Avoiding waste - tips?

[joromero]

As paleo peeps, we are fairly good at avoiding food waste I think - like simmering bones for bone broth and eating offal etc. But I thought I'd start a thread where we can share tips on how to avoid waste in the kitchen. I roasted some prawns last night and felt bad just throwing away the shells (eating paleo has made me think twice about throwing anything away lol!) so I froze them in a freezer bag and I'll boil them up and make a lovely seafood stock or stew another day. Does anyone have any other tips on avoiding waste that they'd like to share? 

[salixisme]

I freeze all sorts of scraps to be used for making broths - shrimp shells just like joromero does, chicken carcasses, bones from pretty much any meat I am preping for dinner, veggie scraps and peelings (only if organic). I have several bags in the freezer labled as to what is in them and I just keep adding stuff until the bag is full, then I use it to make the broth.

I crush eggshells and use them to keep slugs and snails away from tender plants (I also add a small piece of egg shell to my water kefir as it adds extra minerals that the grains LOVE!).

I make "clean out the fridge" soup every Saturday to use up any tired veggies before I go grocery shopping - that feeds us for lunch usually on both Saturday and Sunday.

I also have an inventory on both the freezers, the fridge and the pantry doors so that I know at a glance what I have. It makes grocery shopping so much easier and means that I don't inadvertently buy something that I already have on hand.

If something is starting to get towards the end of it's usefulness, I will freeze it if I cannot use it right away. If it is fruit that is starting to get a bit soft, it gets used to flavour the water kefir or kombucha.

And the most important thing I have found is meal planning - I make a quite detailed meal plan for the week - 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, 7 dinners plus 7 snacks. I then make a detailed shopping list that includes everything I need to buy to make those meals plus extra fruit to be used as snacks.

Also, leftover smoothies make awesome fruit-leather if you dry it out in a dehydrator....

[saragrambusch]

In terms of vegetables, if I've overdone it with buying them, I make a stew that I toss all kinds of veggies in and then freeze it.

[cottagehand]

I also freeze all the veggie scraps and peelings by using them in my bone broth when making up a batch.

I use the egg shells...although on AIP there are none to put around my garden.

All inedible veggie scraps I put in a container and I finely chop them all in my food processor 1-2 x week for my worm composting bin. The "tea " I use for liquid plant fertilizer and the compost gets thrown around my garden beds.

I save ALL bones poultry in one bag and red meats in another. I never thought about shellfish but we don't often have full shelled shellfish





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[veromama]

This is a great topic!

I also make leftover veggie soup or if not on AIP, than what we call "lecso" or in my husband's language "shakshuka". Basically a pan-fried veggie mix with some sunny eggs on top. Very yummy!

I also freeze anything that can be used for bone broth, want to start doing it with veggie parts also. I read somewhere that you can use pretty much any part of the veggies that otherwise go to the compost garbage (seeds, stems etc) is that true?

Some things, like the leaves of the cauliflower go to the ponies near us. They love it and my oldest loves to take a little walk and give them the treat every saturday morning.

[joromero]

Veromama, that shakshuka sound lovely, but I can't eat eggs - well I could manage a yolk perhaps! Seeds (as well as eggs) are out on the AIP so I wouldn't add any into your broth, but you could use the stalks and stems - for example from broccoli.

[ccobine]

Nourished Kitchen posted a link to more tips on this topic:
www.takepart.com/photos/food-scraps?cmpid=tp-ptnr-nourishedkitchen

[veromama]

Good point jojomero about the seeds. I was especially thinking about the leftovers from bell peppers, but seeds are indeed not handy during AIP. Still learning
The shakshuka is also very tasty without the eggs, but if you can bear them, I would definitely try it with. I didn't have eggs in forever, so just talking about them makes me hungry....