Shopping, Not Shopping

 

I've not been out shopping for well over a week now, there's just been no need to.  

Anything I have run out of food wise or other I have been able to cobble together from something else ... no tissues, use a toilet roll instead for instance, low on washing up liquid, water down what I have and wash up once a day instead of two or three times, there's ways and means to avoid the shops if you think about it.  

And passing Booth's supermarket this morning on our doggy walk the queue was a socially distanced version of this wartime queue.  The other main difference being that once everyone got into the shop there would have been lots of food for them to choose from and no-one would have come away disappointed.

It puts a lot of things into perspective doesn't it.

Using up almost the last of my vegetables I put together a mix for a soup yesterday.

The weight shows that I have almost six of my 'five a day' in this one bowl, so splitting it into two or three meals means each one has two or thereabouts.  I'm doing my best even if I don't always get it right.

A very modern way of making soup,  but it saves on gas here in the flat which is my biggest expense.  A quick chopping session and then half an hour in the soup maker ... which also whizzes it up for me as I prefer my soups thick and smooth ... and I have my lunch for two days.

Plus, as long as I remember to fish out a ladle or two full of the mix before whizzing it means I also have the filling for a pie or pasty.  I have done this at least once every week since I started the Challenge.  A bit of pastry turns anything into a tasty and filling meal.

This soup was gorgeous, a real success.

Sue xx

Wartime Recipe - Potato Floddies

 

I think it's about time I started sharing some recipes and some more photos of the food that I've been eating.  Life has been a bit hectic these last couple of weeks and I really don't feel I'm doing this Challenge the justice it deserves.  So the first recipe I'm sharing with you was on the menu on Tuesday of this week and was  Potato Floddies.

How brilliant I thought to make something that sounds filling and vaguely nourishing out of such limited ingredients, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I used the two small potatoes you can see in the bowl in the first photo and I added a pinch of garlic granules for a bit more flavour.  I have read that garlic was occasionally available during the war years,  although I guess this would have been seen as quite an exotic ingredient back then and it was usually considered more as a medicinal item than a foodstuff.  So with this in mind I will just be using up the dried powder, granules and frozen cloves that I had already in my store cupboard at the start of the Challenge and then just not buy anymore as though my 'rations' had dried up.

One example of my research into garlic in the UK during the 1940's is HERE.  And indeed I must have a copy of the leaflet mentioned somewhere in my replica leaflet stash.

I think I added a touch too much flour, in total I added three desert spoonfuls ... two would have been sufficient and although they smelt garlicky as they cooked I could barely taste it.

So what's my opinion of Potato Floddies?

Very filling, quite tasty ... especially when very hot ... but very stodgy.  Perhaps though that was due to me adding a bit too much flour, so if you have a go be a bit lighter with the flour to potato ratio.  What would make them so much better would be the addition of some grated real garlic cloves or perhaps a quarter of a grated or finely sliced onion.  They just needed something else added for more flavour, but I guess these days we are just used to our foods being a lot more flavourful and my taste-buds need to adapt a little bit more.

I would give them a 5/10.

The recipe pictured above came from this book.  

I have put links to Amazon on my sidebar for the books and DVDs that I have been watching, just so you can go and have a look and get other peoples opinions of them and not just go off mine or maybe get yourself a copy.   Some of my books are only available in the Used off Amazon, but then that's to be expected as that's where I got mine from 😀

Sue xx

Week Three - Rationed Foods

 

At last I got round to actually getting my food weighed out and ready for use, and you'll see a surprise addition this week ... I have one egg!!

  One egg per week per person was the usual ration although at some points in the war it went down to one egg per person per fortnight.  I don't usually eat eggs, but as we now have no cockerel and our last laying girl is doing such a sterling job I thought for the next five weeks (that's how many eggs I have), I would share some wartime suitable recipes that include eggs.

Once they have gone I now have the added advantage of a couple of boxes of 'dried egg' that I found in Asda ... totally suitable for vegans.

I have stopped weighing out the coffee as I have discovered that my 2oz of allowable coffee in place of the tea ration that I cannot drink fills this little jar nicely and I have never managed to reach the bottom of it yet.  So each week I will just top it up from the large jar in my cupboard.  If I do run out I still have the whole of the 4oz that are part of my monthly rations in place of the Camp Coffee.

Also pictured are my two Linda McCartney vegan sausages and my carton of Almond Milk.

Here for posterity are this weeks weights and measures -

4oz Margarine 

- added to what was already in the butter dish.

4oz Bacon/Ham 

 The smidge of additional weight is the packaging.

3oz Cheese

This week some more of my ready grated Mozzarella style.

4oz Oil

 This is instead of the 2oz butter and 2oz lard.  I just topped up last weeks bottle, I'm topping things up as the contents are all being bought from the same bottles and packets.

8oz Sugar

This is the last of my sugar from the cupboard, as I haven't been using much up to now I think I will just keep a note in my book of any future 8oz's until I actually need to go out and buy some for use.

My 3oz Sweetie Ration

Such an important part of the ration, a smidge under ... but I will survive.   😀

Sue xx

Week Three - Already!!

 

Time is running away with me at the moment.  I have only just worked out the menu for the week, noting down while I did it what I had yesterday.  I have not yet got out from the cupboards or fridge or photographed this weeks rations so I will do that today.

Off the Ration

In the meantime this is all I have bought up to now for this weeks non-rationed food.  One sliced brown loaf from Asda, as that is where I was nearest when I ventured out for a dog walk and fuel.

 Sanity Saver

This week I have chosen a tub of ready made hummus as my Sanity Saver.  This was picked up on an outing to the chemist for Alan's prescription, combined with another dog walk.  Alan needed supplies from the Co-op so I went too.

It feels a bit bitty this week and I feel completely out of routine after my emergency trip back to Wales, but I am determined to get back to normal over the course of today.  I will find my MR £2.96 worth of healthy foods from my own back-up stores if I can as I really do not want to go into any more shops.

Living off my Modern Rations and trying not to shop is proving as wearisome as it must have felt shopping for your foodstuffs during the actual war.  I was going to say 'but not as dangerous'  because although we have no bombs dropping or threat of them, but we do have a completely different danger at the moment that is keeping us indoors.

Once again we are being asked to listen to our Prime Minister and Government and follow their guidelines ... and it really is the least we can do.

Sue xx

Dip Butties ... and Memories

 

This challenge is throwing up all sorts of memories for me. 

 Although I was born in 1960 and a few years after rationing in the UK had ended completely, meat had only come off the ration as late as 1954 and sweets the year before that, times were still hard for lots of folks my parents included.

We lived in the downstairs of my Nana's house paying her rent for the three rooms of the semi-detached house in Old Trafford, Manchester that she had bought  in 1958 just before my parents married.  What would have been the front room was my parents bedroom, the 'dining room' was mine and my brothers shared bedroom and the kitchen was everything else ... a table and chairs, two armchairs, the television on it's 1960's spindly legs and once the fitted cupboard were ripped out in the mid-sixties a 'modern' 1960s Kitchen Cabinet.  We had a little pantry room off it which held the large Belfast sink, the old 1950's gas cooker, and from the mid-sixties onwards our gas refrigerator lived under the draining board.

Hot water came from a new fangled instant hot water boiler and the supplies and vegetables were stored in the shopping bags we brought them home from the shops in under the stairs, which was open to the 'pantry' as we called this little much filled room.

Anyway all those memories came to mind when I made myself a 'bacon butty' (bacon sandwich for all you non-UK-ians out there).  After buttering one of my slices of bread with my spread I had a brainwave, why not dip the other slice in the small amount of fat left in the pan after cooked my smoky flavoured vegan Quorn slices, it would make my butter ration go further.  Half bacon butty, half dip butty.

Dip butties are so called because after my Dad had had his bacon butty I used to pester my mum to lay or dip a slice of bread in the fat which after a couple of minutes it would be lifted out topped with a dry slice and enjoyed by me.  

All the delicious flavour of the old fashioned bacon and none of that awful chewiness that I hated as a child.  I have never enjoyed meat and being told to clear my plate as a child only set in place even more intense hatred of certain foods, most of which I have since gotten over ... but never the meat side.

So Dip Butties were born, and my gosh they were a treat!!

And they have now been resurrected during this Year of Modern Rationing.

And yes even though the 'bacon' wasn't real ... the flavour was 😃

Sue xx

Woolton Pie

 

Woolton Pie, possibly one of the most heard about and recognised recipes of the war years and one that cost pennies to make, was very nutritious and very filling.

If you are making it for yourself don't stress about  the filling, just use some of your favourite vegetables, the leftovers from the bottom of the fridge drawer at the end of the week, or if you have nothing fresh in the house raid the freezer for an assortment of frozen veggies.  

All you need are enough part cooked vegetables to fill your chosen pie dish and a bit of sauce to moisten them.  I used some Bisto gravy made up quite thickly and saved the excess to heat up later to pour over my pie, but you could use a white sauce, a curry sauce, a tomato based sauce ... the possibilities for scavenging from the cupboard are endless.

The vegetables are then topped with either a pastry lid or with freshly made or leftover mashed potatoes, it can be straight away if you are ready to pop your pie into a medium to hot oven for around 20-25 minutes, or as I have done here ... leave them to go cold ready for finishing off at tea time.

A good basic recipe is in this book, which is an amalgamation of three other wartime nostalgia recipe books, We'll Eat Again, The Victory Cookbook and Post-War Kitchen all brought together in one handy book, which is my bedtime reading for this week.

This week I am using up the roll of ready made Puff Pastry (and forfeiting most of my fat ration), so I simply out a circle out and topped it with that.  Last time I made it we had it with a mashed potato top which we both thought was not quite as nice.  The whole thing was excessively 'vegetably', whereas a pastry lid adds a bit more texture to the dish and we thought just made it more satisfying.

I think I will be trying the Potato Pastry version next time, from doing the Wartime Ration Challenge a few years ago I remember the Potato Pastry being very successful and very tasty.

Woolton Pie on Wikipedia

Sue xx

In the Rations Larder

 

I have just realised that although I mentioned about incorporating the food that I found in the 'dried foods cupboard' into my Rations Larder once I got back to the flat I hadn't photographed it for posterity properly now that it also contains my first weeks rations and some of the food bought with my Points.

As you can see there are quite a few things that will help me straight away as I kick off this year of modern rationing.  Some of the things are obviously what I have just added, the oil, tin of tomatoes, peanut butter etc.

I actually took the sugar out after taking this photo and popped it into the other cupboard, and I used 8oz of it to add to this weeks rations and I will use the other 8oz (talk about a serendipitous amount in one jar 😀) to add to my rations next week.

So panning back to see what's under the cupboard and you can see that I have quite a good little Rations Larder to start me off.  The large jars all now contain my dried stuff bought with this months Points, my oats, pasta, rice and lentils.  I already keep thinking about what I should buy with next months, it will be interesting to see what I have left over ... there will be red lentils for sure!!

I'm just prepping my Carrot and Coriander soup for lunch and at the same time half-cooking vegetables to add to tonight's Woolton Pie as per my menu. 

Before chopping ...

... and before popping into the bottom oven of the Aga.

 The kitchen smells lovely.

Sue xx