Kitchen Scrap Stock

 

Save your carrot ends, your onion ends, your celery leaves, and your cauliflower leaves! Anything that is clean and free of mold should go into a freezer bag.  When the bag is full, throw it into a stock pot and simmer. 

After your veggies have gotten soft to mushy, dump the pot contents into a metal colander with a metal bowl underneath (to catch the liquid).  Allow it to sit and drain, but don't stir.

This is what my stock looked like after straining.  I used chicken bones with my veggie scraps, so there is some fat component to my stock.  Depending on how the bones look and how healthy my compost pile is, I might compost all the remaining scraps.  If, however, the bones retain fat or meat, or if the compost is stinky or overly wet or dry, I would trash the remains.

I'm not into pushing products or having a gizmo-filled kitchen.  But, go to the canning section of your store, and buy one of these funnels!  You will use it all the time and it will make your life easier.  It will fill wide-mouth or regular-mouth jars and keep the lid clean!

After you fill your jars, you may now keep your stock in the refrigerator for a few weeks (toss if it seems slimy or tastes extra pungent).  Or in the freezer for a few months.  Be sure to leave extra space at the top of the jar if you plan on freezing them.  Also, if I am thinking of freezing, I like to cover my jars with foil instead of a lid because foil is easier to remove once frozen and microwave defrosting becomes an option.