Let's take what I did with 4 hams I bought on sale for 79 cents a pound back last spring. I cut the meat off the bones of three of them. Removed all the fat and skin, cut the meat into chunks and canned.
After the meat was all canned up I took the bones and the fat, placed them in a big stock pot, covered them with water and simmered for 2 hours. After 2 hours I drained the broth from the bones and fat, let the broth cool enough to place in the refrigerator over night to chill the fat. Picked all the meat that was left on the bones and fat placed it in the refrigerator to make ham and potato soup to can the next day.
The following morning I removed the chilled fat from the broth and place in a pan on a low bumer to cook off what little liqiud that was still in the fat. Once that was done I poured the melted fat into canning jars to cool. I use if for making bicuits, savory pie crusts and frying potatoes some times.
Then I heated up the broth. Half of it I used with the meat I had picked off the bones to make ham & potato soup which I canned for quick fix meals and the other half of the broth I canned as is to use in cooking beans at a later date.
This is not the only way to find free food in your kitchen. You know all the vegetable you peel and then throw the peelings away or into the compost pile? Well you are throwing away more free food there. Instead, wash the vegetables well before peeling, cut out any bad spots, put the peeling in a stock pot, add water and simmer for an hour or to and you have a rich pot of broth to make a wonderful soup. I do this once a week. I peel all the vegetables I will need for the week except potatoes of course and I use all the peelings to make the broth. I use the broth through the week to make a soup, cook flavored rice or make a stew.
I use the peelings from carrots, parsnips, onions, the bottoms of celery, the hard stalks of broccoli, aspargus, cabbage and if I am cooking potatoes that day I use the peelings from potatoes. The rich broth from the peelings is another free food you can use for cooking.
Meat is another place where Americans waste a lot of good food. When you cook a bone in piece of meat you eat the meat that is easy to get to then you throw the bone away or give it to the dog. Have you ever really looked at the meat that is still on the bone that is going to waste? It may not seem like much but when you add it up with a number of bones it turns out the be quite a bit. And then there is all the flavor you are losing when you throw that bone away that could be used to make other meals. Such a waste!
When I buy meat I buy it with the bone on which is cheaper per pound and saves me money. Since I buy my meat in big packages I need to repack it into meal size portions when I get it home. I cut all the meat from the bones, package the boneless meat and then package the bones by types, such as pork chops, beef steaks and so on. When I have enough bones I roast them, then simmer them in water to pull out all that flavor, extra meat and fat. I use repurpose those items the same way as I did with the ham which gives us more free meals and meal starters.
So next time you are cooking or buying grocery stop and look at the free meals or meal starters you can get for your money. You will save money this way and it will give you more food for your dollars. And best of all you can take all that money you save and use it for other areas of your life to help you become more self sustaining. Oh and the bones can still be given to the dogs when you are done with them to make them happy. You don't have to leave them out of all that good food!
Prepping Granny