Love in a Tube

Confession time: I’m a saver. If you’ve been to the market lately, you’ve noticed that groceries ain’t exactly cheap, so my fridge is stuffed to the gills with little dribs and dabs of leftovers and their components. Provident almost to a fault, my thriftiness usually pays off.
When dinner is still an hour away, those last three bites of chicken might be all that’s keeping me from starvation. And that torn quarter of a bagel wrapped up in cellophane? Well, that becomes a nice little hummus dipper. But that leftover blob of tomato paste—it usually gets forgotten and then dumped, and that irks me.
I bet I’ve thrown out tons of the stuff over my lifetime. Recipes that call for two tablespoons are the worst! It’s a conspiracy started by the makers of tomato paste to get you to buy more, I tell you. Sure, you’ll save what you don’t use, but more than likely it will get pushed behind the half-used jar of pesto until it becomes unrecognizable and out the door it goes.
Well, the jig is up tomato-paste wasters; you have been outsmarted—ha! Amore brand from Italy has come up with an ingenious packaging system that makes sense and delivers a superior product: an all-natural double concentrated tomato paste in a squeezable tube with a long refrigerated shelf life.
When your recipe requires just a little, Amore’s got you covered with five flavors of tomato paste: basil, garlic, sun-dried, spicy and regular. They also offer anchovy, garlic, pesto (another problem solved!) and hot chili paste tubes all just awaiting a squeeze.
How could I not be enamored with Amore? They lure me in with their economical and convenient packaging, then keep me satisfied with great quality. I can squeeze the last living drop out of that package and make my fiscally conservative self one happy camper.
Do you have a savvy way to use leftover ingredients to avoid waste? —Karen