FRUGAL FRIDAY: In the kitchen

I missed Frugal Friday last week because I was busy with cakes.  Today I made sure to set some time aside for some tips.

We waste so much food here in America that it's just a sin.  There are so many ways we could cut back on our waste and save money at the same time.  Winter is a great time to make homemade soups and homemade bread.  With Thanksgiving just last week, what did you all do with your turkey carcass?  And might I just add...what a strange word carcass is!  If you're like myself and my mother-in-law, you put it in a pot, covered it with water and boiled it to make some great homemade turkey stock!  I don't use recipes for my soup, which makes my sister terribly nervous. HA!  I just don't.  So for you recipe lovers, here's a recipe for Day-After-Thanksgiving-Turkey-Carcass-Soup.    You can also use your ham bone (my favorite!) and chicken carcass.  I'm not particularly fond of using beef bones but some love it.  I just don't enjoy the flavor.  Another thing I like to do for stock just enhances your meat stock or if you're vegetarian, it's great veggie stock.  I wash my vegetables before peeling and save peelings and ends of onions (skin and all),  garlic skins, carrot peel and ends, zucchini ends, celery ends and leaves.  The list really is endless.  As I get little bits of scraps, I stuff them into a Ziploc bag and store it in the freezer until I've got enough to make stock!  Brilliant!

Milk on the verge of the expiration date is not something that ever happens in my house.  Some days, we go through an entire gallon...in one day!  My boys are definitely milk drinkers.  Anyhow, don't throw it away!  Make pudding and have dessert.  Better yet, since I'm a cake baker, I save the scraps of cake from leveling and sculpting and such to make trifles.  Cube the cake and freeze for the perfect time.  My entire family loves trifles and they're so simple.  You can find tons of different combos for these desserts but our basic is layers of cake cubes, pudding in any flavor, bananas, cool whip and repeat.  How easy?! 

Banana's go bad very fast.  If you've got a banana or 2 getting a bit too freckled for your taste, they're probably perfect for bread or muffins.  No time to use it right away?  freeze the entire banana, peel and all!  Make sure that you put them in a bowl to thaw because they do give off a lot of liquid and they will be very mushy...but again, perfect for bread!

That's all for now.  Happy cooking and have a great weekend!