Despite eating rice multiple times a week, John and I have a bit of a mental block when it comes to actually making the amount we need. We usually play it safe and over-estimate, thinking we can have it with leftovers or use it to make fried rice or the like the next day. Given we both eat lunch at home a lot these days, we’re pretty good at using it up but sometimes it accidentally gets left out of the fridge overnight – or forgotten about in the fridge for a couple of days.

I’ve heard some horror stories about cooked rice being a great home for bacteria so we’re always cautious about using it after a couple of days or if it’s been left out of the fridge but it seems such a shame to just bin it. Because of the bacteria thing, I think the non-culinary re-use might be limited but anyone got any suggestions or at least ways of disposing of it more usefully that flinging it in the bin?

And anyone got any good leftover rice recipes for using it up when it is still in edible condition, that aren’t just rice pudding or a misc fried rice dish?

(Photo by lazysheep1)

Back in the day when John used to buy me flowers*, if possible, I would keep and dry the flowers to preserve the gift.

I’ve ended up with quite a stash of dried flowers hanging from various parts of the kitchen because I couldn’t think what to do with them once they were dried.

They are not flowers grown intending to be dried so they don’t hold their petals enough to be used in a dried flower arrangement – and I’m not really a dried flower arrangement girl anyway. I’m not really a pot pourri fan either – the cats would just try to eat it. Or poo in it.

So any non-flower-arrangement, non-pot-pourri-in-bowls reuses for dried flowers? It seems a shame to just compost them after all this time but they’re just getting knocked about in their current position.

* This isn’t a dig at him: he doesn’t buy me flowers now because I made him stop for environmental reasons. We have lots of (home-grown) plants around the house instead now.

(Photo by Christopher Rayan/StockXpert)

With the mass move to digital cameras these days, the old cameras have become as obsolete as the film canisters.

Nicola Dickinson has emailed us on this very subject – how can the cameras themselves be recycled? Or, I guess, reused?

A lot of old electronics (like phones and computers) are collected for charity and shipped overseas but I don’t know if this would be happening with cameras too because they don’t seem as “essential” (inverted commas because the others aren’t really essential in most situations) and they’re useless without the film and developing infrastructure etc.

So any ideas on how they can avoid being landfill?

(Photo by AAD)

…And moving on from old paint, what about old nail varnish?

From the days when I actually used it, I’ve got quite a few half-bottles left over in all sorts of colours. Some of them have separated but recongeal with a quick shake, but I’ve only painted my nails once this year and can’t see myself doing it again in a hurry (for both aesthetic reasons and for the sake of my nails) so they’re pretty much redundant.

So what can I do with all the leftover nail polish? And what about the bottles with their little brushes – any reuses for those?

(Photo by tijmen)

Posting the paint tins entry last week made me wonder what about paint itself.

I know there are a lot of worthwhile causes out there that collect the half-cans of paint sat around in everyone’s cellar/shed/store-cupboard and put them to good uses – like painting murals, bit of furniture or when there is enough left, decorating interiors of community projects and the like.

These things tend to be local but does anyone know of any national schemes? If not, how about local ones in your area? If you do, leave the details in a comment – including which area it is if it’s a local one.

And aside from that, any crafty craft-y reuse ideas for old emulsion/gloss paint?