Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Whenever I steam vegies, I always put offcuts and peel into the water under the steamer. Then I strain whats left of the water at the end of the steaming, and add it to a container in the freezer labeled "vegetable stock".

I also have a large plastic box in the freezer to put things like the base of celery, or any other offcuts that are not being steamed. ie peels etc for things about to be roasted or eaten raw [edit - to add when I am steaming]

I've never seen anyone else doing it so I'm claiming at as my own idea (it's not lost on me that in most parts of the world, there is a simmering vat of stuff just like this that sits on the stove always, but I haven't seen it using a small stainless steel steamer and a freezer, so I claim it as an original idea )

Interesting idea BW. If I didn't have chickens I'd probably do the same but the chickens get whatever veggie leftovers they like so I guess I'm growing chicken stock, that and vegetable fertilizer .

That's a bl;;;y good idea now how to convince the better 1/2

Might give that a try, Bull

Nice idea Bull. My mum always used the leftover vegetable water to put on pot plants once it has cooled down as it contains lots of vitamins and minerals


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I freeze vege bits to make stock from too, Bullwinkell - you can do it with bones and meat offcuts too. I can't eat a lot of shop-bought stock etc, so I've had to learn to do it myself.

I hadn't thought of boiling peelings and so on in the steamer water, though, so that's definitely a neat idea you had there! (My husband is usually cooking his sweet corn in the steamer water, so I don't think he'd like me trying it...)

Our freezer draws look like this from the top down...

1. Latest shopping and any fish

2. Previous shopping and any older fish

3. Latest premade meals in ramekins that can do into the oven (eg shepherd's pie), plastic bags with meals(eg bolognese sauce) Things like stacks Burritos in big tupperware tubs. Sometimes both of us have health issues at the same time so we have premade meals on hand, and we also make premade meals for both our sets of parents for the same reason.

4. older meals as above (to be eaten first) (We have good stock rotation policy in our house

5. Stuff for stock (crab shells and other bits, fish heads, and prawn heads make awesome stock when you fry them up in a little oil for say 15 minutes, strain then simmer to reduce.

Bottom draws. Bait, burley (sp?(chum), and stuff for bin day that would stink too much if put into the bin


So, in my freezer there is a gradual downward pressure from newly bought to compost. A bit like life really


All freezers should have a final, under freezer, extra bottom draw that falls into a compost bin.

You can still feed the stuff collected in the sieve to the chickens.

It's a bit of a trade off, depending on their other access to greens.

There is nothing more valuable in the kitchen than real eggs, me thinks.

A friend from Port Pirie gave us some of their famous oranges, and also some of their famous eggs. Real food is amazing. I would gladly pay double what I pay at the supermarket for these eggs. And the oranges are like they are a different fruit.

Apparently having unlimited water, and a perfect understanding of when to water and how much, makes a difference. Who knew?!

The oranges probably wouldnt be viable to farm because I doubt you could actually get what they are worth/cost, but I'd like to see a few chickens roaming around under things like netted almond orchards. I cant help thinking there might be a viable solution to let me buy real eggs with real yokes.

Real stock sells itself

Make soup.

Often I just use it to make whatever sauce I'm making at the time, but if you dont need it, just let it cool for a bit, and add it to a plastic container in the freezer. We use 2 cup plastic tupperware type boxes. Or take away plastic boxes are good.

When we need stock we have almost always steamed some veggies, or we are making a 20L batch of curry or something for the freezer, so having a large container of stock is pretty easy for us to use.

It wouldn't hurt the sweetcorn. It might even be a new food revolution.

Cooking sweetcorn in stock!

Actually the water is probably worth keeping even if you don't put the peelings into it. Even without the peel and offcuts, there is always colour or starch, so there's probably a lot of useful flavour, and if you've ever let it boil dry, you can certainly tell there's more than just water in your water when the thick plume of smoke gushes forth, and that smell fills the air to the shrill tones of your smoke alarm.

Or at least that's how I run my kitchen