TyGor Den

I know that I am not as normal as most (normal is a dimmer and not a switch, right?). Well, I say this because I am somewhat confused why people don’t save their chicken bones and lemon zest.

This weekend, my wife bought 8 lemons to make lemonade. Wonderful! But what about the peels? There is great flavor packed into those peels. So I juiced the lemons, then took a knife and peeled off the zest–which I then froze for later use. And finally, the rest of the lemon went to the compost pile. I love the idea of using all of something.

What about the chicken bones? We made an awesome chicken stew/soup this weekend too. We used chicken thighs. After the soup is cooked, we take the thighs out, pull the meat off and put it back in the pot. The dogs–if they’re good–get the “not meat” bits and I take the bones to a wooden box with a window on top that sits on my deck. A few days in the sun, and I have dried bones!

Ok, it’s not over yet. Why dried bones? When we planted our asparagus, the advice was to use bone meal for fertilizer in the holes for planting. So we bought some. Ugh. There are bones that pass through my house and in the past, went straight to the trash. But now, I can take my dried bones, smash them with something heavy, then sprinkle the wonderful fertilizer on the garden.

Why do I mention all of this? Isn’t it “normal?” Maybe not, but I’m just clearing my mind.