Thriftlady's wartime experiment

meanmarie

Haven't had liver in a long time, must try to get some soon....I always buy lambs liver although my mother used to say that pork liver was the most nutritious....don't know where she got her info from. I remember I had a recipe about 35 years ago that used liver, apple, onion and potatoes...not sure what proportions were used but I remember that it was very cheap and tasty....wonder why I stopped making it.

Have managed to keep myself from making the cinder candy so far, feeling very virtuous about it as I know who would eat it all!

Marie

flourgirl

thriftlady maybe you could put the Rumbledethumps on your wartime menu.

I wonder if your Wartime Classic will be Woolton Pie!!

moanymoany

sophiesmum wrote: »

Finally got to the end of this thread - enjoyed every bit of it so far. I also have a fascination with the ration type food and love trying out recipes from the books of that era.
daisyroots i have loved reading the excerpts from your parent's letters. I think they would make a lovely book too, especially if you have some photos to go with them.

Thriftlady good luck with your challenge although it sounds like you are enjoying every minute of it. I have often thought of doing something similar but never got around to it. Look forward to reading more of your rationing experiences.

Talking to some elderly ladies recently they were telling me that although sausages were not on the meat ration they were sometimes hard to get hold of and even when they did get them they learned not to question what they were made from:eek:. One of the ladies had a large family and made the sausages go further by allowing one per person for dinner and using them to stuff a baked potato. They cored out the potato stuffed with the sausage and baked in the oven then had them with veg from the garden. The potato corings were thrown into the soup stock pot that they always had going for peelings and outer leaves, which they used for soup,stews etc.If they didn't get enough sausages they opened them and mixed the meat with onions and herbs before stuffing to make it go further.;)
I might try the sausage stuffed potatoes over the weekend they sound tasty.

sophiesmum:D

The sausages in potatoes is in the Jocasta Innes Paupers Cookbook, lots of the recipes in there sound very 'rationey'. I'm going to try it, it sounds good. Sausage meat mixed with onions, herbs etc. makes a great stuffing for marrow.

thriftlady_2

flourgirl wrote: »

I wonder if your Wartime Classic will be Woolton Pie!!

No, not Woolton Pie I'm afraid -I tried that before but OH refused to eat it because of the cauliflower and the kids weren't keen :rolleyes: No, today's wartime classic is Rabbit Pie.

Today's menu
Breakfast- toast, butter and jam

Lunch -lentil soup and bread

Tea - rabbit pie, veg
Apple betty

I'm hoping to post some pictures of the rabbit pie as I make it, as I think people who haven't tackled a bunny before might be interested. I'm going to make a stew of the rabbit first and then take it off the bones before assembling a pie (hope I've enough fat for pastry).


I was ready to give up this experiment last night when I stepped on the scales and found I'd put on 4 lbs :eek: -but this morning I find I've actually lost 1 lb anyway I think we'll press on. I'm going to drop the sweet ration for the kids as Dd spent all of Friday afternoon pestering me about them. I think I'll get them chocolate rather than sweets and let them have a little each day after meals.

Hapless_2

this recipe any good for you?

Limpet Pie

Limpets
Shortcrust pastry
110g (4oz) Streaky Bacon
2 Hard Boiled Eggs
1 Onion
Milk or Egg (Optional)

Cook the limpets until just tender.
Cut the bacon into cubes and fry lightly.
Peel and thinly slice the onions.
Pre-heat oven to 180°C: 350°F: Gas 4.
Line a pie dish with thinly rolled short crust pastry.
Fill dish with alternate layers of limpets, bacon, sliced egg and onion.
Cover with a pastry lid, brush with milk or beaten egg.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Reduce the heat to low and cook for a further 30 minutes.

Topher

Thriftlady, Are you using dried egg powder? I've seen it available, not only in Supermarkets, but also on the WW2 website I use.
Never used it myself.
Topher

recovering_spendaholic

I was talking to my Aunties (96 and 90) yesterday about this experiment and they were interested in the kinds of foods you have all been suggesting. They said that they had Woolton Pie and lots of rabbit stews and pies, but they also reminded me of some of the things that my Dad used to make in the 60's when I was little, which were things they served in the their restaurant in the war. One of my favourite things as a child was stuffed hearts - apparantly hearts weren't on the ration. You just clean out the lambs hearts and stuff them with sage and onion stuffing (bought or home made) and then put them in a large roasting tin with some sliced onions and a bit of oil, lard or dripping and cover with foil and cook really slowly for about 2 hours. After this you take out the cooked hearts and drain off the oil then pour in some stock to get the crusty bits off the bottom of the roasting tin and add some comptons gravy salt, bring to the boil and thicken with cornflour and water to make the gravy. The other thing we had alot of was kidney and sausage braise which is made by frying off some onions in a tiny tiny bit of lard or oil, and adding cut up sausages and cored and quartered lambs kidneys and frying until nice and brown. Then you just add stock and simmer until cooked through before thickening with bisto powder. We used to have both these things with boiled potatoes and peas.

rosieben

Topher wrote: »

Thriftlady, Are you using dried egg powder? I've seen it available, not only in Supermarkets, but also on the WW2 website I use.
Never used it myself.
Topher

could we have a link to the ww2 website please Topher? sounds interesting

Errata

This thread is absolutely fascinating and for me it's brought to the fore a great many memories and reminded me of things I thought I'd forgotten - not just snoek .
Don't worry too much about the weight gain, everyone weighs more before bedtime than they do before breakfast, but I wondered how you were managing to get the right balance of protein and carbs and at least 5 daily portions of fruit and veg?

thriftlady_2

Hapless thanks for the limpet recipe :T -I'd definitely give that a go if it weren't for the fact that we're a bit inland here in Worcester. Beaches and fishmongers are very thin on the ground round here unfortunately

Topher no I'm not using dried egg (think I've seen it in Tesco) because I don't use eggs much at all as DD is allergic to them. I've just been scrambling them for my boys or making egg sandwiches for their pack ups.

Making main meals isn't particularly hard. We're used to not having meat for at least 4 meals a week. We all like pulses so I'm finding it quite easy to come up with main meals -in fact I don't think we've had our all meat ration thi week as the only rationed meat we had was 1 lb of mince.

The difficult thing is baking -I like to keep the tins full of something homebaked for packed lunches and snacks for the kids. I use butter for baking so that's been a challenge as we need it for toast and sandwiches too. I have almost run out of cooking fat now too. I think I'll make a suetcrust pastry for the rabbit pie later as I really haven't enough fat left. I have some suet hoarded away, it was quite difficult to get during the war. Not a very Summery thing to be eating either- but with all this rain it might not be that unwelcome.