The Prudent Pantry: Waste Not, Want Not

My family doesn't have disposable income, so I cook most of our meals. Keeping the pantry well-stocked with staples and avoiding throwing away anything I can re-use helps me to cut down on last-minute purchases and impulse buys. I'll share a few of my tricks over the next few weeks.

Here are two:

Stock

I never buy stock for cooking, but I make lots of soups and risottos. How? I make my own stock with leftovers. Whenever we roast a bird, like Thanksgiving turkey or a roast chicken, I save as much of the carcass as I can (I draw the line at stealing bones from guests' plates...) and store it in the freezer. I also save onion and garlic skins and any other vegetable detritus that works for soup--carrot skins and tops, leeks, fennel. When the freezer is overflowing, I take out my two big stock pots and fill one with vegetable matter and the other with fowl bones and whatever vegetables don't fit in the first pot (I make sure to at least include some onion for flavor). Cover with water and simmer for one to four hours, then strain once cool. I store the liquid in the freezer, either by pouring it directly into freezer bags in two-cup portions or by freezing it in ice cube trays and transferring to freezer bags. It really comes in handy!

Coffee

My husband and I love coffee. I've given up the caffeinated variety because my nursing baby can't sleep if I drink it, but I love the flavor and ritual too much to give it up altogether. So I drink decaf, and my lovely husband drinks it too so we can make just one pot to share. Still, sometimes we end up with a partial pot of coffee. Maybe he didn't have time for a cup before work, or maybe one of us was up early and we wound up making a second pot. Maybe I had a rough afternoon and needed the minute amount of caffeine that's present in decaf. Whatever the reason, we had a dilemma. What to do with the leftovers? It's easy to just dump them, but what a waste!

So I keep a 32-ounce mason jar in my refrigerator. Whenever there is extra coffee, I dump it into the jar. If I need an afternoon cup, I get it from the jar and microwave it. And on hot days, I've got ready-made iced coffee. Just pour and sip.

Got any tips of your own? I'd love to hear them.

Annika Barranti is a writer living in Los Angeles and blogging at Through the Looking Glass. She and her husband are raising two children and trying to eat well on a tiny budget.