Yesterday while making chicken for our dinner, I realized how much our daily habits have changed in trying to tread more gently and use up what we have. Building responsibility with all resources, no matter how small, is important to treading more gently and consciously.
So, the chicken. I cleaned out the cavity, and the liver got cooked up for our geratric Dachschund, who becomes amazingly spry and puppy-like during dinner prep. The other pieces in the cavity went into a bag in our freezer, waiting to be made into stock. As I cleaned the carrots, the peels and ends went into another bag for stock, and into the freezer. Periodically, I throw a chicken carcass or two and several handfuls of vegetables scraps into the slow cooker, cover with water, and a day later have stock.
A couple small potatoes had gone bad (quickly, as I was just in the potato bag a couple days ago), so those went into the compost bin on the counter. The compost bin is actually a gallon milk jug with the handle intact but the top cut off. We use this until it gets nasty, then we recycle it and start with another. The garlic peelings also went into the compost bin.
The carcass and any bones left from dinner went into the stock bag. The leftover chicken went into the fridge and will appear again this week in soup.
In short, nothing from yesterday’s meal went into the trash. It all found another use after our meal.
I do the same “stock-piling” with all of the carrot/onion/celery trimmings & chicken carcasses. WHY have I never thought of using a slow cooker? Duh.
Hi, Lindsay: I started making stock in the slow cooker after reading this blog post. It was always very onerous to make stock, and I tend toward the lazy side, so this was right up my alley:
http://www.nourishingdays.com/2009/02/make-chicken-stock-in-the-crock-pot/
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