Day Thirteen - The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?

 

Sliced bread is dangerous!!  

It's oh so easy to pull out a slice and toast it ... just because you fancy a slice.  Would I have had this very early morning slice of toast if I had had to get out the bread knife and the chopping board, I think not.  I would have waited for my weetabix.

No wonder the National Loaf was unsliced and often quite stale, less temptation to eat it just for the sake of eating it.  Or maybe I'm just lazy.  😁

My main breakfast after the temptation of earlier.

Double breakfasting was a good idea though really, because soon after eating my weetabix we had to hit the road at 6.20am to get to Mum's before the cleaning company came to give her little bungalow a deep clean.  We could not have left her on her own to supervise this so soon after coming out of hospital.

The rest of today's food was bought on the road to Mum's and while we were there.  Not on the ration, but I'm classing it as eating out at the British Restaurants.

https://youtu.be/lV6J24V1G6I

Yet another brilliant little YouTube film.

Sue xx

Day Ten - Porridge, Pots and Leek Pudding

 

After a good breakfast of porridge and an apple we set off once more down to Manchester.

This time we headed directly to Mum's bungalow to get it ready for her return.  We had arranged for a small team of cleaners to do a deep clean of the bungalow next Tuesday in preparation for her coming home, but then plans were thwarted when the hospital rang me to say she was being discharged the next day.  So, we snapped into action and got there a couple of hours before she was due.

My brother took a half day off work and went to get Mum some shopping and sort out all the things that he normally does for Mum, I did a minor clean of the kitchen areas that she or her carer would need to use over the weekend, including washing all the pots left from just before Mum fell that had lain abandoned for two weeks.  Alan started clearing the floor to make getting around for Mum much easier with her rollator, and then repositioned her telephone next to her chair by tacking an extension cable along the picture rail and safely down the side of the door.  Now when everyone starts phoning to see how she's getting on she won't have to cross to the other side of the room to answer it ... much better.

Between us we got the bungalow safer and then before we knew it she was home.  Literally five minutes after she was brought in the carer arrived to introduce herself and give us all the details of the care package from their side of it. 

It's nice to have it all in place, but of course this is nothing of course to do with my rationing Challenge and all plans of ration meals went straight out of the window for the day.  Lunch was a sandwich hastily grabbed from Booths before we headed for the motorway and supper ... eaten very late on our return ... was once again a Chinese curry sauce and rice.

https://youtu.be/AAxtin4dyQ8

Episode Two of a Wartime Kitchen and Garden for your perusal, while I have a much calmer day.

Sue xx

Day Six - Jam, Parsley and WWII Vegetable Curry

 

Day six was a good day food wise.

 I started the day feeling not all that hungry, so a slice of my brick of a loaf toasted, with one half buttered and one half jammed was enough, along with a lovely cup of coffee.

Oh, and I'm really enjoying using my cups and saucers.  

The cups are designed just right if you know what I mean.  Your fingers fit through the handle perfectly, there is a little rest built into the handle, so the cup doesn't slip down if you are concentrating ... and to be honest I'm rarely concentrating on my drink when I'm drinking it, there's always something else on the go to distract me.

Lunch was equally as simple.  

As I have a good amount of cheese left, I decided on a very cheesy baked potato and at last I remembered a sprinkle of my Parsley.  

Eating parsley, which grows well in this country for a long season and dries for Winter use, was highly recommended during the war years for its high vitamin C, A and iron content, and my poor plant has been sat waving at me for days. 🌿

I set to and made my evening meal nice and early so that the flavours could develop as it cooled. I chose the Mixed Vegetable Curry from page 39 of my Food Facts for the Kitchen Front book.

It made a nice sort of spicy curry, nothing like modern flavours, but in a way all the nicer for that.  With plain boiled rice it made a pleasant change from all the potatoes and bread that I've been eating up to now.  And there are leftovers of both for tomorrow, so I have adapted my menu for the final day of this week.

https://youtu.be/rLBRK5Tf1I4

I'm currently watching this via YouTube.  Although the quality of the old television series isn't to our current HD standards you soon forget that and sink into the lovely gentle atmosphere of Harry Dodson and Ruth Mott teaching us in their unique way.  Enjoy. 

Sue xx

Day Three - Jam, Soup, Chip Shop Chips, Scallops and YouTube

 

I had weetabix written on my menu plan for this morning, but I just didn't fancy it, so I made myself a slice of toast.  To save on rations I had half with butter and the other with jam.  I have never really had butter and jam on toast together it's a bit of a weird combination in my mind, so it's always one or the other.  Although thinking about it I do have butter and jam together on scones occasionally ... and I used to love clotted cream piled high on top.

I'm a strange one ... and always happily the first to admit it. 😄

Lunch was almost as per the menu, but I just decided on bread instead of toast to go along with my vegetable soup.  I think I have another three portions of this in the fridge.

As well as two bowlfuls of soup in the fridge.  I froze it this way so I would have an exact portion size ...

.. and still free up my dishes for immediate use.

Now my evening meal was to have been Carrot Croquettes, but as we were really tired after a horrendous journey in heavy rain to visit Mum in hospital, neither of us felt like cooking so we called to the chip shop on the way home.

Sadly, our chips weren't wrapped in newspaper the way they used to be, but at least the chippy has moved away from polystyrene trays to a much more environmentally friendly cardboard tray.

Who remembers chips all piled high on a piece of greaseproof paper and then wrapped in layers of newspaper.  And if you took a pile of nice clean newspapers to the chip shop where we lived when I was small, children would get a free scallop.

Not the fish sort, but a good old Northern slice of potato dipped in batter and deep fried ... and usually 2d each to buy.

And now for your Sunday entertainment here is a brilliant little YouTube film.  It's an American made and narrated film and is a brilliant description of rationing in the UK.

https://youtu.be/o9wNJ78S2GY

Hope you having a good weekend.

Sue xx

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

 

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