When Rationing Began ... and Me Trying to Get Organised

 On this day in 1940 rationing in the UK began.  

Most people understood what was going to happen and although not looking forward to being on such strict rations they could see that this was the fairest way of making sure that everyone got their fair share of available foods.

This Challenge has not started the way I intended it to at all and I feel as though I am just on the verge of starting rather than already through the first week.  The little freezer here at the flat was full to bursting when I arrived so yesterday I finally got round to sorting it out.

How such a little space could hold so much I have no idea, but I had to set about planning what to do with it.  Most of the things can be incorporated into my rations, the vegetables and sausages etc other things I will just grit my teeth and use up even though they do not fit in with what I am trying to achieve this year, which is to get back to eating simple real foods that my Nana would have recognized.

She wouldn't have recognised a Kiev that's for sure, so that was the first to go, served with some of the rice from my ration.  A simple meal but one of my favourites.

As it was in the biggest box too I thought 'well that's more space in the freezer for sure'.  (I double wrapped the remaining one for safe storage outside it's box.)

I obviously did not repack it as well as it was packed at first!!

With Alan heading here this weekend for a business meeting he can help me to eat through some of the foods that I want to use up and get out of the way, and in my head I have decided that I am going to begin the Challenge in earnest on Monday.  By begin I mean proper days food photographs, all three meals of everyday being made from rations with only minimal input from the food stores in the way that I had planned initially.

One thing I have been pleased about at the end of this week of rationing is that my coffee supply has held up remarkably well.  I have been making a point of drinking tap water when ever I have been thirsty and only having a coffee when I am sitting down to enjoy a break, either at the computer reading through blogs or watching television in the evening ... and of course that most important first coffee of the day after the icy cold doggy walk along the riverbank.  So I've just reweighed this and out of my ration of 2oz I still have half an ounce left ... phew!!

Over the course of the weekend I will be publishing photos of what else I have been up to during these  first few days of the Challenge, while I have been trying to make sense of the stores I already had and how they are going to fit in with the rationing at the start of this year.

Sue xx