Compost Soup

Okay, not really... but a great frugal way to use those veggie scraps (and you can use meat in this too)!

When we lived back in Oregon we had a huge tree, a big expanse of grass and two constant large size compost. In Singapore I have yet to come up with a way to compost that will fit in our small space and not add to the already large fauna that visit our apartment. So, we thought about the fact that we make homemade soup stock on a weekly basis. Often we would take a whole chicken, or whole veggies and cook them down until they were pretty much mush, throw away the scrap veggies pull off the meat for use in soups and we were happy.

But then we started to think about all those carrot tops, broccoli stems, tomatoes that had gotten a bit to ripe that we just tossed. Weren't these the same vegetables we used in our stock? We often buy whole chickens, and in Singapore they are whole. We trim the necks, the other bits and throw those all away. This is all still good meat, but too difficult to try to eat. What about those bones that come from the steak we ate? Lots of good meat, and until recently no Dog to share it with. Again, off to the trash?

Not anymore. Around 2 years ago we thought we were wasting a lot of otherwise good food. We hate canned stocks *filled with chemicals I can't read let alone pronounce* and love to have stock in the freezer ready for cooking. So this is what we came up with. A large ziplock back and a crock pot. Yup, that's it. The answer to the problem...



Veggie scraps and meat (notice the onion and tomato?)


Big Ziplock bag, into freezer until full.



Pop into crockpot and cook on low all day, add additional spices and veggies or meat as you see fit. Toss veggies into compost (if you cook only veggies) otherwise use veggies and meat scraps as pet treats (what we do) or accept there are only so many ways to save money and toss them!

Results in around a liter or so of homemade fresh tasty soup stock for use in recipes or soup.