do tend to go through a lot of stock, I thought I would try this out alongside the big batch of Broccoli Walnut Tossed Spaghetti I made the other day.
I collected the tough stalks of broccoli...
The outer peel and ends of the onion I slaughtered...
And some old green onions that were starting to get funny-looking. Incidently, I could have prevented this by putting them into a vase of water, but these days I'm just not into thinking ahead.
So after putting these vegetable peels n' such into a pot, I poured hot water into the pot and brought it to a boil. The website called for salt and oil, but I wanted to make this as pure as I can so that I can season it myself when I use it later.
I allowed it to simmer for a good 10-15 minutes, then strained the stock into another pot. I poured some more water into the batch of vegetable peels n' such so I could make more stock. In the end, I ended up with a big tupperware full of broth, and two extra jars like this.
Pretty! And cheap! I love the thought of creating something good out of something relatively useless. Does this count as upcycling?
This looks great--easy and cheaper than cheap because it's using bits I would've thrown away, while thinking to myself, "I should learn to compost." But then what? I do hope you'll keep us, your friendly loyal readers, up to date on what you use it for!
ReplyDeleteHi! I know this post was forever ago, but I was looking at it again because I'm about to make some myself, and I got to wondering--do you do any canning? It was my plan to use my new pressure-cooker to can these babies. If you have any tips, please share!
ReplyDeleteHi Susanna,
ReplyDeleteNo, i've never done any canning, because i've never grown anything worth canning :) But one of these days, i'd like to make some preserves or fruit butter or something. If you figure it out before i do, let me know how you did it!