I was just in the kitchen cutting up celery for a relish tray and doing what I always do... and always have done.. and my mother always did before me... cutting up the celery 'trimmings' to freeze. It occurred to me I should take a quick picture to post on An American Housewife just in case some of my readers didn't know this little trick (or, 'hack' if you will).
It's simple.
- After washing and drying your celery, trim the feathery tops off but keep them in a 'save' pile.
- Trim just the very ends off for the trash.
- Now, the new 'end' that is still pretty wide, or white or strong tasting for simply munching on as a snack, cut those ends off (about 3/4 of an inch or so) and put that in your 'save' pile.
- Cut up your celery for snacking or cooking as you were going to anyway.
- Now chop up the 'save' pile and place into a freezer baggy and tuck away in your deep freeze
The next time you are making broth, gravy or soup... grab the baggie from the freezer and toss it in! When I make my Thanksgiving gravy, it requires a vegetable broth base first, so I use a different baggy from the freezer in which I've simply placed the celery trimmings in whole without chopping. That makes it easy to strain my broth for gravy. I usually have 2 bags in the freezer; one chopped up and ready for soups and a second with the trimmings left whole for easy straining of broths/gravies.
