2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

PollyWollyDoodle said:

Instant porridge in pots is a thing, but like you Laura I don’t understand why you would bother when the real thing is so quick and easy - unless you’re somewhere with only a kettle. I will admit to having used them when camping, however they’ve usually got flavouring in or are sweetened which I don’t like.

However I hadn’t heard of the idea of cooking it the night before. I have porridge most mornings so I’m going to try this, usually I cook it (look away, any true Scotsmen or women!) in the microwave. 

Oh, I'm a big fan of pinging! 
The Welsh word for 'oven' is 'popty' so he slang word for a microwave is popty-ping  

I never used one til moving here, but now we have lots of pinged meals - tonight we're having roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots, Savoy cabbage, runner beans and cauliflower cheese - all cooked last time we had hem and frozen, so we just have to ping them this evening and make some Bisto for an instant roast dinner, but a homemade one!  

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, I have porridge every morning and always use the microwave. I use the cheapest oats and milk or water or a mix of both depending on how much milk I have and 2 minutes on high, a quick stir and they are done. I never get lumps.
@PipneyJane, how do you make Anzac biscuits? I only ask because we had a lovely Australian chap who worked as a supply teacher for several months and he made them during a cookery lesson and his TA said they were flapjacks. I didn't get a chance to taste them as the kids scoffed the lot

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere I've heard the phrase "ping cuisine" used for reheating meals in the microwave. Love "popty-ping".

Liverpool_Anne said:

Hi all, I have porridge every morning and always use the microwave. I use the cheapest oats and milk or water or a mix of both depending on how much milk I have and 2 minutes on high, a quick stir and they are done. I never get lumps.
@PipneyJane, how do you make Anzac biscuits? I only ask because we had a lovely Australian chap who worked as a supply teacher for several months and he made them during a cookery lesson and his TA said they were flapjacks. I didn't get a chance to taste them as the kids scoffed the lot

@Liverpool_Anne.  Anzac biscuits were the first thing I made in Home Economics at school.  I'll have to dig out my recipe.  The consistency of the mixture is different and they do taste different to flapjacks.  IIRC, they have coconut in them.

- Pip

Gem-gem

@Laura_Elsewhere In our house we call microwave meal - '!!!!!!-!!!!!!-ping' meals. 

We have the cheap oats for porridge, with oat milk. We then add chopped up apple or pear plus berries all from the garden. (I grow raspberries, blueberries and blackberries). We cook it for 3-4 minutes. Sometimes, I put all the ingredients in the bowl the night before but I have never thought about cooking it the night before. 

The only thing that I have bought is a new eye mask to wear in bed. Not sure if you would have to use a token???!

Laura_Elsewhere

@Gem-gem, if you want another way to save money, you can skip the oat milk and use water... it's another one I think I have from growing up in Scotland, or maybe it's from historical re-enactment or, well, wherever - if you want to *make* oat milk all you do is put one mug of cheap porridge oats in a bowl and two mugs of water, and then just stir it every time you go past for a few hours, or leave it overnight after stirring well and then stir next morning. Put a square of muslin or clean old tea-towel in a sieve over a bowl and tip the lot in, and what drips through *is* oat-milk! 
So by buying oat milk to put in your porridge, all you're really doing is making it much more expensive... if you mix and heat the water-and-oats for porridge the night before, I wonder whether you can tell the difference?  

I think, whatever the reason, I definitely use oats a bit differently from most - occasionally I make oat milk to add to something (mostly for the soluble fibre, eg in soups or stews to smuggle more fibre to My Intended!), I make oatcakes (hurrah, no palm oil esp as it's just been found to make a primary cancer far more likely to metastasise to secondaries...!), I use it, blitzed in a little food processor, for crumble topping (ie no wheat flour, just oats and a small amount of butter, the rest water, and a tiny sprinkle of sugar on top)... Mum makes cranachan which is oats and cream and whisky and raspberries, and I have made Atholl Brose which is oats and whisky and honey and water, and is delicious and lethal  

Laura_Elsewhere

I have a bit of a conundrum...

I want to buy a few more pairs of fine-wool stockings, which last me many years, and so I only buy perhaps 1-2 pairs a year, some years none at all. 
I don't buy nylons at all, ever. 

BUT...

"Stockings/tights. At 2 coupons a pair, stockings are really expensive in coupon-terms. Because of your connection to the armed forces, you have been given 6 special vouchers for those 4-pair value packs, which will not require coupons to redeem."

So... if I choose instead to buy single-use plastics, I get a staggering 24 pairs a year coupon-free????
But if I buy long-lasting fine-wool stockings, from small-suppliers, even with British wool sometimes thus supporting British farming, and which can, at the end of their life be recycled and/or composted, then I pay 2 coupons a pair, yes?

this feels... like it sort of sits at odds with the aims of the group, trying to buy less, buy things that last, spend less money, buy less in the way of wear-it-once-and-throw-away... 

I've felt it was a bit sort of odd for ages, but had mistakenly thought it was just 4 pairs of nylons a year - I looked it up to read to My Intended and find that it's 24 pairs of tights a year, coupon-free but only for short-lived plastics... 

I'll pay the 2 coupons, I'm not running short yet - but I've nearly-said-something so many times, and finding out that it isn' four pairs but twenty-four pairs....!

Maybe reduce it a bit next year to try and encourage people to find alternatives to short-lived plastics which can't be recycled? 

Liverpool_Anne

@Laura_Elsewhere, that is an interesting point but wouldn't the same logic have to be applied to other items then as well? For example the difference between wool and acrylic yarn. I know the wool is better for the environment etc but it costs more coupons, it is, as you say a conumdrum. I personally never buy tights or wool stockings either as I never wear a dress or skirt unless it's warm enough to be bare legged and even then I am more likely to wear capris, cut offs or shorts, slob that I am . We will have to wait and see what Pip says

Laura_Elsewhere

Liverpool_Anne said:

@Laura_Elsewhere, that is an interesting point but wouldn't the same logic have to be applied to other items then as well? For example the difference between wool and acrylic yarn. I know the wool is better for the environment etc but it costs more coupons, it is, as you say a conumdrum. I personally never buy tights or wool stockings either as I never wear a dress or skirt unless it's warm enough to be bare legged and even then I am more likely to wear capris, cut offs or shorts, slob that I am . We will have to wait and see what Pip says

But we aren't given 24 balls of acrylic yarn coupon-free, are we...? 

I'm just suggesting maybe it could be reduced slightly from 24 pairs of unrecyclable, few-times-use tights... 

Anyway, we'll see what Pip says! And Pip, if you say it stays then I promise not to whinge on After all, we all have to live in this village together...  

maryb

These sorts of conundrums are interesting aren't they?  They didn't have to worry about the effect of plastic on the  environment in 1942, it was all about limiting consumption to preserve precious resources.  Maybe we should think about preserving/making best use of resources as a deciding factor in dilemmas like this.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you had been in the Forces you wouldn't have had nice silk stockings, they would have been ultra hardwearing lisle which you could mend.  So that is in many ways more like your fine wool stockings, though yours are more luxurious.  I would think a fair interpretation would be that you could have four pairs in year 1 when you join up but then the coupons would go down so you could only buy one pair a year to replace worn out ones.  That is possibly how it worked in the WAAFS/WRENS/WRACS - you'd show your old pair being past mending and get issued a new pair.  

Awaiting Pip's thoughts with interest

Cherryfudge

Some unplanned charity shopping yesterday, so I have another pair of jeans and some gold shoes... Came to about £9 IIRC, and no coupons. The jeans are stretch which I did think twice about given that I've read here that the stretch shortens their lives, but they're a good fit and the similar pair that I wore a lot are getting a bit thin in the nether regions. I'm not wanting to attempt a patch as I've genuinely worn the fabric out and repair would probably be bulky and odd!

The shoes were an impulse but it gives me something pretty to wear, and gold goes with a lot.

I'm at the sewing-up stage of DH's grey jumper: I never mastered mattress stitch so I YouTubed and am using a crochet method with which I'm really happy. If this ever comes to pieces, it will not be at the seams (unless someone finds an end and pulls, but I'm hoping time will mesh the fluff and it will only get stronger). I've started on a baby blanket but the swatches so far seem to indicate I need to go down at least two sizes of knitting needles. I know I knit loosely but if I have to go down three sizes I will be seriously puzzled! At least with a blanket the size doesn't matter so much.

By the way @Laura_Elsewhere, I have your tawny-and-grey colour combo in my head now. I absolutely love it! I saw similar with 'softer' colours somewhere but the strength of your colours really sings.