how do you use it all up?

[annabella1]

I was making cranberry juice today and was thinking about how I try to use everything when I make something. Like after I cook the cranberries and put them through the foley food mill for the juice. I put the leftover peel and pulp in the dehydrator sweetened with a little xylitol to make fruit leather. In the fall when watermelon is cheap I buy extra and what I don't eat of the flesh I juice and freeze or dehydrate for future use. It makes a great cotton candy like treat when dehydrated. I use the watermelon rinds to make "rattlesnake" vinegar and watermelon pickle relish. Watermelon seeds (believe it or not) are good roasted and salted as a treat.
What do you "use up" completely?

[homesteadingnky]

I'll have to think about your question before I answer but what exactly is "rattlesnake" vinegar?

Your question has me asking just how wasteful are we really. I eat an orange and a banana most everyday. I feed the banana peeling either to my rabbits, my rose bushes, or the compost bin. Obviously it makes my rabbit food go a little farther. I also discovered last year that they love tomatoes. So if I have some extra or some that have split bad they go to the rabbits.

I still want to know what I can do with the orange peel. We hope to get a food dehydrater soon so that we can make other things go farther as well.

Great question. I look forward to learning more ideas as others post!

Homesteading Dad

[WileyCoyote]

Orange peel? Are you mad? ;D I dry it and grate it and add it to everything! Cakes, cookies (especially sugar cookies!) sprinkle it on green beans, put it into the breading for chicken, barbecue sauce, etc etc... tart and tangy and a little extra zip!

[homesteadingnky]

Really? ??? I just noticed that it's one of the ingredients in a seasoning I have but I never knew it. :-/

My folks didn't eat many oranges but I eat them all the time now. And to think, I've been wasting it all this time. But proves my point exactly, we are a wasteful society and I want to change that, at least where my family is concerned.

Thanks for the info. By the way, when you say you dry it exactly how do you do that? ???

Homesteading Dad

[WileyCoyote]

Well, I have a dehydrator, but I can dry the cleaned pieces on pans in the oven on low, or in a gas oven (I miss my gas oven!!! :'( :'( :'( ) with just the pilot light lit. You can even dry them hanging in your kitchen if it is warm and dry. I live in a very humid area, otherwise I'd hang the pieces outside (string em with a needle and thread knotted under each one so they don't slide down). Even if they get a little brown and start to crisp on the edges, that makes for an interesting flavor. I've heard that orange peel is a natural bug repellant, too, but I've never tried it. I do occasionally stick whole cloves in the fresh peels for air fresheners while they dry. When we buy oranges, we buy them on sale and always get a lot all at once, so we have lots of peels. The dried ones are used in potpourri, especially Christmas potpourri, too.

[flatwater]

I will buy a jar of pickles and when the pickles are gone I use the brine to store some hard boiled eggs in for about a month or longer.Yum Yum and my wife and I will make a lot of soup then freeze whats left over and with some sour cream it always tasts better the second time around. A good roast gets half cut up for steaks and the other half makes a good pot roast. We love our left overs.
Flatwater

[annabella1]

"Rattlesnake" vinegar is really watermelon rind vinegar It gets it's name from the Georgia diamondback watermelon. Which is named that because the pattern on the rind looks like the diamondback rattler's diamond pattern.
How to make it:
Scrape the juice out of the watermelon rind, or do as I do and peel the hard skin off the rind and put it through a vegetable juicer. Place the juice in a glass jug add 1/4 cup rattlesnake vinegar from a previous batch or 1/4 cup raw apple cider vinegar (available at health food stores) or a large Tablespoon of "mother of vinegar" in each jug. Put cheesecloth over the opening held on with a rubber band. you want it to breathe but not get bugs in it. Set it in the sun for a month or two, it will taste terrible until it turns into vinegar, you will know its ready because it will be well vinegary. It is usually stronger than store bought vinegar and it will have "mother of vinegar" in it. You can strain out the mother and add water till it is as diluted as you want it and use it however you use regular vinegar.

[annabella1]

Orange oil from orange peels is a great disinfectant and cleaner and everything smells like orange. I put a how to on distilling with a primitive still on another thread I'll see if I can find it.
Here's the link:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/forum/yabb/forum.pl?board=flo-medicinal-wild;action=display;num=1202617312;start=5#5
Scroll down to my post

[GoodDaughter]

When I cook meat, there are always leftovers that become other main dishes. For example grilled chicken or beef leftovers become enchiladas or tacos.

And I admit my soup sometimes turns into some other kind of soup. I had leftover chicken noodle soup so I thickened what was left with a little cornstarch, added some canned biscuits and made chicken and dumplings. Leftover vegetable soup can be made into beef (or venison) and barley soup by adding the beef/venison, barley, and some beef stock or buillon. Stale bread becomes bread pudding, a 1/2 cup of rice can become rice pudding or add some of the grilled meat and a few other things to make fried rice.

I can't afford to waste any food at all these days. Sometimes when I have a few things in the refrigerator that I need to do something with before it goes bad, I'll think about what could be made with it, and then go ahead and make it and freeze it.

Sometimes there will be a bit of leftovers that just aren't good recycled into something else, like gummy cooked spaghetti or egg noodles, or cement-like oatmeal. These things I unashamedly feed to the chickens.

Coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells, banana and citrus peels all go to the compost (or more likely because I am lazy I just throw them out on the garden or under some roses) and potato and carrot peels get mocrowaved till soft for the chickens.

Chickens love green plant material like pea vines that are through producing, kale and broccoli plants that have had their final harvest, and woody radishes or beets. My Sugar Snap peas are about finished for the year and I'll pull them and give to the chickens, they love them. It makes more sense to me to feed these as opposed to composting them, helps cut down on the boughten feed.

I have yet to turn clabbered milk into cheese, but I understand some people do it.

[anna]

When I roast a whole chicken for the 2 of us -- meal 1 roast chicken, meal 2 chicken salad, meal 3 boil what's left, pick off and make chicken vegetable soup or chicken & noodles which in turn makes enough for 2 or 3 meals. Or meal 2 might be a chicken rice casserole that makes about 6 meals for the 2 of us and freezes well.

[flatwater]

Speaking of chicken , on fried chicken I save the grease , add a little of it to cream of mushroom soup a little sour cream and chopped up leftover chicken then you have some fine tasting chicken gravy for the left over mashed potatoes.
Flatwater

[vargthewanderer]

Left over grease can also be saved up, converted to biodiesel and dumped into the tractor/truck. It's a free gallon of gas, why pass it up?

[aprilconnett]

I whizzed leftover watermelon into juice for jelly one year. It was a nice taste of summer in the middle of winter. I also pickled the rind for Christmas gifts to the in-laws. I have toasted pumpkin seeds before, but never watermelon. Do you reckon that cantaloupe seeds would be just as tasty? Hmmm.

Of course, any kitchen leftovers that are not meats go into the compost pile. All meat bones go into the stock pot for broth. Then that gets canned or frozen.

april

[flatwater]

I whizzed leftover watermelon once. I hate having to get up in the middle of the night but I guess that comes with old age. :o :o ;D ;D ;D
Flatwater

[annabella1]

HA HA HA HA HE HE HA HA HAAAAA

[theresehirko]

All vegetable peelings go into a plastic bag in the freezer. I wash whatever I'm peeling so the peelings are clean. Then when I have two or three full bags, I make stock. I also save carcasses the same way. Since almost everything has to be homemade in our house because we keep kosher, very little goes to waste. Milk that's close to its expiration date (rare in our house) gets put into something baked. We don't fry, but I do make pan sauteed fish cakes for Friday night and I save the oil after I've strained it. We compost peelings that I can't use for soup stock. I think we have maybe one bag of garbage a week because nothing gets thrown out. Everything is recycled in our house.

[MooseToo]

what was that old joke about using all of the pig except for the squeal ?

[theresehirko]

A pig and its squeal is the one thing we don't have in the house-also shellfish. My dad told me a story about my grandpa getting paid with a pig for some legal work during the Depression. They put it in the backyard since Jews don't eat pork. A neighbor finally exchanged some of her chickens for it. Jews can eat chicken. ;D

[Jamie]

I would love a recipe for water melon jelly! Would you care to share?

Thanks!
Jamie

[aprilconnett]

I didn't do anything spectacular. I just followed the directions on the insert of the Sure-Jel pack. I made sure I had 4 cups of liquid. ( I don't mind pulpy jelly. I guess it is more in the way of preserves?) Anyway, I just heated up the 4 cups of liquid and added the sugar and Sure-Jel, and put into jars.

[Dorie]

my grandma always made candy from grapefruit and orange peel. she'd slice it, then cook it a bit in sugar, a final little roll in sugar topped it off. I loved the orange, but will admit the grapefruit was a little too strong for me. I also use turkey and chicken to the max. 1st dinner the usual fixens, then a meal into the freezer that way, small pieces for soups or stews, boil the carcass for stock. by the time I'm done with it, there isn't a racoon around that wants it from my trash. lol

[aprilconnett]

posted in recipes, but some fol;s might see it here and not there . . .

A. Could I use the same method and recipe for watermelon rind pickles to make CANTALOUPE rind pickles?

B. Can I toast the seeds of the cantaloupe just like I would from pumpkin?

tia

[Funkhouser]

To the person who was looking for a way to make watermelon jelly...

Blend up enough watermelon (take the seeds out first) to make about 2 cups of puree.

Add about 3 1/2 cups of sugar and about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and bring it to a rolling boil. Then you add 1/2 a 6 oz. package of LIQUID pectin (I can never get the powdered stuff to do right...if you can, then more power to you) ;)

Bring it back to a rolling boil, and boil it hard for just a minute, stirring the whole time. After the minute is up, take it off the heat, skim off the foam and ladle it into four clean, hot 1/2 pint jars. These usually will seal themselves just sitting on the counter-top, but if any of them fail to *pop*, just put them in the fridge and they'll keep like anything else.

[pathwayholding]

I finally "whizzed" enough watermelon rind to start a batch of your rattlesnake vinegar. It's sitting in my sunroom looking quite scary right now. Is it normal for it to separate into 3 layers? The rind in mine has separated itself into two layers and the mother has made another layer.

path

[aprilconnett]

How do you get a vinegar "mother?"

[JENNIFER_IN_AL]

After you make stock with the bones/carcass you COULD make dog food. * *

Hey, its FRUGAL ;)

The recipe I saw cooked the bones untill they were soft enough to mash up.

[pathwayholding]

I bought my vinegar "mother". Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar has the mother in it. Most grocery stores carry Braggs ACV. I've also purchased it in a couple health food stores.

path

[aprilconnett]

Thanks!! I will look for that brand. *I have another question for ya'll. *I posted in preserving, but I'm hoping if I double post, more people will see and I will have a better chance of getting an answer.

Whole foods had their corn on sale 6/$2.00. *Since I don't know how well mine will produce, I bought a few ears. *In the interest of "using it all up" I am drying the silks for use in soap and I want to make corn syrup to can. *So far, the only "recipe" I have found on the 'net says to put two cups of brown sugar for every cup of liquid from boiling the dried cobs. *This doesn't seem quite right . . . *Can ya'll help me?
* * I also know that the 'net says to make it from corn starch, but I was sure that I saw somewhere (can't find it now) That one could make corn syrup from boiling the cobs after cutting off the kernels.

[aprilconnett]

Annabella1,
Does it have to be a GLASS jug, or will plastic work?

[annabella1]

Plastic will work but make sure it is food grade and really clean. The problem with plastic is it is so much harder to get as clean as you can get glass. And yes it does look scary while it is fermenting, I usually just try to forget about it for a month to a month and a half and then start taste testing. It does need to breathe while it is fermenting so don't seal it up just put cloth over the top with a rubber band.

[aprilconnett]

I have some plastic one gallon containers from a restaurant that mayo came in. would that work?

[annabella1]

They should work, but make sure they are completely clean and sterilized, and don't put lids on, just cloth held on with rubber bands. The vinegar needs to breathe to form properly.

[aprilconnett]

I found some ACV at Harris Teeter that has a mother in it. $$ is too tight now, but hubby promised I could get it on pay day. Will I be able to can with my home-made vinegar? Sorry to ask so many questions, but I am extremely interested, but a little slow sometimes. ;)

Thanks!

[EarthMother]

Leftover mashed potatoes can be made into potato salad or potato cakes.
Moma always used clabbered milk in baking instead of buttermilk. Now that was real dairy milk from the farm. Grocery store milk tends to have a bitter taste after turning. Probably processing causes it, but the dogs and pigs don't mind it.
As for fried chicken grease it becomes milk gravy for the spuds or biscuits. If you have too much grease for gravy, pour off the top part and save the grease with the flour and other chicken drippings to make the roux. M-m-m real tasty.

[aprilconnett]

I always use my sour milk for baking.

[Funkhouser]

Our milk for drinking doesn't last long enough to sour :)

Our boy loves milk about as much as his father! ;D

[Cil]

.
clabbered milk .


Translation, please. I've heard of it, but don't know what it is.

[jan_in_georgia]

Around here, we put all veggie waste through the bunny if she will eat it. If not, straight to the compost bin (with the bunny waste).

For clothing, when it's too far gone, cut off buttons, etc. and use to make quilts for the bed.

[annabella1]

clabbered milk is just a term for unpastuerized milk that has naturally soured and thickened. It's cottage cheese before the whey is drained off.