Compost Toilet – The Sawdust Toilet

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The compost toilet can be as complicated, expensive, cheap or basic as you like. As far as indoor compost toilets are concerned none are more simple to create, use and understand than the sawdust toilet. We have a sawdust toilet and I really cannot recommend it enough.  Even if you have no intention of ever foregoing your luxurious plumbed in conventional toilet, you should at least know about sawdust toilets.  Then, the next time the water supply is disrupted or you are remodelling the bathroom you can use this simple composting toilet system until your preferred poo receptacle is functioning […]

Compost Toilet Month

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Mr DirtyBoots is still AWOL at the moment.  He will be back  soon with lots of ideas to earn a living without ‘Working for the Man’.  In the meantime I’m butching up to bring you a serious on the humble (and not so humble compost toilet). We have a fairly basic model constructed by himself years ago.  Initially our sawdust toilet was created through necessity rather than choice.  We had no running water so it seemed the sensible option for dealing with the DirtyBoots poo.  Now though, we are complete converts to the waterless toilet.  It is great not to […]

Tasty Apricot Jam Recipe

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We just love free stuff here at A Self Sufficient Life.  Last week it was a carrier bag full of tiny sweet apricots. The wonderful lady who gifted them to us suggested I make some Apricot Jam, to which I responded I had too much Cherry Jam to do at the moment.  But as the apricots sat, wafting their wonderful scent about the kitchen I gave in.  I am very glad I did.  I do believe this may now be my favorite homemade jam recipe!  Well until I try another I suppose. Tasty Apricot Jam Recipe Apricot Jam Ingredients 1.3 […]

What to do With a Tree-full of Cherries?

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I have shared the delights of Cherry Clafoutis and passed on a Cherry Jam Recipe.  I am planning on making some Cherry Vodka/Schnapps (always  a wonderful treat) and bottling some cherries.  None of this will make a significant dent in the volume of ripe cherries burdening one particularly good old cherry tree at the bottom of our land. Last year storms ruined the cherry harvest, all the fruits split and rotted on the trees which was very distressing.  I do not want to waste this years bounty.  Cherries are big business in these parts, our village is famous for them […]

Easy Cherry Clafoutis Recipe

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Yes, it is cherry harvest time at a Self Sufficient Life.  Here’s something else we knocked up last night.  I have to admit this is not my recipe, it is from The Silver Spoon which is one of the best cookery books I have ever owned.  There is just so much in it!  For those who do not own the book – here’s the recipe for Cherry Clafoutis. Oh, and if you have never eaten a Clafoutis before, think of it as a thick baked pancakey/custardy delightful desert you will make again and again!  Also good with apriocots or gooseberries, […]

Simple Cherry Jam Recipe

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A break from the cheap easy meals for now and a short-term return to preserving.  Here’s a recipe for cherry jam I cooked up last night. Cherry Jam Recipe Cherry Jam Ingredients 2kg ripe cherries 1kg sugar juice of one lemon Make sure the cherries are not overly ripe or you may have trouble getting the jam to set properly.  I used sweet black cherries but sour ones could be used for a more tart preserve. Cherry Jam Method First of all stone and de-stem the cherries.  For the first year I now possess a Cherry Stoner/Pitter and cannot begin […]

Cheap Easy Meals – Vegetable Tian Recipe

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Another cheap one of those quick healthy meals you can customise easily depending on what’s in the fridge or garden.   This is very loosely based on a recipe my mother makes regularly.  She followed a proper recipe for Spinach & Courgette Tian which is wonderful.  I am the only courgette (sorry zucchini) lover in our house so tend to make it with other vegetables instead. The addition of a few rashers of streaky bacon adds some more texture and a cheap way of convincing carnivores they’re not being too hard done by.  More often than not I leave the meat […]