How much vegetable waste do we produce in the kitchen? In a society increasingly attentive to combating pollution and waste, daily activities such as shopping and preparing lunch seem to remain impervious to the desire to reduce unnecessary consumption. After cooking you inevitably find yourself with piles of packaging and mountains of plastic, but also with lots of leftover waste after cleaning the food, especially vegetables.
Yet, stems, peels and leaves do not necessarily have to end up in the waste bin . With a little imagination and an eye for tradition they can become a resource to exploit to reduce waste, save money and enrich your dishes with flavour.
As? Let's see three simple ideas for recovering your vegetable waste.
Vegetable waste: what they are and how to store them
By "waste" we mean all those healthy parts, therefore not rotten or spoiled, of the vegetables which are usually eliminated during cleaning because they are inedible or not very tasty. For example, the hard stems of asparagus, the external ribs of artichokes and fennel, the peels of potatoes and carrots, the leaves of celery, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, the greener and leatherier parts of leeks.
So the next time you find yourself cleaning the vegetables you bought at the supermarket or ordered delivered to your home, after washing them carefully, instead of throwing away the scraps, place them in a container, or wrap them in a cloth, and keep them in the fridge , ready for be used at the appropriate time.
In the blender: pestos, creams and veloutés
Used how? For example, chopping them, cooking them to soften them, blending them with a drizzle of oil and flavoring them to your liking with spices, cheese and dried fruit. You will thus be able to create sauces and pestos to use as condiments on pasta, to accompany a second course or even on their own, spread on a slice of toasted bread.
Or, especially if you have leaves and green parts of vegetables available, you could use them to enrich the taste and composition of purées and soups .
In the pot: the broth
A great classic of the anti-waste tradition prescribes cooking vegetable waste in boiling water to obtain a tasty and nutritious vegetable broth , to be eaten as a first course or kept in the fridge. It is in fact a very useful ingredient in the kitchen, to always keep on hand during the preparation of risottos and legumes, adding it as necessary to make the dish juicier and tastier.
Furthermore, drained vegetables can be reused again, for example by following the next tip.
In the pan: chips and omelettes
If you have carefully peeled potatoes and carrots, but also courgettes, obtaining a pile of long thin peels , after having washed and brushed them carefully you can use them to prepare delicious and crunchy chips . All you need to do is fry them in a pan with oil, flavoring them to taste with your favorite aromas.
And still speaking of frying, you can add vegetable waste, finely chopped and already blanched, to the filling of omelettes and farinata, making them healthier, more colorful and richer in one fell swoop.
And doing the environment and your wallet a favor at the same time.
Do you already have some ideas for reusing vegetable waste? Order fruit and vegetables delivered to your home from our store and you will be able to fully enjoy all the seasonal or exotic vegetables for your cooking ideas. Take advantage of fast delivery directly to your home!