Scrap cooking is on the rage ever since the quarantine started. It’s an easy way to stretch your dollar and yet create a delicious dinner for your family.
From cheese rinds to carrot tops, many kitchen wastes can be used as a flavoring agent, condiment, or base for an altogether new recipe, allowing you to stretch the life of your last grocery trip (not to mention your food budget) a little longer. Call it reducing kitchen waste or thrifty living, but this understanding of kitchen scraps will come in handy while cooking under quarantine and beyond.
Don’t throw away your potato peels. You will be missing out on the amazing snacks: roasted potato peels. The potato peel contains more nutrients than the potato’s interior. It is high in fiber, with the skin accounting for around half of the fiber in a medium potato. Once roasted, serve with cheese and sour cream, or season with your preferred spice combination and dip in your favorite condiment. You can even pan-fry them with some thyme, salt, and olive oil.
Vegetable stock is one of those things that is simple to buy but so much more tasty – and cost-effective – when made from scratch. And you don’t need to buy pounds of fresh vegetables to create it. Using vegetable peelings, stalks, and leaves can help you save money and minimize food waste. Every bit of every vegetable you prepare during the week can be converted into a wonderful stock. Simply boil the scraps in water, drain, and voila: veggie broth.
You can use your vegetable peels to make flavored salts and you will be surprised how gourmet they taste. Dry out the peels. You can try carrots, ginger, parsley, sunchoke, beets, daikon, celery, herbs, spices, and many more. Be creative. Grind them finely and store them with sea salt in a jar. A little sprinkle of this salt can give your food a new dimension of flavor. Flavored salts can also make an excellent homemade gift for friends. Talk about cost-effective gifts.
More often you are left with fruits that are about to rot, are bruised, or mushy. And you throw them away. But these mushiest fruits can make some of the best jams. Simply boil the fruit on your stovetop with a little sugar (optional), aromatics, and a small bit of liquid. Remove any seeds or other material that has risen to the surface. Avoid caramelizing the fruit, since this will result in an overly sweet end product.
If jams are not your jam, you can make scrap vinegar. Fill a jar halfway with scraps, add a tablespoon of sugar, cover with water, secure with a lid or cloth, stir daily, wait, and drain. The fruity water will be slightly alcoholic, then vinegary, thanks to naturally existing bacteria on the fruit. After that, drain the vinegar and use it.
While lemons have a plethora of cleaning applications, we prefer the tasty ones. Take a few minutes to peel the fruits before using them in a recipe that only calls for lemon juice. That way you may make these candied lemon peels, which are fantastic as a drink or dessert garnishes, or edible gifts.
Having extra bone broth in the freezer is like having a little bit of magic at your fingers, and all you have to do is reheat it in the microwave. What’s more, it’s simple to make with leftover bones in your kitchen. To make really delicious bone broth, simply place them in a slow cooker, fill them with water, and cook on low for 24 hours. To assist pull the minerals from the bones, add a drop of vinegar. If you have a dog, purée the bones with a little of the broth until absolutely smooth for a doggy treat when they are extremely soft.
If you’re searching for a new method to use up your bacon fat, try making stovetop popcorn with it. In some recipes, bacon grease can be used instead of butter, oil, or other fats. However, because of its low smoke point, it is not suitable for high-temperature cooking. However, it is ideal for roasting, light sautéing, and baking. Bacon grease adds flavor to savory foods.
You must have already seen this on foodie TikTok. Watermelon rinds. They are very crunchy, juicy, and cucumber-like flavor. This fruit rind is high in antioxidants because of its high concentration of lycopene and other flavonoids. They can be eaten raw. But don’t stop just there. The rinds can be pickled, juiced, and even stir-fried into a delicious savory dish.
Pickles found in grocery store center aisles have been pasteurized. Save the brine after you’ve finished your cucumbers. You can use it for a variety of purposes. You can drink it right away. It helps with keeping your guts healthy. You can even use it to flavor your soup and liven up bland food. The leftover brine can also be used to brine store your meat and poultry.
The best way to use stale bread is to make breadcrumbs out of it and it can come in handy in the kitchen all the time. Dry bread slices can be transformed into multipurpose breadcrumbs in only 20 minutes with a little olive oil, kosher salt, a food processor, and your oven. Freeze them before using them to top macaroni and cheese casseroles, creamy pasta recipes, scalloped potatoes, and veggie gratins.