Learning to Cook Like a Witch: Using the Scraps
Cooking can create a lot of waste. From peels and rinds to bones and leaves, people throw away quite a lot of scraps in the kitchen. And witches, as you may know, are experts in the art of the cunning use of whatever weâve got around.
As a witch who spends a lot of time in the kitchen, Iâve had ample opportunities to get creative in my cooking craft. It helps that I grew up in a household defined by scarcity: not our own, by the time I was conscious enough to remember, but my parentsâ poverty. It colored the way I learned to cook, using everything I possibly could, making enough to last, preserving what I didnât immediately use, and creatively reusing leftovers and scraps.
There are some topics I wonât necessarily cover here. Composting is an option, but there are some bits of food scrap that donât need to be composted â they can be saved and repurposed for all sorts of things, magic and mundane. Likewise, recycling, buying sustainably, and growing your own food when you can are all great options for reducing household waste in the kitchen.
For the purposes of this post, I want to focus specifically on food scraps. This is an organized list of kitchen scraps that Iâve used in a variety of other dishes and projects. Iâm focusing primarily on food waste, not so much on packaging (such as reusing egg cartons, milk containers, boxes, and so forth).
Freeze leftover vegetable scraps to make stock. This is a fairly common bit of advice â save bits of leftover vegetables to make a vegetable stock or another kind of stock. Itâs good advice! I keep a bag in my freezer that I put vegetable scraps in to save until Iâm ready to make a new batch of stock. Not all veggies should be saved like this and used for stock! Some make stock bitter or otherwise unpleasant-tasting. Personally, I tend to freeze these for stock:
- The skins, ends, and leftover cuts of onions (just be wary of the skins; too much will make your broth bitter)
- The ends of celery (not the leaves â theyâre bitter!)
- Corn cobs
- Garlic skins, ends, tiny cloves that arenât useful otherwise, and sprouted cloves
- The ends of carrots (also not the leaves)
- The ends of leeks
- Pepper tops/bottoms (not the seeds)
I would recommend against putting things like potatoes, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and leafy greens in there. Potatoes donât add flavor, sprouts and cabbage make the whole thing taste like those foods, and leafy greens end up bitter. If something has a strong, distinctive flavor (beets, sprouts), I wouldnât add it to my freezer bag.
These scraps often form the veggie portion of my Sick-Be-Gone Chicken Broth spell recipe!
Regrow leeks, green onions, and celery. Pop these in a bit of water and watch them grow back! Itâs a fun experiment, and youâll never have to buy them again.
Plant sprouted garlic. Aside from the fact that you can still cook and eat garlic thatâs sprouted, you can plant a sprouted clove in a pot. Care for it well enough, and youâll end up with a full head of garlic from that one clove!
Fry potato peels. Anytime I make mashed potatoes or peel potatoes for something, I always save the peels. Give them a thorough rinse and shallow-fry them in oil, turning them over until theyâre golden and crispy. Toss them in a bit of salt and pepper while theyâre still hot, and youâve got tasty chips to snack on while you cook the rest of your meal! No need to cover them in more oil or anything â the heat will cause the salt to stick right to them.
Save leaves for pesto. Yum, yum, yum. Pesto isnât just all about basil, you know. Save the leaves from carrots, beets, radishes, and even celery to grind up alongside basil, garlic, salt, and lemon juice for a delicious pesto recipe.
Save citrus peels. Peels from oranges, lemons, grapefruits, and other citrus fruits have a multitude of uses. Candy them for a sweet treat, dry them to add to potpourri or incense, or save them to put into a simmer pot for bright, sunny energy.
Juice the whole fruit. Again, thinking mostly about citrus fruits, when you need the zest from something but not the rest, donât just throw away the fruit. Squeeze out all the juice you can. Even if you donât need it right now, you can freeze it to use later in simmer pots, fruity waters, or anything else that needs a touch of juice.
Turn extra fruit and berries into jam or syrup. If youâve got berries and fruit that are about to go off, or maybe the ends of strawberries, donât toss them! Look up recipes for jam of the specific fruit youâve got or make an infused syrup. Syrups in particular can be used for cocktails, teas, and desserts for an extra magical kick.
Pickle watermelon rinds. Thatâs right. Pickle those suckers. Theyâre so tasty. Iâve seen people make kimchi with watermelon rinds, too, though Iâve never tried it myself!
Save seeds for abundance work. Seeds in general are great for spells geared toward long-term success, new beginnings, and â when there are a lot of them â wealth. Different fruit seeds have properties that tend to correspond with the fruit they come from, so consider their potential purposes before you just toss them! (Note also that some fruit seeds are toxic; these would be suitable for baneful workings.)
Keep cherry stems for love magic. Have you ever done that thing where you tie a cherry stem with your tongue? If Iâm eating cherries, I like to save some of the stems for love workings. Tie them into little knots like you might with string while envisioning ensnaring the love youâre looking for. I wouldnât do this with a particular person in mind; binding someone to you is almost never a good idea. Iâve used it to attract specific qualities in a person of romantic interest: attentiveness, humor, kindness, and so forth.
Use pits to represent blockages, barriers, and problems. I most often use them in baneful workings, typically jammed into a poppetâs mouth or throat to keep someone from talking shit. It could also represent a sense of dread in that way â a pit in the stomach, uneasy and nauseating. But you could also use them in the sense of removal, ritualistically removing the pit or problem from a given situation.
Freeze or dry extra fresh herbs. Different drying techniques are ideal for specific herbs. Iâd suggest looking up recommended methods before sticking anything in the microwave. If youâd like to freeze your herbs instead, I typically will lay them on a damp paper towel, wrap them up, place them into a freezer-safe bag, and then put them in the freezer. Most herbs will keep for a couple months this way. When you want to use them, pull them out and let them defrost right on the counter.
Make pesto. Again, pesto isnât just basil! Experiment with tossing in different scraps of herbs to find out what combination you like best.
Reuse steeped tea. Particularly when I use loose herbal tea, I like to lay out the used tea to dry out. It can be burned similarly to loose incense, though the scent may be somewhat weaker than with herbs that are fresher or unused. I find that itâs fine, since Iâm sensitive to smells anyways.
Toss extra herbs into your stock freezer bag. Just like with vegetables, extra herbs make welcome additions to a scrap stock pot. I always make a point to save sage, thyme, marjoram, and ginger. You can add just about anything to a stock pot, but be aware of the flavors youâre adding. Not all herbs will match with all dishes.
Dry and crush empty egg shells. This is one most witches will know! I use crushed egg shells for protection magic most often: sprinkled at a doorstep mixed with other herbs, added to jars, and spread around spell candles.
Save shrimp, crab, and lobster shells. Theyâre a goldmine of flavor. Toss them into water with veggies and herbs, and youâve got a delicious, easy shellfish stock. Use it to make fishy soups and chowders that much richer.
Donât discard roasted chicken remains. Use them for stock, just like the shells. I like to get rotisserie chickens on occasion since theyâre ready-made and very tasty. Once all the meat has been stripped off the bones, simmer the entire carcass with â you guessed it â veggies and herbs for a tasty chicken stock.
Reuse bacon grease for frying. After cooking bacon, donât throw away the grease right away. Melt it over low heat, strain the bits of bacon out, and pour it into a jar to put in the fridge. You can use it to fry all sorts of things, but my favorite thing is brussels sprouts. They pick up the delicious, salty, bacony flavor from all that rendered bacon fat. So good.
Use stale bread for croutons or bread crumbs. When I reach the stale end of a loaf of bread, as long as it isnât moldy, I like to tear it into pieces and toss it into the oven for a little while. Let it cool and then pulse it in a food processor, and Iâve got delicious bread crumbs! Or, cut it a little more neatly, toss it in oil and seasonings, and then bake, and now Iâve got homemade croutons for salads. You can really hone your herbs for both of these, tuning them to be perfect for whatever spell needs you have.
Small amounts of leftover sugar. I donât know why, but I always end up with a tiny amount of white and brown sugar in the containers. This can be used in teas, of course, but I like to offer it up to spirits. In particular, my ancestors tend to appreciate a spoonful of brown sugar stirred into a small, warmed cup of milk. You can also look up mug cake or single-serving cookie recipes; often, theyâre cooked in the microwave, and they only need a little sugar to make!
Keep vanilla bean pods. Vanilla is fucking expensive. When I have a little extra and want to really splurge for a special occasion, Iâll get a couple pods. And because theyâre so expensive, I hate wasting any part of them. Theyâre good for love magic, sure, but you can also toss the spent pods in a jar full of sugar to make vanilla-infused sugar. Iâll often use the pods to make infused milks, too; warm the milk over low heat, add the pods, and let it steep like tea. It goes great in teas and desserts. For a nice self-love spell, sometimes Iâll melt chocolate into the vanilla milk and make hot cocoa!
Save the rinds from Parmesan and Pecorino Romano cheese. You might not be able to just bite into these, but theyâre fabulous additions to a stock pot. They add a rich, umami depth to the flavors. I also like to throw these into pots of tomato sauce to add even more flavor to the sauce.
Used coffee is still coffee. After I make a pot of coffee, Iâll sometimes save the grounds by letting them dry back out. I wouldnât make another cup of coffee with them, since all the flavorâs gone, but theyâll still have attributes of energy generation and smell great. I like to pack used grounds into sachets to hang in places where I want to encourage more energy and focus, replaced every few days or so. Coffee grounds also have high amounts of nitrogen in them, which can help plants thrive; just be careful about pH values in the soil! You donât want to hurt your plants with too much acidity.
I hope you found these tips helpful! There are a ton more ways to save and reuse kitchen scraps that would otherwise go to waste. Sometimes, tossing stuff into the compost or trash canât be avoided. But Iâve found that being aware of the possibilities can help diminish the amount that gets wasted.
If you have questions or other suggestions for reusing kitchen scraps, feel free to drop them in my inbox, reblogs, or replies. And if you did enjoy this post, consider tossing a couple dollars in my tip jar! Supporters get early and sometimes exclusive access to my work, and monthly members get bonuses like commission discounts and extras. (:
