Day Eighteen - Scraps Make Soup

 

I decided not long after I got up that I would use the scraps and peelings that I have been saving in the freezer since the challenge started, to make some stock this morning.  There's no point in them just sitting there when I knew they would make a good vegetable stock.  I had in mind a bowl of lentil soup for lunch or my evening meal, and if it was going to be just lentils I wanted to have a rich stock to make it taste good.

While I had my first coffee of the day and then got on with other jobs, they simmered away long and slow, flavour developing and according to Alan making the whole lodge smell lovely.  I still haven't got my sense of smell back at all ... I do miss it. 😞

I was that busy faffing about making stock that I forgot to take a photo of my breakfast, but it looked almost identical to this one from a previous week, so you get the gist.

I obviously had my mind on other things because I also forgot to photograph the two slices of bread that I toasted and had with jam that I ate for my lunch.

The soup turned out lovely and eaten with the croutons that I made last week made for a very filling and tasty evening meal.  And even better there's enough of both soup and croutons left for lunch tomorrow.  It was a good use of a bag of scraps and peelings, along with 4oz of my red lentils.

Sue xx

Day Fourteen - Use it Up, and Enjoy ... and This Week's Giveaway Winner

 

The last day of my second week of living on My Modern Wartime Rations.  

I really like the last day of the week; it means I can use up some of the things that I might have been quite strict with myself over the week ... and this week I have been pretty careful with my butter.  So I decided a real treat of a breakfast was called for.

Scones.  

However, you say it ... whether it rhymes with stone or gone ... they are delicious and a real wartime suitable recipe if you follow the one that I use.  The main ingredient is flour which was not rationed during the war years.

My Scone Recipe

8oz Flour

2oz butter or spread

1oz Sugar

and a pinch of salt

milk

Rub the butter into the flour, add the pinch of salt ... and if you want to you can add a few sultanas now ... I meant to do this as I have them in my points shopping for the week, but I forgot, it was breakfast time after all!!

Add just enough milk to bring the dry mixture together and lightly make it into a ball.  I just flattened this out with my hands and divided it into four quarters.  But you can cut out with a cutter if you are so inclined.  My way means less washing up and no re-rolling of bits 😁

Brush with milk and bake in a hot oven (220c/200fan, 425f and Gas 7) for around 20-25 minutes.

Leave to cool slightly, or as long as you can wait and then enjoy.

I went berserk and used up all my remaining fat ration.

And then took the remaining two scones to Alan for his elevenses before I got tempted to eat all four.

Lunch was one of the frozen soup portions and some of the croutons I made at the beginning of the week.  They were so dried out that they just floated.  I had to submerge them myself.  A really good success then, as being this dry they should be happy in the cupboard for quite a while.

The two croutons on the edge of the tub lid were treats for the dogs, who also agreed that they made a tasty nibble.

For tea it was the leftover pasty, served with a salad this time.

A very successful food day, with three tasty meals that I really enjoyed.  Maybe I didn't quite get all of my five-a-day but with the vegetable soup that was high in greens and a nice salad it wasn't too bad.

Giveaway Draw

I decided to go all old-school for the giveaway draw this week as Google was playing up for lots of you and not letting you add your names to your comments, resulting in the occasional two comments for one request to be entered.

So, I wrote all the entrants names on pieces of paper, popped them into a pot, and asked Alan to pick a name out of it after a good rummage without looking ...

... he picked out Sue - Beachcomber

If you can get in touch via the Contact Form at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar Sue, I will post off your little book as quickly as I can.

Thanks to everyone who entered and there will be another giveaway very soon.

Sue xx

Day One - Vegetables, Lord Woolton Pie, Crumble Prep and Trimmed Spring Onions

 

Day one of my modern wartime rationing started with a bowl of weetabix, well the equivalent sort from Aldi but I always call them weetabix ... with a little 'w'.  Somehow, I haven't got the photo, I could have sworn I took it but no, it's not on my camera or phone.  Oh well, I'm sure you can picture two little weetabix with a good splash of milk in a little green Beryl Wood's Ware bowl.

Soon after breakfast I started making my lunch and evening meal, as it was to be a bowl of vegetable soup and a Lord Woolton Pie the base was exactly the same ... vegetables.

Before long everything was in the pan and simmering gently in a couple of pints of stock.

Time to get out the unsliced loaf that I bought the other day.  

I purposefully bought it a little bit early as the good old National Loaf was always sold one day after it was made, so that it would be easy to slice with little wastage, and unlike modern bread it turned into a solid brick within twenty-four hours.  

Oh, how lucky we are.  My more modern wholemeal loaf was still wonderfully soft and easy to slice.

On the menu for lunch was Vegetable Soup and bread, but the vegetables looked so good that I decided to simply have them as they were.  It was delicious.

I put 12oz of the vegetable mix from the pan into my enamel dish and left it to cool ready to be topped later, then I whizzed up the rest with my stick blender to make a pan of soup for later in the week.  That's a few lunches sorted out then.  I think I have it twice more on this week's menu so some will be frozen for future use.

After lunch, I was either brave or mad ... I'll tell you which later in the week!!

I used half of my week's fat ration to make up some pastry and crumble mix.  I just did the usual half fat to flour ratio.

Then I split the rubbed-in mixture in half.  

To one half I added some salt and water and made pastry, which went to rest in the fridge for a couple of hours.  The other half had an ounce of my sugar ration added to it and a spoonful or two of oats, this will be my crumble mix for on top of some of the apples and maybe a blackberry or two from the freezer.

Once cooled the vegetables were topped with the rested rolled-out pastry, which I photographed just in case it all went horribly wrong in the oven!!

Lord Woolton Pie

 But I needn't have worried it came out looking very presentable and it was delicious.  I should perhaps have had some gravy and cabbage with it as was my original plan, but I just fancied trying the pastry exactly as it was, and I wasn't really that hungry.  

It was delicious.

Taken from this book, but this recipe is also to be found in lots of other books, especially those written my Margeurite Patten.

So that was day one over, and I found it pretty satisfying to be honest.  I had to fight the urge to snack a few times, but a cup of coffee in my little Jasmine cup and saucer or a nice glass of cold water straight from the fridge and I was fine.

Oh, and now that the spring onions have had a good trim they fit on the shelf in the fridge. 😃

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

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