the last of the bottle

I was making Asian-style sticky drumsticks the other day (recipe to come), and I found myself with only the dregs of kekap manis. To get every last drop out of the bottle, I did my usual trick of watering down the kekap manis with soy sauce.

This got me thinking about my obsession habit of getting every last morsel out of every bottle and jar. There seems to always be an upturned bottle in our house. And the spatulas constantly feature in the pile of washing up. I have been known to put the ‘empty’ jar of peanut butter back into the cupboard thinking “with a spatula I could get enough for another two pieces of toast out of that jar!”

Getting the last morsel out of a jar or bottle not only cuts waste, but it saves money. Getting just one more serve out of everything you buy adds up over the course of a year.

Apart from scraping a jar clean with a spatula or upturning a bottle, here are a few ways I water down the dregs to use up every last morsel of stuff that we buy. We:

• Water down detergents, soaps and shampoo, conditioner etc with water.
• Add soy sauce to oyster sauce as well as kekap manis
• Add milk to the last of the jam for a berry milkshake
• Add milk to the last of the cream or sour cream to add to pasta sauce, tuna mornay, cakes etc
• When we used commercial cleaners I would add water to make them go further (Don’t mix cleaners though, you could be creating a toxic chemical mix. And check the label first, some things like oven cleaner, shouldn’t be mixed with water either)
• Add milk to the chocolate sauce bottle for a chocolate milkshake
• Add wine to bolognaise sauce or tinned tomatoes to ‘rinse’ out the jar and add flavour to the meal
• Heat honey or golden syrup slightly to get the last of it out of the bottom of the jar
• Add a some vinegar and oil to the dregs of the mustard to make a salad dressing

How do you get the dregs out of the bottom of jars and bottles?

Have you read these posts?

1. chicken meatballs with noodles and satay sauce
2. roux the day: Basic white sauce
3. whatever goes pasta
4. butterscotch self – saucing pudding