Off We Go AGain

 

Well, I had a word with Mildred and Lucinda, and they said I need to pull my wrinkly stockings up and get back to rationing .... so off we go again.  

I'm having a word about the non-veggie foods on the tray that the grocer has gotten ready to show us, and to query whether it's true that as a veggie I get a whole 4oz of cheese.

Meanwhile Mildred went off to join a queue as there were rumours of fish.

And Lucinda said something about a man on the corner with a suitcase full of nylons ....

👤

Gearing Up, Giving Away and Doing Research

 

I am in the process of gearing up for this Challenge, which is now becoming more of a way of living for the future for me rather than just a month-long Challenge.  But I will be doing a month of wartime rationing to kick-start things and sticking quite rigidly to my modern wartime rations and then re-evaluating at the end of the month.

In the meantime, alongside eating my way through modern foods from the store cupboard and donating the modern processed foods that I no longer want to eat via the Olio App I am doing lots of research.

Some might call it reading books and watching Dvd's but I am calling it research.  😁

Sue xx

Preparing for Rationing

I am currently just back from holiday and working out how to alter rations that look like the above painting, to foodstuffs that as a vegan I will be happy to eat.  

I first thought that I would simply change the meat rations, which in the war years were valued by shillings and pence rather than pounds and ounces, to the modern equivalent in meat-free alternatives. In 1942, the year I am using for my rationing period this was 1s 2d, which in today's money is equivalent to £3.13.  This would have been fine and enough to buy me a pack of meatless mince or perhaps a meat-free burger or steak each week, but in recent months I have been moving away from this sort of eating.

I had a re-think and decided that I would instead use the 1942 wartime rations for a vegetarian, keeping it simple and taking the cheese ration as dairy-free cheese, vegetarians got an extra 3oz in place of their meat ration so I will be able to have a total of 4oz per week.  But taking the egg ration, vegetarians also got one extra egg ... so two each week as the meat-free meat replacements which I do still eat, sausages and occasionally ham for a 'bacon butty'.

It's all been a bit confusing hence my slow start to this.  What I want to do next is to check what fruits and vegetables are in season where I live during September and October, and these will be the only ones that I will be buying for myself during my rationing period.  I will be taking a list of what should be available out with me when I do go shopping and only buying what is in the shops marked 'Grown in the UK'.  Of course, I can also use what I have growing in my tiny garden as a guide, and these will be available to me too.  At the moment I have courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers, salad leaves, baby leeks and soon there should be more potatoes.  

I need to go and register my Ration Card.  🙂

Vegetables were never rationed ... well apart from onions as supplies of these quickly dried up as they were at the beginning of the war mostly imported ... and although fruits were pretty scarce, if you grew your own or they were in season they did become available.  I have a few apples on my own tree and there should be plenty of apples in the shops at the moment as this year has been a bumper fruit year in the UK, but I am going to miss my bananas!!  I need to see if there are any blackberries left in the few places that I know of in this area ... oh how I am missing my old hillside at the moment and the copious brambles growing the length of the paddock that I used to pick to turn into Bramble Jelly.

Anyway, I thought I would just quickly come on and do a post to let you know that I am still planning this and once I have finished the holiday washing and have gotten back to normal, I will be starting my minimum of a Month of Modern Rationing.

Sue xx

Getting Back on the Rations

 

And the last post was just where this particular blog just ended.

Without a word of a goodbye!!

Gosh that was so rude of me ... I apologise and hope to rectify that in the very near future with a resurrection of my modern style of rationing.

My only defence for the vanishing act was the sudden lockdowns and the changes they caused, and then my back breaks and a whole new way of me having to live.  

But life goes on ... and so do blogs.

So ... it's time for me to dig out my books, ration, recipe and inspirational.  

Re-watch some of my favourite 'how to' DVD's and generally get myself back in the mindset of shopping better, spending less and eating more in-season vegetables.

I will be back on the rations ... soon.  

In the meantime I will be tweaking this blog to make it relevant to my new life now and the times we are facing with the current rising cost of living and fuel price hikes, alongside actual wars causing so much heartache in the world.

So if you think you might like to Follow along once I get this blog up and running properly why not click the Follower button on the right-hand sidebar and I will see if this is actually of interest to anyone.  But I might just chatter away to myself anyway ... I'm good at that.  😀

Sue xx

 

Shopping, Not Shopping

 

I've not been out shopping for well over a week now, there's just been no need to.  

Anything I have run out of food wise or other I have been able to cobble together from something else ... no tissues, use a toilet roll instead for instance, low on washing up liquid, water down what I have and wash up once a day instead of two or three times, there's ways and means to avoid the shops if you think about it.  

And passing Booth's supermarket this morning on our doggy walk the queue was a socially distanced version of this wartime queue.  The other main difference being that once everyone got into the shop there would have been lots of food for them to choose from and no-one would have come away disappointed.

It puts a lot of things into perspective doesn't it.

Using up almost the last of my vegetables I put together a mix for a soup yesterday.

The weight shows that I have almost six of my 'five a day' in this one bowl, so splitting it into two or three meals means each one has two or thereabouts.  I'm doing my best even if I don't always get it right.

A very modern way of making soup,  but it saves on gas here in the flat which is my biggest expense.  A quick chopping session and then half an hour in the soup maker ... which also whizzes it up for me as I prefer my soups thick and smooth ... and I have my lunch for two days.

Plus, as long as I remember to fish out a ladle or two full of the mix before whizzing it means I also have the filling for a pie or pasty.  I have done this at least once every week since I started the Challenge.  A bit of pastry turns anything into a tasty and filling meal.

This soup was gorgeous, a real success.

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

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