If you don’t have a large volume of material to compost, an alternative method is to compost kitchen scraps and plant clippings using red worms. Vermicomposting also produces high quality soil organic matter without worrying about getting the material to heat up.
A typical worm bin is about the size of a recycling bin, and one bin should be able to handle the kitchen scraps for 2 or three people. All you have to do is be sure the worms get enough moisture, air, and food and they will go to work converting vegetable matter into soil humus.
There are many good websites to get you started with your worm bin. Here is one of them:
http://www.recyclenow.org/r_composting_worm.html