Maximize Food at Mealtime

The following Everyday Savings Tip comes from, Stephanie:

I hate to waste food. I have come up with a system when I am cleaning up meals to use as much as possible. Two things that make a difference:

When you are finished cutting vegetables for salads and meals there are always scraps left over. This includes the tops/bottoms of celery, carrots, squash, onions, etc. Instead of throwing these things into the trash or compost pile, I freeze them in a bag labeled “for broth”.  When the bag is full I can make chicken, beef or just vegetable stock out of them.

The other thing I have incorporated is to keep all leftovers. If there is only a spoonful and not enough for one meal, then I add it to a container in the freezer labeled “For Soup”.

This gets filled with a variety of things like chicken, veggies and pasta… anything goes. When that container is full, or whenever I make a soup in my crockpot I add the contents of the container. It doesn't negatively effect the taste of soups/stews because you season it anyway.

I never make the same thing twice but it all turns out good and the family doesn't even realize that some of the stuff is left over!

How do you save money on food expenses?
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