Thrifty Thursday

I have a slight obsession with food blogs. My Google Reader is always overflowing with new posts from the 100+ blogs I subscribe to (I was going to count them but I got to 50 and stopped). And those are just food blogs, it doesn't count personal blogs (like MckMama, who is the wonderful mom of Stellan who I've been tweeting about a lot lately) or news feeds and all sorts of other things I like to look at.

Anyway, I was reading a post from Amanda's Cookin' today and she has a weekly blog event called Thrifty Thursday. It got me thinking. We are all trying to save a little money here and there, and for me, grocery shopping is one of the biggest money suckers. I am addicted to fresh and natural ingredients and I have a hard time curbing my obsession with food (hm, sounds familiar?). One thing I never seem to have on hand is chicken stock, and it's in everything! But, I'll buy a can or carton and it will get lost in the back of my fridge. Something else that gets lost in my fridge are herbs. I am always buying parsley or cilantro for some new recipe, but I can never seem to use the whole bunch before it starts to turn. One of the other blogs I read (or maybe a few of them) suggested to put those herbs, along with scraps from other veggies, into a ziplock bag and store it in the freezer. Then, when you have a chicken carcass leftover for dinner, take an afternoon and make your own stock. Freeze it in ice cube trays then put in another baggie. That way, you always have stock on hand.

I keep meaning to do this but just never think about it. Well I was looking for an ingredient for dinner tonight, and saw that my parsley was starting to get a little brown. Aha! Time to freeze it! I also found 3 bags of green onions (apparently I keep buying them when I go to the store without realizing I have them) who's tops were kind of soggy. No problem, I cut off the bad parts and tossed those in the bag too. For dinner tonight we are having green beans, so the ends of those went into the bag as well.

A few other suggestions that I've seen were the tough ends from asparagus, carrot tops, the root end from an onion, etc etc etc. Really any veggie or herb that would otherwise end up in the trash. Just make sure you rescue them from the fridge before they mold or get slimy. But really use whatever leftover produce you have. You're going to strain everything out anyway, so the possibilities are endless! 

Now, I just need to get a rotisserie chicken one of these nights so that I can make the stock!