Our kitchen compost container is full most days because we eat a lot of vegetables. Even though we give carrots, lettuce, broccoli etc. to our guinea pig, and many other kitchen scraps to our hens, I’m still amazed at how many veggie and fruit scraps still go into the compost pile. But then a discussion in our BuyNothing7 group (a group that challenges people to buy nothing for 7 days, or longer) got me thinking: Before I send my most scrappy vegetables to the compost pile, I should turn them into veggie broth.

I’m not talking about your big chunks of carrot (that go to the guinea pig) or whole cloves of garlic (which we use up ourselves.) I’m referring to the paper skin on the garlic (which has many uses), the ends of the carrots, the skins off my onions (which also have many uses) and the leaves and bitter hearts of my celery. Throw those scrappiest of scraps into a pot of boiling water, with a bay leaf, your favorite herbs, and a pinch of salt, let it simmer for an hour and you’ve rendered yourself some yummy broth to use as a base for a soup, in chili, or in any recipe that calls for broth.

Then, you can take your over-cooked vegetables, once you’ve filtered out the broth, and send those to the compost. Scrappy veggie broth in zero waste style!