Tag Archives: house

Cheap cupboard nut roast

Posted in Recipes, Simple Life by

If you’ve got some nuts to use up, but no fresh food, and a food processor, this recipe is great. I made it up myself. No eggs, either!

300g mixed nuts
Tin tomatoes
1 small onion or large clove garlic, chopped
Big handful fresh herbs: basil, parsley (or heaped tsp dried)
1 can beans (red kidney, cannellini etc)
100g dried out wholemeal bread
1tsp mustard
Generous salt n pepper
Bit of oil

It’s really easy. Put the nuts and bread into the food processor and process until all are chunky. Then put everything else in, and blend until a paste that still has chunks of nuts etc. Oil a loaf tin, and put the paste in. Put in oven at about 180 c for approx. 50 mins – but keen an eye out and check whether burning. Check middle cooked, then tip out onto a serving plate.
I chill this and wrap up portions for the freezer – I can stick it into the microwave and use throughout winter. Enjoy!

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Making free fuel from scrap paper. No more shredding!

Posted in Household, Simple Life by

I’ve found a great way to beat the fuel crisis, plus avoid all that boring shredding of bank statements and so on.

Turn all that scrap paper into fuel!

SAMSUNG

I bought a paper compressor, to make logs with. You have to soak the paper in water, then put it in the compressor, and press down hard. You then have to leave it to dry for a few weeks – so you need space that is reasonably warm. I dried them in the conservatory. The results are on the right in the picture above (the other paper is for kindling)

It’s only just got cold enough to try it out, so I’ve been burning them along with normal paper as kindling and a few coals in my wood-burning stove. The paper logs last almost as long as a normal log.

They call themselves ‘briquette makers’ and all sorts of strange things, but if you google eco paper log maker, you’ll probably find it.  I got mine second-hand on ebay so it was cheap too.