A cross between a wartime breakfast and a thoroughly modern one ... and one that is perfect for a vegan. One thing most vegan foods lack is a complete protein, but combining a grain with a nut rectifies this instantly. So wholewheat bread with peanut butter is nice and easy ... and a very very tasty and healthy way to start the day. I also had one slice of toast with just spread to see how little I could get away with using and it still be tasty.
If I ate toast like this every day I would soon run out of my spread as I only have 4oz for the week, but luckily when I have jam or marmalade I don't usually add any spread first.
I need to sit down and write out a menu plan for the week ahead, and indeed I really should start doing this for the start of every week and get into the habit, so that I can make best use of my weekly and monthly rations, but I have been so busy that I just haven't done this yet.
Today's breakfast was a bit different ... I had bacon butties.
It's funny as I was buttering the bread my Dad's voice came to mind when he taught me how to do this as a child. Once I had been taught the technique of 'first do the edges and the middle will take care of itself', it was usually my job to butter the bread that we had with every meal while Mum cooked the food and Dad laid the table. Usually it was just one slice for each of us cut in half ... my parents, me and my younger brother. It could be used to make a chip butty or two, or simply to mop up the gravy on the plate. So that there was nothing wasted and it provided a bit of extra filling for hungry tummies.
You can just about see the difference in the two slices of bread, the one on top was buttered using Dad's technique by going all around the edges and then pulling in the spread to the middle with just a little more added to the knife, and the one underneath as I do it now, just loading the knife and spreading.
I will be reverting as the old way did indeed use less of the spread.
The vegan bacon I used was this, it's the most genuine tasting I have found and even the dogs were drawn to the kitchen with smell of it frying. Half a pack weighs in at just 2oz so I think that this is the amount I will add to my rations most weeks, maybe for a bacon butty treat on Saturday or Sunday.
It might not look much but with a cup of coffee it has kept me nicely filled all morning.
I think I need to go and sit down and write myself a menu plan for the rest of the week now, it's time to get organised.
Sue xx
Out here in 1960s Suffolk countryside the rule for bread spreading was "don't forget the headlands" (thats the bits round the outside of a field that are ploughed last. I used to get told off for only doing the middle.
ReplyDeleteI've just been learning all about ploughing the fields in Suffolk from Paul Heiney, so that's a very good way of describing the buttering of bread :-)
DeleteI've never tried real bacon so I'm a bit wary of the meat-free alternative as I don't know what the taste or texture is like. I might suggest Jon gets some next time he goes shopping, he can always eat it if I don't! xxx
ReplyDeleteWell I can't bring myself to eat anything with the texture or mouthfeel of real meat having eaten some of it for the first 45 years of my life, so I find it hard to even tolerate some of the meat-free alternatives that are trying to imitate real meat. This has the nice smoky flavour and smell that you associate with real bacon but the texture is much smoother and not too chewy ... a bit like the texture of a slightly firmer LMc sausage. It's a winner with me.
DeleteI too had some peanut butter on a whole wheat English Muffin this morning but I did add a banana as I like to have some fruit in the morning. We are advised to have 7 to 10 servings of fruit & veg per day so need to start early in the morning.
ReplyDeleteI do like to have butter and then jam or marmalade but I do remember as a kid being told that was extravagant and to choose one or the other! :-)
I ate one of my bananas with some of my yoghurt that needed using up so I didn't want to eat my only other one for this week just yet, but peanut butter with banana is gorgeous isn't it :-)
DeleteI may start having some smoothies over the next few weeks as spinach and apple are totally wartime ration foods, and I could add a third of a frozen banana for an additional fruit, then I will be having at least 3 of my currently aimed for 5 a day. I don't think I will be able to reach 7 to 10 servings a day as one of my most used vegetables is going to be potatoes and they don't count ... unfortunately.
That's funny, buttering the bread was my job as a young girl and as you said it was on the table at every meal, I loved it if there was left over gravy as I would slap the bread and butter on my plate and saturate it , if there was any bread left at the end of the meal we had it with jam for pudding as we mainly had puddings at weekends only.
ReplyDeleteI think family teatimes were always so nice, we each had our own jobs towards it and we all sat and talked to each other. The bread was always a good filler and mopping up gravy SO tasty. The only battlefield was my parents insisting my brother ate his vegetables, a huge mistake as now even in his 50s he wont eat any. I had similar teatimes when my boys were growing up, with them setting and clearing the table for me and lots of happy chatter and I had a much more relaxed attitude to my boys eating things and they both eat anything and everything now.
DeleteI'm ashamed to admit that bacon is one of the few things that I miss as a veggie -- I may have to look out for a good alternative. I find the alternatives have improved a LOT since I first became a vegetarian in the late 80s....the 'faux meat' then was a bit vile :D.
ReplyDeleteAnd, ooooh, chip butties. *dribbles* :D
Chicken and bacon were actually the very last meats I gave up, and I think that was because we kept chickens and pigs during our time in Oxfordshire and I had to visit an abattoir. You would have to be VERY hard-hearted to eat any kind of meat after a trip to the slaughterhouse.
DeleteI know ... chip butties, always a winner and luckily I can have them on rations :-)
Ok, I’m American. What’s a buttie?
ReplyDeleteA sandwich 🥪 😄
DeleteJust imagine a slice of buttered bread with hot chips (big fat French fries) all lined up on one side. Fold it over and squeeze so that the heat of the chips makes them sink into the butter and bread and then bite into it. Heaven in a butty :-)
Ive been considering that "bacon" and wondering whether to try it. I shall do so now I know of someone who has tried it! My mum used to serve bread and butter with tinned fruit salad at tea time on Sunday. Seriously strange!!
ReplyDeleteOur Sunday tea was bread and margarine with cheese triangles, tinned fruit and evaporated milk.
DeleteIt took me a while to try this one as I am a bit funny about fake meats, see my comment to Vix above. Compared to say the Quorn ones or other more bacon-y lookalike ones I think this is a winner. If it fooled Alan and the dogs into thinking the cooking smells were me cooking bacon and it passed my 'mustn't feel too much like meat' test you know it's a winner.
DeleteBread, butter and perhaps a sausage roll, followed by either tinned fruit salad or jelly with evaporated milk (always Carnation in our house) was a very sixties Sunday teatime treat. To be followed by bath-time, reading time, hot milk and bed.
Thanks for the special mention and like to my war diary.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's been there from the start. It really is worth a special mention, those War Diaries are an absolute gem. I should have asked though ... sorry!!
Delete