Veggie Peel Stock

As Anita has already pointed out, I don’t like spending money. Let me rephrase – I don’t like spending money on things I can make myself (or buy at a cheaper price). This penny pinching mentality definitely doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy nice things (trust me, the day my loans are paid off, all subsequent lunches will consist of nothing but sushi), but given that I’m currently living off funds from the government (funds that I will have to pay back in three-fold), I see no problem with saving a few bucks whenever possible. Whether I have to spend a few extra minutes shopping around online to make sure I’m getting the best price, or purchase most of my “work clothes” from thrift stores, I feel no shame. In fact, I’m quite proud of how far I can stretch a dollar.

This thriftiness certainly encompasses how I buy groceries, but in no way does it take away from the quality of the food Anita and I eat. It’s true, we don’t buy organic (unless it’s on sale), “fancy ingredients” (unless a specific recipes calls for them), or prepared beverages (between the water coming out of our tap, and our ridiculously large supply of tea, what more could we want?), but that doesn’t change the fact I am more than happy with how well I eat. I can’t believe how often I hear people complain that eating healthy is expensive. Well folks, based on my most recent calculations, Anita and I only spend a total of $120 on groceries a month. Granted, that doesn’t include my weekly chipotle/taco bell trip, or the occasional bowl of soup from the BRB, but averaging about $30 a week on groceries isn’t too bad. How do we do this? We shop at discount grocery stores, we don’t buy any prepared food, we eat mostly vegetarian, and we partake in our local City Fresh. Additionally, when we prepare recipes that call for exotic spices or ingredients, we go to ethnic grocery stores (I shudder whenever I see how much Dave’s Market charges for a little bottle of sesame oil). Again, this ends up adding a little time to each shopping trip, but it’s probably time I’d waste anyway (pinterest, you are my greatest weakness).

In honor of my obsession with getting the best deal, I’m pleased to present you with a “free” recipe (the ingredients are free, that is). I first heard about making soup stock from scraps from a fellow food-obsessed med student (thanks Rachel!), and have been dying to try it ever since. A couple months ago I started saving my cooking scraps and last week I finally had enough to try this out for myself. I mean, what could be better than cooking something where the ingredients cost you nothing?!

Some quick pointers:

• Good vegetables to use – onions, carrots, garlic, celery, parsley, mushrooms, red peppers, leeks, fennel…basically anything you would throw into a normal vegetable stock.
• Make sure to wash all of your vegetables before peeling so your stock doesn’t end up with lots of dirt in it.
• Whenever you’re getting ready to cut up veggies for a dish, pull the gallon bag out of the freezer so you remember to add peels to your stock ingredients rather than your garbage can.
• Don’t worry if your final product isn’t something you would want to eat on it’s own. This is meant to be used in place of water when making soups, rice, etc.

What you need:

• 2 gallon bags of vegetable peels (my bags included LOTS of onion peels, garlic peels, green and red pepper ends, carrot ends, wilted cilantro, celery, shrimp tails – I realize that’s not vegetarian but I had them lying around)
• Enough water to cover vegetable peels
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tsp salt

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