I wanted to talk a bit about the most useful item in your house, that you probably aren't even using - or at least not using to its fullest potential. What is it? The Ball jar, or Mason jar. These things have a million and one uses, and I have a list of just a few that I'd like to cover.
1.) Coffee Grounds - At my house, we drink a lot of coffee, so we have a ton of coffee grounds. We keep several Ball jars on the counter, and one (or more) is dedicated to putting the used coffee grounds in as a holding area until we take them out to the composter.
2.) Kitchen Scraps - We use them to drop egg shells, vegetable cuttings, peels, etc. in, again, as a holding area until we take them out to the composter.
3.) Garage/Utility Storage - Keep a few of these in the garage, pantry, or closet to use for storing nuts, bolts or screws in. I keep one with wall anchors, the screws, and even the drill bit that came with them. You can mount these beneath a wood shelf as a means of doubling your storage space usage simply by screwing the lid to the underside of the shelf with a couple of wood screws and then attaching the glass jar under it, so that it hangs down beneath the shelf. Obviously, if you put really heavy items, or use a large jar that will get very heavy, you might want to use an anchor, and screw down through the top of the shelf, through the lid, and into the anchor, so that it doesn't pull through and fall down and shatter.
4.) Pickles - Homemade refrigerator pickles are one of my favorite things in the entire world. Buy some small cucumbers, or as I prefer, several large English cucumbers sliced into 1/4" slices, and drop them in a brine. There are tons of brine recipes on the internet, but I just experiment each time. You can also use them to make fermented pickles (the really delicious deli-style barrel pickles) by putting the cucumbers in brine and covering with cheesecloth. Read a recipe carefully on how to prepare these, as nastiness can result, followed by illness if you eat them. Take it from experience - I know.
5.) Bacon Grease - Whatever you do, don't throw that stuff out. It's liquid gold. You can use bacon grease to saute', low-temperature frying, or even to flavor salad dressings by melting it and replacing some of the oil that your salad dressing calls for (Hats off to Alton Brown of Good Eats fame for teaching me that one). Another good way to use it is as the oil for making old fashioned pan-popped popcorn. Depending on your bacon drippings, you might get a light or heavy bacon flavor to your popcorn. I like it with some Cabot Cheddar Shake white cheddar powder sprinkled on it. It gives you a nice bacon cheddar flavor. Mmm...
6.) - Ball Jar Cookie Gifts - Layer the dry ingredients from a cookie recipe into a jar, decorate the outside with ribbon, fabric, etc., and you have a festive gift idea. We, in fact, have one we've used as decoration for the last couple of years that was a gift we received. Also, when my wife and I first got married, we were dirt-poor, and did this as Christmas gifts for friends and family. They're cheap to make, and are a nice idea.
7.) Down-South Drinking Glasses - Down here in the south, we use Ball jars as drinking glasses. They're dirt cheap, come in a bunch of different sizes, and have screw on lids to save your leftover drink.
If you have any ideas that I didn't list here, let me know and I'll give them a try!
