Thrift

I remember one of the concepts Mr River Cottage always used to bang on about was "thrift" - i.e. not wasting anything. This is something I am trying to implement as much as possible at mine, but these things take time; eventually all our rainwater will be used for watering the garden, all housewaste for the compost heap and anything else that does something to be used elsewhere outside.

For the lambs I slaughtered last week, I tried to use everything possible. The only parts I threw away were the head and offal. The trotters went to somene who boils them up to make soup. I kept all the bones and made a healthy stock from it. Basically you get all the bones, chuck them in boiling water and boil for about 4 hours. Afterwards you strain out all the bits and put in the fridge for a night. The day day you get this very appealing jelly type stuff - nice huh?

This is then bagged into lots of little bags and frozen; you then add it to whatever you are cooking and it adds loads of flavour and loads of iron, protein and good stuff.