I am a member of a community of health and dietitian bloggers called The Recipe Redux. The Latin “redux” means to revisit or reinvent, and the aim of The Recipe Redux is to reinvent the idea of healthy eating with a taste-first approach.
On the 21st and 22nd of each month, members of this community receive a unique recipe challenge. This month’s challenge:
Easy Ways to Reduce Food Waste. In honor of Earth Day on April 22, we’re challenging ReDux members to show how they reduce food waste.
This month, I don’t have a recipe to present, but rather a technique for what to do with all of the ‘scraps’ when cooking.
Those who know me well know that I always have a bag in my freezer filled with food scraps. I collect all of my banana and orange peels, apple cores, carrot and onion nubs, and random stems and skins and store them in a (preferably paper) bag in the freezer. And every few weeks I lug my frozen compost to the local greenmarket where I can drop it off.
I have been doing this for the last handful of years and it has reduced the amount of trash I make, not to mention it reduces trash smell.
There is definitely more that I could be doing to reduce my overall trash pile (and yes, maybe I could have roasted the squash seeds pictured above and pulsed my parsley stems into a pesto), but I feel happy that my produce scraps are going back to the earth to make soil.
New York City has some great resources for those who want to learn more about home composting, compost drop off sites, or even compost pick-up.
New York City Composting Resources:
Another great way to get more bang out of your food scrap buck? Make your own Homemade Vegetable Stock. This also works with leftover chicken backbone from when you Spatchcock a chicken. Just cover the backbone with water and add onion and vegetable nubs and simmer away.
Figsinmybelly 
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