Wait! Before you throw out those food scraps why not turn them into meals and snacks that you can eat? Not only will you be saving money and stretching your food budget, but you’ll also be joining a growing trend.
Turning typical food scraps into edible and sometime gourmet food is on the rise. While many frugal families have been doing this for decades, the practice is becoming more mainstream. Many of the trimmings and scraps that we throw away can be eaten. We just aren’t used to doing so.
For example, a typical recipe for broccoli cheddar soup calls for just the trimmed heads of the broccoli. By chopping and including the spears, I only have to buy half of the amount of broccoli, which saves me money. There is nothing wrong with the stalks, and in soup, you don’t notice the texture of them, which many people don’t like.
Another example, is all of those potato peelings that you are left with when preparing mashed potatoes. The skins are very nutritious. Why not add a little oil and salt and bake them into snacks?
If you want to get a little more adventurous, you can try exotic dishes, such as making pickles out of watermelon rinds (with the tough green skin removed) or throw your corn cobs into a soup (when in doubt, add almost anything to soup).
Research recipes with the scraps that you normally toss, or invent your own new dishes. Make sure to understand what is really edible. Beet, radish and cauliflower leaves can be used in a salad, for example, where as rhubarb leaves and some carrot tops are poisonous.
The next time you are trimming or tossing, take a look at what you have. You just may find a way to use it to feed your family and stretch out your food budget.