vtlty

This is my favorite sustainable hack. I’m much more conscious of my waste than I was a few years ago, and I am constantly trying to figure out ways to reduce my waste, especially food waste.

I started taking food scraps to the local community garden’s compost pile so that my food waste decomposes properly and can be repurposed into nutrient rich, all natural fertilizer. I store all of our food scraps in an old spinach container in our freezer and take it to the pile every time it fills up. When we ate chicken wings though, I couldn’t take those bones to the pile. So I decided to make stock out of them.

Now, I keep the container for food scraps and a bag for stock in the freezer (yes, it’s kind of crowded but it’s worth it). Once my stock bag is full, I dump it into my instant pot, fill it up with water, and pressure cook it at high pressure for 30 minutes to make my own stock. One man’s trash is another man’s food!

This isn’t really a “recipe” since it just depends on what you’re eating over the course of a few weeks, but here is a list of the “adds” and “don’t adds” for your stock bag. If you’re ever uncertain if it goes in the stock or the compost container, think about if it could be yummy in a soup or not. If you’re still uncertain, there’s always Google.

I use stock to make soups, these breakfast tacos, more flavorful rice (like in this bowl); there are so many uses, and I can get creative with it whenever I want.

Have you ever made your own stock? What else do you put in it?