from the kitchen to the book shelf, easing the waste

Before even lifting my spoon, the briny steam filled my nostrils with the most exotic of expectations. The moment the broth slipped over my lips, I could have been in the back streets of Thailand. The drama really unfolded with each successive spoonful. How on earth was it that I was able to create this exotic soup? The bone broth surely is the secret to flavour that transports me from my kitchen to a home fire somewhere in Thailand.

Although I’ve made homemade soups my entire life, ever since acquiring an Instant Pot pressure cooker, I’ve been making a lot of bone broth. When I do a batch in the pressure cooker, it’s too much to use up for the two of us so I’ve been using half to make a couple soups and I freeze the other half portion. The problem arises from how I’ve been freezing the extra. After the broth cools and I’m dividing it up, the portion to be frozen has been going into a zip-loc bag. It doesn’t use a lot of room in the freezer but oh does it pain me to use unnecessary plastic. I finally got smart and did like I have been doing with other leftovers — I’m storing in glass. First I checked to find out if mason jars can be frozen and, as I suspected, they are fine to be frozen, though there are a few easy tips for success.

As with any glass, when it’s frozen, it does become much more fragile so care must be taken how it’s stored in the freezer and how it’s handled when taking it out of the freezer to thaw. The trick to freezing liquids in a mason jar is simply not to overfill the jar. If the jar has shoulders (that slope at the top), only fill to about an inch-and-a-half below that point. Even jars that are straight sided should not be filled too high. I freeze my broth without the lid on until it’s completely frozen. I check it the next day and if it’s solid (there should be a little mini volcano or bump that erupted at the top), I lightly screw the top on and it’s great until I need it.

I was reading another blog and Dianne wrote something that had me nodding in agreement. She relayed how she grew up with the “finish what you start” school of thought. I too was taught that by a parent who grew up during the Depression. Waste was simply not tolerated; in fact, there was not enough excess to even allow for waste. That finish-what-you-start for me also applied to meals, books, and any food that came into the home or was grown in the garden. It was also the reason why I was one of those people with the mindset and lived a ‘green’ lifestyle long before it became any kind of a movement. Waste not, want not. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

For several years I wrote a weekly environmental column, Everyday Earth Wise, focusing on what we can all do in our own homes to reduce waste and to live sustainably. But, like Dianne, I too have an exception I now make to that finish-what-you-start mentality. It applies to books. If I begin reading a book that I’m not enjoying or not appreciating, I abandon it. Life is too short, especially when there are so many good books waiting to be read. And, of course, I now set my books free for someone else to read.

Are there ways you reduce your use of plastic or stories about finish-what-you-start in your home, now or when you were growing up?