FLOWER POT KITCHEN: HOMEMADE DISH WASHING LIQUID

23 Mar 2015

HOMEMADE DISH WASHING LIQUID

Fabulous dish washing liquid with a gorgeous natural orange scent, chuffed to pieces with this outstandingly successful and minutes to make recipe. Not only is this green and environmentally friendly it also knocks spots of the artificially chemically produced dish washing liquids, along with the extra bonus of being half the cost. This recipe only takes five minutes to make and lasts a busy family around a month.

Making time 5 minutes

This is another great addition to my 1920's housewife life style where a little elbow grease can cut down on household bills and chemicals in the environment, give you a little more of a physical work out and an overall feel good factor that not only am I saving money, primarily all this is to help lower my families carbon footprint on mother earth, the additional boost is how much I am learning about that we do not really need very much in order to live a life with less demand on the buy me world and landfill.

Ingredients

(makes 1 ltr)

Luxurious Super Strength

Total Cost £2.64

1 ltr boiling water, just off the heat

1/3 bar of Dr Bonners Magic soap grated

3/4 cup 180ml orange liquid castile soap

7 tsp washing soda crystals

Medium Strength

Total Cost £1.96

1 ltr boiling water just off the heat

1/3 bar Dr Bonners Magic soap grated

90ml orange liquid castile soap

7 tsp washing soda crystals

Bring the 1 ltr of water up to a boil and take off the heat, add the grated Dr Bonners soap, liquid castile soap and gently stir together, add the soda crystals and stir in until dissolved.

Place in your glass bottle and leave over night to settle, the soap will thicken up to a white jelly like consistency, if you feel it is too thick just dilute with upto 500ml more of hot boiled water. This gorgeous soap works at its best with hot water.

12 hours later your liquid dish washing liquid will look like this and you are ready to go.

My first attempts at using natural ingredients was not as successful as this, I first tried my London Nan's method which was just soda washing crystals, this did do a great job cutting fat but not quite good enough and it left a residue on glass which made me question why and was that safe to ingest? Compared to the artificial chemicals in manufactured products yes this was a lot lower on the toxic scale and being natural a better bet, but I was not totally happy hence the quest to try other recipes.

I will work on other variations of this recipe in order to bring the cost down keeping the cleaning quality and let you know how I get on.

No comments:

LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.