How to Make Food Out of Garbage
Full disclosure: this is not a post about dumpster-diving. I heartily support all forms of dumpster-diving, waste reduction, scrounging, and freeganism, though, and this post is somewhat in that spirit.
Here is how to make food out of things that will otherwise be thrown away. Namely, how to make vegetable scraps into homemade vegetable stock.
Making vegetable stock is very, very easy. It’s even easier to make than bone-based stocks, because vegetables take less time than stubborn bones to release their flavor and nutrients.
I keep a big plastic bag in my freezer and dump vegetable scraps in there as I cook. I eat a lot of vegetables, so I can generally make a gallon of vegetable stock every two weeks.
I have used homemade vegetable stock to cook beans, as a base for miso soup, and to make a mean vegetarian borscht. (More about that borscht next week.) You can also use homemade vegetable stock to cook rice or noodles. Go crazy with it. It’s free, after all.
Things that are very good in to throw in vegetable stock: mushroom stems, carrot tops, celery hearts, herb stems, hearty greens stems, onion ends, potato peels, ect. A parmesan rind is nice too if you have one lying around.
This is a stock, not a broth, so it’s pretty light on the salt. If you want to use it as the base of a broth soup, you’ll probably want to season it further when you cook with it.
Very soon this pile of garbage will become delicious stock.
Scrappy Vegetable Stock
a large dutch oven or stock pot
a colander or mesh strainer
a big pile of vegetable scraps
herb scraps or stems (parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and peppercorns are all good)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1) Arrange the vegetable and herb scraps in a large pot. Add water until the vegetables are covered by about an inch. Add salt and vinegar. The salt and vinegar help the vegetables break down and release their vegetable goodness. Salt and vinegar also makes everything taste better, whether it’s potato chips or vegetable stock.
2) Bring the mixture to a boil. Immediately turn down the heat so that the water is barely simmering. Cover and let the stock cook for about an hour.
3) Taste the stock. It should taste richly vegetal, not watery. If it seems weak, uncover and let it cook down for a few minutes.
4) Strain the stock through a colander to remove the solids. If you want a less cloudy stock, strain it a second time through a cheese cloth or clean kitchen towel. The stock will keep well in the fridge for a week, and it freezes beautifully. If you freeze it, use plastic containers, not glass, and give the stock an inch of headroom to expand as it freezes.
5) The boiled vegetable scraps can now be tossed or composted.
