Precycle

is about doing away with the idea of recycling because you try to live your life by not throwing things away. Instead of buying tomato ketchup and throw the bottles away (recycled or not) - you make your own ketchup. It is not only cheaper, more fun, more wholesome, has fewer chemicals, is made just how you like it, it is better for the environment too – especially if you have grown the tomatoes in your own garden rather than two thousand miles away – or even further!

Instead of fueling your washing machine with phosphates that are washed away to pollute our rivers and seas, you make you own low-phosphate soap.

Instead of buying household cleaners with all kinds of poisonous chemicals in them you can make your own soaps, bleaches, disinfectants and cleaners of all kinds that are kinder you our homes and the environment and still pack a punch when it comes to killing germs.

The list of what you can do is endless, all you need is a little imagination, a willingness to have a go and a few recipes. Here just a couple of ideas from hundreds we will be bringing you in Home Farmer!

How to make homemade tomato ketchup

Ketchup is a simple condiment to make and you can make it in huge or small quantities. This will make about 1.5 to 2 litres – depending how thick you like it. The best tomatoes are Italian plum, but any will do – they don’t even have to be uniformly ripe.

Ingredients

5 kilos tomatoes

2 large finely chopped onions

4 level teaspoons salt

2 minced garlic cloves

1/3 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

200g sugar

400 ml cider vinegar

A Bouquet garni of :

A finger sized cinnamon stick
5 whole cloves
2 bay leaf

Peel your tomatoes and break them into small pieces, removing as much of the seeds and leftover skins as possible. The skins are easily removed by plunging the tomato into boiling water and thence into iced water. The skins should easily fall off.

Return the mix to the heat and gently simmer for at least another 30 minutes to thicken the sauce. As long as you continue to stir you will find this process can create quite a thick product. Commercial ketchup is created this way – the cheaper ones contain thickening agents such as starch or guar gum.

Storage

Leave the pan to cool naturally, and you can store in sterile bottles in the freezer, or in the fridge if you plan to use it fairly quickly. Alternatively you can sterilize preserving jars in the oven – the lids on boiling water and then pour the hot sauce into the jars. The best way of doing this is to put the heated jars into a deep pan of boiling water and add the sauce to the containers while they are being boiled. Carefully place the lids on the jars while still boiling and then allow them to cool, which will create a vacuum, thus preserving the contents.

Making soap

There are lots of ways to make your own soap. Most recipes these days involve using a dangerous solution of soduim hydroxide – known as lye. When you add lye to fat or oil at the right temperature, in the right quantities then you have soap.

There is another way of making soap that doesn’t need a lot of concentrated lye, but uses dilute lye – safe enough to handle without rubber gloves (though goggles are a good idea) is to have a pan in which you have pieces of fat. Heat this gently and pour dilute sodium hydroxide over it. Keep this going all day – do not let it dry out and test the mixture for ‘soapyness’ at the end. If it is greasy then continue the process until it feels like soap. This way you do not overdo do the lye and you are guaranteed a safe product, but there are even safer ways to make soap.

For the bathroom

You can buy glycerine soap in bars. This is a product pre made from lye and glycerine. It melts easily in the microwave and you can beat anything into it to make it personal to you. A little rose water and some rose petals will make a lovely bathroom product, as will lavender oil and a sprig of lavender. You simply stir in the appropriate amount of essential oil (one or two drops per 100g, or liquid – a tablespoon of rosewater per 100g and pour the mixture to set.

For the kitchen

If you grate up a bar of ordinary green soap – the cheapest and mildest soap in the shop and melt this in a cup of water in a microwave on full power for two minutes, you can dilute this still further to make washing up liquid. Add a teaspoon of salt to the mixture and the soap will thicken – most so called thick washing up liquids are simply with added salt.

This liquid will cost pence per bottle opposed to more than ten times that amount, and you’ll be surprised how well it works.