Day Two - Missing Bowls of Porridge, Homegrown Salad and Spinach Au Gratin

 

Now this is getting silly ... after taking this photo and drinking this coffee I DEFINITELY took a photo of my bowl of porridge and its accompanying apple, but it has vanished!!

You will have to imagine a green Beryl ware bowl filled right to the brim with porridge... yes, I made my usual portion forgeting that the bowl was smaller ...  and sitting just behind it was a red apple.

There that was breakfast, doesn't it look lovely.  😁

Thankfully my camera did not delete the photos of my lunch.

I took my inspiration from this recipe and started with a grated carrot, then I went off on a tangent and replaced cabbage with leaves and cucumber from the Victory Garden, a single spring onion finely sliced and the merest hint of a bit of spread to stick everything to the bread.

Oh, it was tasty, very fall-y apart-y but tasty.

While I was out in the garden gathering in lunch, I picked all the remaining usable tomatoes and brought them in.  Some might ripen a bit more with the help of the few red ones I already had, but the majority will be turned into some Green Tomato Chutney to help fill my store-cupboard for winter.

I decided the next job was to process all the scrumped apples.

It didn't take long.  All the cores and peels were put into a bag and popped into the freezer, when I have more time I will make a batch of Compost Jelly, a nice mild fruity jelly/jam that's made from all the odds and ends of fruit and peelings strained so that none of the pips or bits get through.  

More food for the winter stores.

Once stewed into a glorious mushy, lumpy mess I filled one large and two small enamel pie dishes and then decided to put in some of the blackberries from the freezer into the hot apples.

For my evening meal I had chosen another recipe from the Food Facts book, this time a healthy sounding Spinach au Gratin, I decided to accompany it with a simple baked potato.

... the last line over the page reads: 'moderate oven for about 20 minutes to crisp the top and blend the flavours well'.

They were all cooked at once in the oven to save on wartime/modern fuel costs, although I did zap the potato briefly in the microwave so that I didn't need to have the oven on for too long.

My tea was tasty and very filling, but somehow didn't quite sit right, I don't know how to improve on it really, perhaps some other vegetables mixed in with the spinach.  I will have another go at it with some tweaks though, as I could almost feel the mass of greens doing me good.

Oh, the large crumble turned out lovely, unfortunately I was too full to eat it, even later for supper.

So I ended the day as I had begun it with a nice cup of coffee.

Sue x

It's All About the Fruits and Veggies, Bought and Scrumped

 

It was all about the fruits and vegetables yesterday.  Sorting out the fridge and getting all my new weeks off-ration purchases stored properly was the first job of the day.  The vegetables all fit neatly into the bottom drawer.

And the tomatoes were added to the pack I already had and put into the fruit drawer ... well they are officially fruit. 😁

You can ignore the cheeses at the back of the drawer I won't be touching them until it's time to take out 4oz for next week's rations.  The three mandarin oranges have lived in the fridge for far too long so I will be eating one a day this week, it would be wasteful to throw them away. 

Well, that's about it for the fridge, all the fruits and veggies in the drawers and the butter, cheese and vegan ham on the shelf.  I just had to put the pint pot of spring onions in the door as they were too tall for the shelves.  Once I use them I will be able to move them over, but I was determined not to give them their usual 'haircut' to make them fit.  Every little bit of food counts even more than usual from now on!!

We went to the garden centre to get some grease bands for our apple tree at the weekend and while we walked the dogs around the paddock there Alan asked if I wanted an apple or two from the old trees there, of course I said yes.  It was only when he emptied his pockets out at home that I realised he had managed to reach five. 

Meanwhile in the cafe I scrumped the plastic cups that you have to use to get water in now that they seem to have put away the glasses.  It's a shame but they are so flimsy you do need to take two. There was no way I was going to let them go into the trash or even into the recycling, so I brought them home and I will use them next year as little 'greenhouse' lids for plant pots when I start seedlings off for my Victory Garden next year. 

The scrumped apples are now in the pot on my little storage unit alongside the potatoes in the basket and the bread in the 'flour bin' ...  and the plastic cups are in the shed.

And that's it all the prep work and shopping has been done, there's nothing for it but to begin My Modern Wartime Rationing.

https://youtu.be/HheoEd4wrYg

A fascinating collection of memories about rationing.

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

Week Two - The Food

 

The Weekly Rations

All this weeks food rations were weighed out last night ready for a new Monday start.  It felt all wrong running from Friday to Friday just because the first of January was a Friday, so now I have switched to Monday to Monday.

You will notice one glaring thing wrong with this photo and it's a roll of modern ready rolled Puff Pastry.  To use this up I decided that this week I would forfeit the rest of my fat ration, so no 2oz of oil or 2oz vegan suet (or similar) just my 4oz of spread in the butter dish and the pastry will be considered as having taken the rest of my fats along side 8oz of unrationed flour.

If things need using up I will be using them instead of wasting them and this sort of compromise will no doubt happen for quite a few weeks as I shop from home and use things up.

Off the Ration

My not on the ration shopping this week up to now has included bread, potatoes and a round lettuce.

  Not my usual sort of lettuce at all as I am an Iceberg fan through and through, I just love the crunch it gives to a salad or a sandwich, but they come from Spain at this time of the year ... a big no-no for me during rationing ... and round lettuces are grown in the UK all year round.  I need to go to the shops late at night when it's quieter and I can have a slower, better look at all labels to see what else is grown in the UK all year round these days as these items will all fit into my modern rationing plan.

I still have half of last weeks cabbage, most of the leek and all but one of the carrots.  I do need to do so much better at piling my plate up with vegetables.

 Sanity Saver

My sanity saver this week is a carton of ready made custard.  It was at the back of the fridge and it's date was up at the start of December ... it should be fine and will be used on an apple pastry that I intend to make later.  Hot apple pastry and cold custard ... yummy  😋

My next job today after another coffee and a spot of blog hopping is to make up this weeks menu plan and take a photo of it for you to peruse.

Sue xx

Banger and Mash

 

Things are starting a bit slow here at the moment, but rest assured I am mostly on rations, even if a few extra 'things leftover from Christmas' have passed my lips as I prepare to move from the smallholding here in Wales back to my flat in Lancashire.   I would much rather eat them than waste them, which if you know me at all you will well understand.  So it all feels a bit topsy turvy temporarily but normal service should soon resume ... or maybe just start properly  😀😄

The top photo is my tea last night, Banger and Mash ... so called because I used only one of my two sausages cut into four bite sized pieces once it was cooked and then further cut up as I ate them with the mash and Bisto gravy.  I wanted to save my other sausage for something else later in the week ... it would have been way to extravagant to just eat them both at once.  Alan had his mash with a pack of Pigs in Blankets left over from the Christmas shop ... you can guess who the dogs sat closest too while we ate!!

Yesterdays post and the comments threw up some lovely memories for some of my readers and talk was of happy Sunday teatimes with bread and butter followed by jelly and cream.

Someone who still does this today is Michelle Clare, formerly of the blog Remembering the Old Ways (on my sidebar) and now of Instagram.  Every weekend and on special occasions she shares photos of the family table laden with lovely food about to be enjoyed in her lovely old cottage.

Here's a link if you want to go and drool over her gorgeous photos:  

Remembering the Old Ways

This morning after taking the dogs for a long run on the beach, even little Puggy legs were excited to be running on soft sand, we called to Tesco for some cleaning products we needed and I picked up the rest of this weeks MR £2.96 spend.  That's all but 3p of my money spent and I will not be carrying over any money as each weeks meat allowance had to be spent in that week as far as I can find out.

Rest assured I am trying whenever possible to only buy British and in-season fruits and vegetables so I was delighted to find UK grown Gala apples at six for £1.60 which left me with 46p to spend  The only other UK apples that I could spy loose were Bramleys, perfect I thought but they were HUGE so I played a weighing game until I managed to find one at 43p.   

 I see the makings of a nice apple pie there  😋

Sue xx

A Thoroughly Modern Breakfast

 

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

Getting Ready

 

While I set to and sort out my foods ready for starting my Year of Modern Rationing here is a little film for you to watch.

Enjoy.

Sue xx

My Modern Rations

 

Food Rationing During the Second World War

This post is basically my lists and amounts, both of rationed goods, items available via the points system and a few other things.  I hope you find it interesting and it will help you to see the background work that I have been doing to try and understand the rationing system as it was during the Second World War here in the UK and adapt it where necessary to my Year of Modern Rationing in 2021.

It looks a bit bitty and I apologise for that but copy and pasting tables and other information makes for different type faces and different sizes.

Wartime Rations	My Modern Rations
Weekly Ration
4oz Ham or Bacon	4oz Meat Substitute	ie. Veggie mince, burger OR legumes
4oz Margarine	4oz Dairy Free Spread	Flora or Pure etc
2oz Butter	2oz Oil	Any
2oz Lard	2oz Vegan Alternative	ie. Trex or Suet
3 pints of Milk	1 Carton Dairy Free Milk	Almond, Oat or Soya
3oz Cheese	3oz Dairy Free Cheese	Violife/Applewood etc
8oz Sugar	8oz Sugar
2oz Tea	2oz Nescafe Coffee	I cannot drink tea.
1 egg	2oz Flaxseeds	Egg replacer
1 Sausage	1 Vegan Sausage
2oz Fish	1 Vegan Sausage	Or perhaps vegan Fish Alternative
3oz Sweets	3oz Sweets	Any type
Meat to the Value of 1s 2d	Extras to the Value of £2.96	1942 = modern day equivalent
Monthly Ration
1 Bottle Camp Coffee	4oz Nescafe Coffee
1 Pkt Dried Milk	1 Extra Carton Dairy Free Milk
1 Pkt Dried Eggs	I Pkt Vegan Egg Mix
½ lb Onions	½ lb Onions
Bi-Monthly Rations
1 Tub Cocoa	1 Tub Cocoa
1lb Jam or Marmalade	1lb Jam or Marmalade

My Off-Rations Shopping List

Potatoes

Carrots

Celery

Leeks

Cabbage/Greens

Additional Seasonal Vegetables including Onions and Fruit

To reflect shortages my onions and fruit must be purchased from my £2.96 weekly allowance.

Brown Bread

Yeast

Flour

One modern 'Sanity Saver' per week.

This is to be one item, at first to be taken from my 'pre-ration' store-cupboard of supplies and then later in the year when stores run out may be bought from any shop.

*** *** ***

So these are my basic rations for the year.  During the war years there was one more thing to get your head around ... the Points System.  I'll be back tomorrow with my plans for this.

Sue xx