I'll Be Shopping from Home ... For a Long Time!!

 

So I arrived back at the flat, unpacked my rations, decanted the flour into the jar I used to use for my Weetabix ... I won't be able to get any Weetabix for at least a month as cereals are on the Points system and I have spent all my points ... and the whole bag fits beautifully with just enough  over to half fill my little flour dredger.

I re-arranged this corner of the worktop to accommodate my things overnight as I just knew the cupboards were going to be pretty full.  You may notice an extra jar of something in amongst all the decanted lentils, rice, oats etc!

It's a jar of oatmeal that I found in the cupboard in Wales.  I was watching a short film clip of Marguerite Pattern and she said that oatmeal was never on the ration, sometimes hard to get hold of but not rationed, if that's good enough for Marguerite then it's good enough for me.  I also decanted my gravy granules into my lovely Bisto tin, it looks much more authentic even if the contents are not the same as the wartime gravy powders.

I have been having a ponder over the last couple of days, I realised after a couple of you brought it to my attention, that I was making myself start from scratch when that simply wouldn't have been the case in wartime.  Everyone would have started off with a larder of  food of some description and would have used it up as and when they needed to alongside their rations to complete their meals .  Indeed in the few weeks before rationing began, the government had actually advised people to build their larders up slightly to accommodate two or three weeks worth of dried and tinned foods, if they could afford to do so.

So on the drive back to the flat I decided that whatever was in the 'dried foods cupboard' would be my pre-war larder and the main store of food would become the food that I shopped from until it ran out.

I couldn't remember exactly what was in it but when I arrived this is what I found, a bit of a hotch-potch but then this is what most larders of basics are like.  So this is now my only larder cupboard and will be used for all the food that I will be eating over the course of this Challenge, along with the worktop area underneath it for all the larger storage jars ... oats, flour, pasta and rice etc.

Today's main job is to sort through the fridge and freezer.  Here at the flat they are both tiny, and with the food that I had left behind before getting stuck in Wales and the new foods  that are part of my rations that I had brought with me, you can see clearly that they are full to bursting.

From the fridge I can remove the chocolate straight away, it doesn't need to be in there and will be used as my 3oz of allowable sweets a week until it runs out.  I will be able to see what is tucked away at the back when I begin sorting and see if I can remove anything else.

The freezer!!

At first glance there are a few things that I can incorporate into the rations straightaway, for instance I know that at the back there are some frozen mixed vegetables and some spinach pellets both of which fall into the modern rationing arena quite nicely.  The sausages will be available at two a week and any sauces can be used with my pasta.

I'll see what I have properly after I have taken Suky for a walk, now that the weak morning sunshine is taking the edge off the bitter cold I feel she will enjoy it a bit more.

The other cupboard ... the foods of which will be sorted out into categories and stored until I am allowed armed with my coupons and points to shop from ... well that's going to take some sorting out.  Maybe that's a job for tomorrow, with lockdown now in full force there really is no rush!!

Sue xx