Inexpensive & quick 'Pizza'.

I like pizzas, but I don’t like the price or the packaging, or the fact that many sold in the UK come from Germany or Holland. Here then is a way to make simple, (very) cheap, fresh and great tasting ‘pizza’.

Take two slices of bread put them together and toast them in a toaster so only one side is toasted. Thinly butter the untoasted side and scatter thinly sliced tomato, bacon, mushroom and cheese on top and drizzle a little olive oil over them. Place the slices in a moderately hot oven for 8 minutes, and there you have it!

The Costs:
2 slices of bread 6p
20g of ‘bacon bits’ 3p
½ a tomato 7p
20g cheese 8p
Butter and olive oil 1½p

Total price 32p or about 63c

I have not included the cost of the electricity for the oven, as had I bought a shop pizza I would have still used it. If you don't use meat you can easily have a vegetarian option and use other toppings instead of, or as well as.

DIY Radiator Heat Reflector

It is accepted that between 50% to 70% of the heat emitted by a household radiator is eventually lost into the fabric of the building, mainly behind the radiator and into the wall behind. A reflector panel fits behind the radiator and reduces the wasted heat by insulating the wall and so the heat that is saved either heats the air in the room, warming it faster, or is retained in the system so the boiler is not using as much fuel.

It is very easy to make your own Radiator Reflector. All you need is a tape measure to work out the size of panel, scissors, stapler some adhesive tape, a thin strip of wood, a sheet of cardboard and one of those silver heat reflecting panels you can buy to put in the windscreen/windshield of your car to keep it cool in the sunlight.

Cut the cardbord to size, place it on the reflector, cut that to suit and staple it to the cardboard. Attach a thin strip of wood to the top, I used Duck Tape as it is temperature resistant and drop the completed unit onto the supports behind the radiator!

The Potato Box, progress report...

The detail of how I made my Potato Box is on an earlier post. I put the seed potatoes in the base of the box about ten days after making it and have been have been covering the shoots from the seed potatoes as they appeared. I did this for the last time five days ago. The photo was taken this morning and you can see the growth that has occured in such a short time.

Do you save rainwater?

The average garage will have around 500 SQ Ft of roof and with only 1" of rain this will allow you to save (harvest) around 300 gallons of rainwater. The video above will give you the practical details and click on here for other information and advice from the CAT (Centre for Alternative technology) in Wales, whose main site here is well worth a visit at anytime!

Save water each time you flush!

In the UK and I suspect most Western countries water saving has not been at the top of the environmental list until now. The humble toilet uses a large quantity (usually far more than needed) of the precious liquid each time it is flushed, especially if it is one of the older types.

To save water (and money if you are on a Water Meter) you can fit a 'Bog Hog' a special water container that fits in the reservoir, but just as easy, and certainly more environmentaly friendly, you can recycle and use a plastic bottle instead.

The photo shows one sitting snugly at the base of our system. If it were not possible to fit the 2 pint container shown, due to space restrictions, then two 1 pint containers should fit. Fill them full of water first and fit the cap back on and not only will you be saving water you will also be reducing environmental pollution by cutting down the power needed to get the water to your home in the first place.

Self-Watering Recycled Plastic Bottle Plant Pot for Seeds

I like my seeds to be comfortable, the seed equivalent of sitting on a deckchair under a sunshade while sipping a glass of chilled Chablis. Seeds are precious, if they weren’t companies like Monsanto (pauses to puke) would not be interested in them so here is a way to make as sure as you possibly can that they have the sort of start in life that the Good Lord intended.

The photos will give a full picture, but basically I cut a plastic bottle in two with a fine toothed bread knife, drilled 4 holes in the screw cap and inserted lengths of non-plastic string to act as a wick, (see photo). I lined the half the screw cap fits with wet paper and after fitting the screw cap back on I held the strings to one side and filled this lined half with seed compost (see photo.) After this I distributed the strings around the pot and back down to below soil level. I then filled the lower half with water to just below the cap and fitted the two parts together, (see photo.)

Place seeds on or in the growing medium as advised and cover the top with a light sprinkle of sand to discourage fungal disease. Now if you need to go away for a few days or forget to water it doesn’t matter. Don't forget to double left click on the photos for full screen size and to use the browser's back button (arrow) to return to normal. This is especially useful for the second photo from the top.

A Potato Box

I have always been amazed just how many potatoes it is possible to get from a potato box or barrel or bin or whatever it is called in your part of the world. I know that potatoes are not usually over-expensive but I like organic early potatoes and these are expensive, so this year I have built a potato box and will grow our own. The box is made from old pallets (painted in an environmentally friendly wood treatment we had left over) and measures about 33” square by 24” high. The bottom of the box has duck tape wrapped around it to seal it from the ground, this should show up in one of the photos, and the inside has old black plastic sacks secured by brass thumbtacks on the top edge so covering the top and the inside wood to protect it from moisture and stop the growing medium from drying out, another photo shows this at the half-way stage. I will put a few inches of compost on the bottom, lay a few early chitted seed potatoes on it and cover over them for three or so inches with compost, then as the potatoes shoots grow up I will carry on covering them up until I get near to the top and the box will fill with new potatos. (Can't come soon enough for me!) The system will be frost resistant and I will save some of the first of the crop and store them in the fridge to plant again for a second crop around July time, crafty or what? Incidentally, the compost bin that is next to the potato box was also built from unwanted pallets... Waste not, want not...

The world's easiest home-made shortbread?

Take 6oz of plain flower, 4oz of butter and 2oz of (preferably) golden unrefined granulated sugar. Mix the whole lot in a bowl until it all starts to cling together, roll out on a board to whatever thickness you fancy, cut into squares or whatever and sprinkle some of the sugar on top of them.

Bake in a medium oven for about 15 minutes or so, less if they are very thin, more if they are very thick and allow to cool completely before eating. No preservatives needed, they will not last long enough for them to be needed!

Sooo VERY easy to bake rapid bread receipe

This was mainly by accident, but it works!

I had just read an article about the price of bread, which is going up non-stop as the price of grain increases, and one part of the article stated that "you still cannot make bread cheaper than you can buy it". This sounded like a challenge and so I thought, as my ever tolerant wife was out at a meeting, that I would show they were wrong. Looking at he way bread was made, with injections of steam etc I thought this would be no problem, a little ingenuity would suffice. However as I got into the baking process, I remembered that 1. I was supposed to get some shopping and 2. when Pam returned the kitchen would still be upside down, so I rushed through the process thinking that the birds would at least approve (again) of my failed efforts. But far from fail it all worked, so here is the receipe and the pictures to confirm it all.

Take one and a half mugs of warm water, pour them into a bowl and mix in one half a teaspoon of fresh dry yeast (yes I know its a lot) and a few pinches of salt. Pour in three mugs of plain flour and mix the whole lot together, (forget all that kneeding business) cover with cling film (I know I should have used a cloth, but I like to observe what is going on) and leave somewhere warm for an hour and a half (yes, I know its not long.) By then the whole mass, which has the consistency of the slime in Ghost Busters, will be covered in bubbles.

Give the whole lot a very quick stir and leave for a few minutes (possibly thinking 'this is never going to work') while you heat up the oven to around 220c/425f and as you do this put in the oven whatever container you are going to use to bake the bread in.

When the oven is at working temperature pour the dough into the now greased container, (but be careful, its hot, I 'found' out the hard way) cover it up with aluminum foil or whatever and put it in the oven for half an hour. My thought was that this would keep the moisture in for the first stage of cooking, After the thirty minutes take the cover off and leave it in the oven for ten more minutes to allow the top to brown.

Take out and allow to cool... yes...it really was that easy!

The top photo shows the dish and 'cover' before I put it in the oven, the next after half an hour and the next after ten minutes with the cover off. The result can be seen in the bottom photo. I must point out that our oven is rather old and about as reliable as a high mileage Trabant so you may have to experiment with the temperatures. Quantity wise, three of any sort of container should work for the flour/water ratios.

PS. It tastes as good as it looks!!

Make your own vitamin C, AMAZINGLY easy.

Many foods have vitamin C in them, including Potato, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Red Cabbage etc, but an easy way to make additional vitamin C which will also include rutin, hesperidin, bioflavonoids, monoterpenes and limonene essential oils is from the pulp and peel of organic citrus fruits.

When you have washed and peeled your organic (it must be organic as you don't know what has been sprayed onto the fruit otherwise) grapefruit, tangerines, oranges, lemons or limes, cut up the peel into small pieces and put it on a plate on a window ledge in the sunlight, or into a cooling down oven to dry.

When the bits are fully dry and shriveled zap them in a coffee grinder, or whatever you can use, to a powder and there you have it, vitaminc C with essential oils! Store it in a screw top jar, or any other air tight container and use it when required for health reasons/cooking etc.