Cheese rinds, heels of bread, onion trimmings, celery leaves, ....

[Seafog]

What's in your freezer for stock? Am I the only one saving all the bits?
Sometimes I feel like a weirdo saving all the trimmings, but I use them up with sauces and stocks.
Is it just me?

Use a slow cooker to make stock. Much cheaper than doing it on the hob.

Also potato peelings can make yummy crisps. You just shove them in the oven spread out on a baking tray with olive oil, salt and dried chillis on.

I freeze slices of lemon and limes. I would hate to be caught short when I fancy a G&T.

Other leftovers (meat & veg) just to straight into pots of soup.

YY to frozen sleces of lemon and lime but also grapes.

I save broccoli stalks, cabbage stalks, asparagus ends, cauliflower outer leaves , all for soups...

Yes I'm a bit like this. I tend not to peel veg so there aren't lots of peelings, and rarely have cheese with rind. However I save small quantities of gravy/meat juices in the freezer and add them to casseroles. Also save up broccoli stalks in freezer and use them for broccoli and Stilton soup. There are some loose tomatoes and chillis rattling around in my freezer that were becoming overripe and will be thrown into a chilli con carne in due course. Half a tin of anchovies ditto.

What do people need so much stock for? . I rarely use it.

Yes to bread and cheese ends. Bones, lots of lemons, halved, sliced and quartered. Zest in wax paper, juice in a tub.

I am seriously looking at getting a small freezer just for the thrifty things.

@comedycook soups and casseroles mainly

@Comedycook after a roast chicken, the bones and any freezer scraps go in the pressure cooker with seasoning.
The resulting drained stock makes a great chicken and leek/sweetcorn soup for supper a day or two later. It's just what you do.

I think it's just old fashioned home economics. Instead of cooking from scratch every meal, you use the remnants of a previous meal to make a lunch or light meal without any thought or planning.

There was a time when you had a roast on Sunday, then cottage/shepherd pie the next day with the meat leftovers. You wouldn't have used raw minced meat.

It's just an old fashioned progression, like eating seasonally.

I can see how in the past it made economic sense perhaps... nowadays surely the cost of a stock cube is so small that it is no more expensive than the cost of the energy to make your own.

[quote CorsicaDreaming]@OutlookStalking - no, no bread in stock. It would make it cloudy and gloopy. But old bread can be used to thicken sauces (or final soups), make stuffings, breadcrumbs, etc.

I used to store up old chicken carcasses after roasts in the freezer and when I had a few make chicken stock from them. Never seem to do it at mo though. Freezer is chock full and needs a good sorting out. [/quote]
I always have bread in the freezer,it’s where it lives in my house, I save the bread crusts, but I cut them into crouton size first then fry them in a bit of oil in a frying pan to serve with soup.

Homemade stock tastes so much nicer, you can season as you like, reduce it as much as you want, it's great
I use mine for cooking rice, in stews, gravies, sauces, soups, stir fries...

If I was just about the money, I'd not bother, but when you see how much it effects the end results, it's worth it

I use broccoli stalks finely diced in a vegetable egg fried rice. Made with whatever other odd bits of veg need using up

Minestrone soup also a favourite for random bits of veg, Parmesan rind and last bit of pesto.

Stale bread gets blitzed into crumbs, frozen, then used for schnitzel.

No, @Comedycook . It's the difference between a nice meal, and some bland mush. I would never make a chicken soup from a stock cube. It's just totally different.

@2catsandhappy, I have a small under-counter freezer for (as the dcs call it) “mum’s unidentified freezer stuff”.

I have no lemons/lime juice/zest/slices, so will remedy that!

3 whole drawers! of egg white, breadcrumbs, stock veg, chillies, whole bananas (for banana bread muffins), chunked peeled banana for smoothies and instant ice-cream whizzed up with frozen berries, yogurt and a bit of honey.
Frozen single/double portions of home-made brownies, Bakewell tart, friends, muffins etc - saves us eating a whole batch in one go, and a quick treat pudding.
Homegrown raw berries, unsweetened apple purée and stewed fruit. Often end up putting damsons and cherry plums into gin.
Lots of Parmesan rinds. Couple of bags of grated cheese. Any over-ripe rinded cheese that was threatening to overtake fridge.
Lots of herbs incl kaffir lime and curry leaves. Bunches of parsley to add to stock as they are.
Oh, and bones for stock too.
Once I’ve made the stock (mostly chicken but some beef), I reduce it right down and freeze in silicone ice cube trays. Then takes up very little room compared to large tubs of stock. Brilliant after sautéing meat/chicken/liver/mushrooms - deglaze pan with a drop of wine/vinegar, add frozen stock cube and a knob of butter - makes the most delicious instant sauce. Also add into thick bechamel to make a really quick and tasty pie filling - I freeze bechamel too. Obviously just add hot water to the cube if you want standard stock.
Then a standard freezer for things the dcs can identify, incl lots of home-cooked ready meals . I learnt home economics from my grans. My mum only ever used a freezer for beige breadcrumbed food to put in the oven , and she detests cooking.

Ok “friands”, not “friends”…

Most of the scraps either go to the chickens or get composted to go on the veggie patch the following year.
I do have lots of small pots of gravy though, and I found some anchovies yesterday which were leftovers from a tin. They make really nice seasoning for lamb.
Any veg which I don’t think we will use before it goes soft gets chopped, flat frozen then bagged up.

I live in an apartment, but clearly I need a guinea pig, and a few chooks!

There are also many more health benefits from home made bone broth; if you either pressure cook or slow cook the collagen from the bones is released, and it also does wonders for gut health.

Once you’ve made a really good stock-the kind that sets like jelly in your fridge-it doesn’t compare with a stock cube. I use a really good bouillon powder as multi purpose stock, and this is good in lots of things, but a clear chicken soup made from bone broth is on another level

I agree about bone broth, especially after childbirth/surgery/convalescence

@Comedycook

What do people need so much stock for? . I rarely use it.

Gravy or soup.

Chicken noodle soup is quick and cheap. You can jazz it up buying Singapore noodles. Add sweetcorn and little prawns, for example. Poach an egg in it, perhaps.

An easy, tasty, cheap meal.

Chicken thighs (skin on, bone in) are £2.20 per kg as opposed to £6+ for skinless chicken breasts. I buy 2/3 kg at a time and spend 10 mins prepping it for the freezer (use kitchen scissors and it’s a doddle; pull the skin free and snip it off, then snip round the bone to remove it)

This gives me diced thigh meat for curries etc, and I throw the bones in the freezer until I have a good stash, then make bone broth (with the veggie scraps I save each time I peel an onion or carrot or chop the ends off celery stalks. This effectively makes ‘free’ stock, aside from a few peppercorns, a splash of vinegar and bay leaf).

Chicken bone broth was excellent when my dog had an upset tummy; sorted him out in no time. I cooked a little plain white rice in the broth and it really helped when he needed to eat but had a dodgy tum. I guess the effect would be the same on humans!

I prefer the thighs to breast too. Another thing that's not only cheaper but nicer.

This thread has made me realise how little food scraps I have, we always have skin on potatoes, use the heels of the bread, don’t peel carrots, and generally use chicken breasts so no wastage. I think at most I maybe have the occasional broccoli stalk, so I don’t give myself a hard time if I bin that!