“Awww, [grunt that means female that is my permanent mate], mammoth marrow stew again? Haven’t we had that every night this [grunt that means 1/4 the time for the moon to go full twice]?”
“Hey, [grunt that means male recognized by the tribe to be my permanent mate], mammoth isn’t cheap you know? In this cave we use every part of the buffalo!”
“Uhhhh, honey, what’s a buffalo?”
“What’s honey?”
Well, okay, it went more like:
“Why are you making chicken stock? Can’t we just buy it? Isn’t it cheap?”
“Because it’s easy and otherwise we’d just throw away food with some value in it and have to buy something of lower quality to replace it. Hey, mister, in this house we use every part of the buffalo!”
“Hmm, I wonder where we can get a buffalo…..”
So, a few short thoughts on using every part of my buffalos:
- Clean your veggies well before trimming. First remove any truly “bad” parts, i.e. the parts that carry bad flavors like any partly rotten or generally damaged bits. Then pull out your “veggie stock” freezer container, and put your carrot peels, tomato cores, onion skins, wilted cabbage leaves, etc. in it. Place said container in freezer. Pull it out and repeat the next time you prep veggies. Add leftover cooked veggies to your container. When you fill up your container, make a stock.
- Buy your meat with the bones in. Either de-bone prior to cooking, or pull the bones out after cooking. The reduced price-per-pound more than makes up for the weight of the bones. Stick these in your “beef stock,” “chicken stock,” “etc stock” freezer container. Stick this in the freezer, treat as you do your veggie stock freezer container. I use chicken skin the same way I use the bones; they are mostly fat but are packed with chicken flavor. The only difference: keep your raw meat bones separate from your cooked meat bones. Add leftover scrap meat to your cooked meat container.
- Raw meat bones ought to be cooked prior to making a stock. The browning that ensues will enhance flavor and cut back on any potential for food-borne illness. I tend to toss them into a stock pot with a bit of oil, no water, over medium heat, stirring oh, every once in a while, until all the meat remnants are brown.
- Making stock is basically the same for all varieties: add contents of your stock freezer container to a stock pot. Cover barely with water. Lid the pot and simmer for as long as you have time and patience. I like to strain through a colander lined with cheesecloth to ensure that all bits of grit or marrow are not present in the final stock, but a colander will work just fine. Store meat stocks in the fridge overnight so that the fat will solidify at the top and can be easily removed with a spoon. Freeze your stock in portions you are likely to use. Since I only make soups in bulk, I store mine in quart-sized yogurt containers wrapped in aluminum foil.
- Animal fats… should you store or discard? We don’t eat pork in this house, but we love bacon! Bacon is the only pork product that crosses our threshold, partly because I have a semi-religious fear of pork and partly because DH doesn’t like the flavor. We’d substitute beef bacon for pork if it was available in this region, but don’t try to tell us turkey bacon is the same. We know the difference. All that bacon grease could go down the drain and add to water treatment problems, or it can be used in any recipe for hard fats are called for (shortening or butter). I like to drain mine into a small, old, sour cream container and store in the freezer. I use this for making biscuits and gravy on Sunday mornings (Saturdays are out for pork, even bacon). In theory, I could use chicken fat for chicken dumplings or the crust of chicken pot pie, and beef fat for beef dumplings or biscuits served with beef where a beef flavor would be appreciated. In practice, I’m only enterprising enough to make bacon-flavored biscuits and gravy.
- Bread crumbs happen. They are the necessary product of cutting your own specialty breads, store-bought or homemade. Most of us toss these into the trash, but recently I’ve started tossing them into an old pickle jar and tossing the jar into the fridge. They add up slowly, but I don’t use breadcrumbs very often, so I don’t need to buy them anymore.
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