If you are a member of a CSA or purchasing vegetables from the farmers market, don't let your money go to waste by throwing out those valuable vegetable scraps!
We save our scraps and freeze them to make a vegetable scrap broth that we use to cook our rice and other grains in, as well as for soups, stews, pasta, and more. This adds lots of flavor and nutrition to our meals, and is a great way to save money on broth purchased at the grocery store.
Lately I've been saving scraps from spring vegetables, including asparagus ends, turnips tops and ends, onion skins, radish ends, carrot peels, leftover herbs, sweet potato pieces, leftover greens, and lemon peels. Anytime I have scraps, I throw them into a freezer safe quart size canning jar, write the date on the lid, and put it in the door of my freezer.
Once I have 4-5 of these jars saved up, I will throw the contents of them in a crockpot, fill it with water, add 1 teaspoon of pepper, 2-3 teaspoons of salt, and 1-2 bay leaves. I typically start my broth on low in the evening and let it simmer throughout the night. In the morning, I turn the crockpot off and once the liquid is cool, I either use it in a recipe or I freeze it in a canning jar to use for a later time.
Enjoy!
