Thanksgiving Thrift:

[elleng]

The Holiday as a Model for Sustainable Cooking

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/opinion/thanksgiving-thrift-the-holiday-as-a-model-for-sustainable-cooking.html?_r=1

[Denninmi]

1. Nice article.

Not really anything new to me, since I pretty much already live this way.

As I was doing Thanksgiving prep, I generated about half of a garbage bag of assorted residue -- potato and apple peelings, squash skin and seeds, celery leaf, etc -- anything I didn't want which is still edible. This all goes to my poultry, who repurpose it into eggs and meat.

After we're done eating, I will pull all of the meat off of the turkey carcass and bag that up, and then put the bones into a stock pot and boil them for stock. The bones, after they're picked through again, will be very clean. These I'll put onto a cookie tray and dry out in the oven over the next days. When completely dry, I'll powder them up in the food processor into bone meal, which I will also feed back to the birds to augment their diet.

[csziggy]

4. Many of my vegetable trimmings go into the pot with the turkey carcass

To make stock - especially celery, onion and carrots. The onion skin and ends, and carrot ends, as well as the celery leaves add a lot of additional flavor to the stock. Since I'll be straining it anyway, why not use those trimmings?

I do that any time I make a big meat dish where I will have bones and trimmings worth stewing into stock. Last time I bought a cheap chuck roast I cut out the bones and fat, then put those with the trimmings from the stew vegetables into a pot and made some lovely beef stock that was a good soup base.

Another plus is that if you use yellow onions, the skins add a wonderful color to the stock!

[GoCubsGo]

6. I have started saving and freezing vegetable trimmings, as someone here suggested

I have a big ziplock bag in the freezer that I just keep adding to. When it's full, I make vegetable stock. It's infinitely than any purchased stock one can find. And, cheaper by far. I even save the carrot and potato peels. And, zucchini, butternut squash and eggplant ends. Pretty much anything.

[csziggy]

7. I've only been doing it when I'm doing a major cooking day

But we generate less than a 1 gallon container of organic waste a week, mostly banana peels and coffee grounds. Generally once a week we through that out in the field for the wildlife to have at it. I tried putting it on a compost pile, but the animals got into it, so it was not worth it.

I may start freezing the good stock producing trimmings, though - that's a good idea.

I end up having to buy some stock when I just don't have the energy to make it. But I also only buy it when it on sale - I keep one or two containers in the pantry, just in case.

[Tesha]

2. Yes - we run our kitchen like this

everything possible gets the Yankee treatment - and...

Leftovers are a major food group here!

[Sienna86]

3. Great article

I try to live/cook this way now. Will work on further incorporating this philosophy.

[EFerrari]

5. My mother-in-law took me in hand as a very young wife

and she taught me to run the house this way. She was a treasure.