2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

thriftmonster said:

Cherryfudge said:

I have a question and I'm hoping someone here can help me please! I have some of the L1dl sock yarn and the guide on the ball band says needles size 4. Surely that's not 4mm needles? My socks might look like lace! I've never actually made socks and was expecting teeny-tiny thin needles...

Tension is 30 stitches and 42 rows = 10 x 10 cm.

Apparently US 4 is 3.5mm. That tension sounds like 4ply so I would start on 3.25mm but check your stitch count after a few rows
 

3.25mm is way too big for a 4-ply sock, @thriftmonster.  I'm using that for DK weight and wondering whether I should have used 3mm.   (I have a friend with larger feet.  She'll get these socks.)

- Pip

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

PipneyJane said:

I am contemplating making minced pies.  While I have a jar of “minced meat”, I have memories of a Wartime recipe which used grated apple.  (Years ago, I attended a talk at the Cabinet War Rooms, given by Marguerite Patton.  She passed around samples.  Now to find the recipe…)

- Pip

Don't all mincemeat recipes use plenty of apple? My current batch has all the remaining apples from our local help-yourselves trees, as well as a few spoonfuls of last year's mincemeat for continuity!

ps- Pip, your Aussieness is showing  
"minced pies" would be if you made pies and then chopped them up finely and a jar of "minced meat" would be a jar filled with raw meat chopped up finely...  
you want mince pies, made from mincemeat subtle but crucial distinction!

 

Honestly, I don't know about the recipe for mincemeat.  I need to find my collection of Marguerite Patton's WW2 recipe books and have a look.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

I'm busy today doing lots of preparation for Xmas food... we were lucky this morning and spent all our rations with Mr Sainsbury, and came home with goods that are quite pre-war!
I twizzle chipolatas in the middle to make two small ones, and then wrap each in bacon- I cut each rasher of streaky bacon in half and then stretch it over the back of a knife before wrapping it round. Then I do those in the oven til crispy, cool and freeze- that way we can ping them and they're just as good as freshly-done I also make our bread sauce beforehand and freeze it. We have a baked ham and parmentiere potatoes on Xmas Eve, and on the 25th we have really good Norfolk Black chicken breasts, roasted in a waistcoat of herbs and spices and a dusting of grated grana padano cheese- we prefer chicken to turkey, and this does us nicely. The veg (and potatoes!!) we do on the day, although I shall roast my parsnips today and freeze them too, and we keep staples like sliced carrots and cauliflower florets parboiled in the freezer anyway. 

I like to try and get as much done beforehand as I can, and then we have a lovely lazy time, just cooking the main bits, and making the stuffing to bake nice and crispy in an enamel metal dish! 

We are greedy people so we love our Xmas dinner...!

We've got almost all the presents organised too, as I made and sent cowls to both nieces back in October, and we have my parents' presents organised and just need to wrap and post those. 

How are you all doing? It's the first year in many years that I have felt this far ahead of myself!!

maryb

I'm knitting the pink colourway in the Lidl sock yarn and using 2mm needles but I always have to go down two needle sizes because I have very loose tension

PipneyJane

D'you know, I've never knowingly had bread sauce?  @Laura_Elsewhere please share your recipe. 

You are far better organised this year than I am.  While I'm looking forward to the break, I'm struggling to get into the spirit for the big day.  Too many family tensions with my SIL and BIL, with whom we'll have to stay for 2 nights.  We've been ordered to cook Christmas at my MIL's, but I have no idea what equipment she kept since she moved to be close to them.  (She didn't have a decent sized baking tray until DH bought her one a couple of months ago.) 

I will get cards and presents posted to Australia this weekend.

- Pip  



ETA:  I very nearly bought a suit yesterday from Hobbs.  It's 1940's style.  The Belgrave suit.  What stopped me was the fabric.  If I'm spending the best part of £500, I want something made out of wool, not polyester.

Laura_Elsewhere

@Pipneyjane - I make quite unusual bread sauce, much more like its mediaeval forerunner... normal modern bread sauce is made with very fine white breadcrumbs; you warm a little pan of milk with half an onion in it with a couple of cloves stuck in it, then take out and throw away the onion and cloves; mix the barely-flavoured milk with the breadcrumbs to make a smooth pallid pap suitable for a Victorian invalid, and with no risk of adding any flavour to your meal...

...or...

I use homemade bread made with 40%oats but any good bread will be fine, one with a good nutty flavour is best. Tear it into pieces about 1cm across. I use about 75g for the two of us... meanwhile, chop half a small-medium onion and mince it finely with a knife, chopping in every direction. Stir that into the bread and add enough milk to cover it. Either mix it in a bowl and then ping in microwave for a minute at a time stirring well between pings, and you'll want at least 6 or 8 pings, or make it in a small saucepan and heat gently on the hob. While it's heating grate half a nutmeg and add that, with a shedload of fine black pepper.
When it's ready it will suddenly change texture from bread in milk to a gloopy thick sauce. Add more black pepper to taste.

it should be a thick dollop, not remotely pourable, and it should taste of onion and nutmeg and black pepper as well as milk and nutty bread. 

maryb

That is a nice suit but the fabric is just shocking!  That would pill under the arms in less than a day with all that viscose!  I went off Hobbs a few years ago when I was looking for a coat and could not get one that wasn't a high percentage of plastic

Wraithlady

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@Pipneyjane - I make quite unusual bread sauce, much more like its mediaeval forerunner... normal modern bread sauce is made with very fine white breadcrumbs; you warm a little pan of milk with half an onion in it with a couple of cloves stuck in it, then take out and throw away the onion and cloves; mix the barely-flavoured milk with the breadcrumbs to make a smooth pallid pap suitable for a Victorian invalid, and with no risk of adding any flavour to your meal...

...or...

I use homemade bread made with 40%oats but any good bread will be fine, one with a good nutty flavour is best. Tear it into pieces about 1cm across. I use about 75g for the two of us... meanwhile, chop half a small-medium onion and mince it finely with a knife, chopping in every direction. Stir that into the bread and add enough milk to cover it. Either mix it in a bowl and then ping in microwave for a minute at a time stirring well between pings, and you'll want at least 6 or 8 pings, or make it in a small saucepan and heat gently on the hob. While it's heating grate half a nutmeg and add that, with a shedload of fine black pepper.
When it's ready it will suddenly change texture from bread in milk to a gloopy thick sauce. Add more black pepper to taste.

it should be a thick dollop, not remotely pourable, and it should taste of onion and nutmeg and black pepper as well as milk and nutty bread. 

To be honest, I make mine the 'Victorian invalid' way (or, the 1930's cookbook way as that's where the recipe was) but I heat up about 2 pints of milk with half an onion studded with as many cloves as will fit (think it works out about 20 but I've never counted) then leave it to infuse for at least an hour (overnight in the fridge if I can). After infusion, I remove the onion.

Then I grate the bread into nice big crumbs, add the milk, a large knob of butter, a pinch of nutmeg and a good couple of grinds of pepper, then heat up. OH rather likes it cold in the traditional post-Xmas leftover sarnie, I just heat up mine with a splash of milk.
Definitely not bland!

With you on the texture, though - if it can move unassisted from the pan, you need more breadcrumbs in there.

Gem-gem

T0ft have a new CAL in January. You can get the pattern as a free download. I've ordered just the pattern as I have yarn to use up from the sampler blankets that I have made. It will be an 80th birthday present. 

maryb

I think I'm just about ready to reckon up for the year.  To my astonishment I am ending the year with 3 coupons to carry over.  That's largely because whatever I bought I ended up taking most of it back because of poor quality/fit.  I will eventually have to find some wearable things to replace what is wearing out but that is a problem for next year's coupons

I take it we are running this again next year? It does help to keep me on the straight and narrow.