Prepping fruits and vegetables often means tossing out bits that are perfectly edible, if a little unfamiliar on the plate. A recent article in the New York Times offered inspiring uses for compost-bound fruit and vegetable trimmings like cauliflower leaves, radish tops, and cherry pits.
The article includes recommendations from co-op managers and farmers on how to use up the extra bits that you might normally throw out. I'm usually pretty good about using up trimmings like broccoli stalks, radish tops and beet greens, but I never would have thought to make celery salt with celery leaves, or to deep-fry starchy potato peels and serve them sprinkled with salt and paprika.
If you are looking for a little inspiration on how to reduce edible waste in your kitchen, this is a must-read.
• Check it out: That’s Not Trash, That’s Dinner at The New York Times
How do you make use of fruit or vegetable trimmings?
More on Using Kitchen Scraps:
• 5 Good Uses For Your Apple Peels
• 5 Good Uses for Your Citrus Peels
• Don't Toss Those! Pickled Rainbow Chard Stems
• 7 Ways To Use Juicer Pulp
• Don't Toss Those Radish Greens!
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Parsley stems, green onion tops, carrot and celery bits, asparagus bottoms and the occasional root vegetable bit all go into a bag that lives in the freezer, awaiting enough chicken bones to make stock.
I keep a tub of stock-appropriate vegetable cuttings in my freezer and make stock when it gets full--this applies to things like onion skins and ends, celery leaves, herb stalks, etc. I find it much easier than actually making something with each castoff. It's also a very easy way to avoid throwing away that last green onion or whatever that you just never got around to using before it started to look a little bit wilty.
Fruit stuff just gets composted.
i've been saving up chicken scraps in the freezer for stock but never thought to do the same with veg.
Excellent idea, thank you both!!
wait a minute, i just read that article and they suggest steeping tomato leaves in soups and tomato sauces.
i thought tomato leaves/stems were highly poisonous!!
I definitely do the veggie-scraps-into-stock thing, but I just had to mention that Bryan Terry's
Whoops! Got cut off; I was saying that Bryant Terry's Pickled Watermelon Rind is another really tasty way to use food scraps.
My family has been eating watermelon peels for as long as I can remember. You know that white part between the red and the green skin? My mom just trims the red part out and peel the green part. What's remaining is crunchy like cucumber when its raw and soft and sweet when it's cooked. We love to put it in soup.
We also save corn cobs after we cut the kernels off. The cobs bring incredible flavor and sweetness to soups and stocks.
My husband boils pineapple peels with mate to make pineapple tea.
I've heard it's also good with lemongrass and/or ginger.
Like cedargr0, I save my veg scraps in a bag in the freezer for soup.
@dezine, thanks for the tip about corn cobs!
@jess13
After looking around a bit on the internet, the tomato leaves=poison thing seems to be a bit of an old wives tale, sort of like absinthe=insanity.
Regarding beet greens, they're the reason I buy fresh beets! Much better than spinach and you have the beet as well.