2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Thanks for sharing the Edmond’s recipe for Anzac Biscuits, @kiwisavings.  It’s similar to the Macquarie one, which I know I’ve used because it has my pencilled note beside it.

The edition I have of “Cookery the Australian Way” is not the one I used at school - it’s a later edition to that and has a different layout to the one I remember.  (That was one recipe per page.)  It is quite possible that this one contains errors, and omitted desiccated coconut by mistake.  

Talking of desiccated coconut, I’ve been saving up my chocolate ration for Easter and there’s a batch of Coconut Rough in the ice-box at the Village Hall for everyone to share.  I make it instead of buying Easter eggs.  We each get a tub on Easter Sunday, and there’s plenty to share and give to others.  I usually make a double or triple quantity, but the below is enough for a family of 4.

Coconut Rough

Ingredients:

60g Coconut Oil (aka “Copha Butter”)
375g 50% dark chocolate
3 cups medium coarse desiccated coconut

Method

1. Measure everything first.
2. Line several baking trays with non-stick liners.  Use ones that fit in the fridge.
3. In a large bowl suspended over a pan of boiling water, melt together the chocolate and the coconut oil.
4. Once melted, remove from heat and stir in the desiccated coconut.
5. Using a teaspoon, dollop the chocolate mixture onto the baking trays.  You’ll easily get 30+ generous dollops.
6. Refrigerate until set, then divide into containers for gifts.

Store in the fridge.  Because of the coconut oil, Coconut Rough has a lower melting point than regular chocolate, so is only sold in the winter in Australia.

Happy Chocolate Festival everyone.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

Oh dear, that Coconut Rough does look moreish! Between that and the Anzac biscuits, I can tell my waistbands are getting too small...

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

Oh dear, that Coconut Rough does look moreish! Between that and the Anzac biscuits, I can tell my waistbands are getting too small...

Sorry about that, @Cherryfudge.  How about we do a walk around the outskirts of the village on Sunday afternoon, to wear off the calories?

- Pip


PS:  I’ve added links to both recipes in the first post.

Nelliegrace

Thank you for the recipe for Anzac biscuits. We have our morning WI meeting on 8th May and they would go down well.

PipneyJane

Nelliegrace said:

Thank you for the recipe for Anzac biscuits. We have our morning WI meeting on 8th May and they would go down well.

Perfectly timed for VE Day, @Nelliegrace.  

Will people be attending any of the commemorative events?  I’ll be at one at the Royal Albert Hall, that evening, wearing the poppy I purchased at the Longest Yarn exhibition. 

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

PipneyJane said:

Nelliegrace said:

Thank you for the recipe for Anzac biscuits. We have our morning WI meeting on 8th May and they would go down well.

Perfectly timed for VE Day, @Nelliegrace.  

Will people be attending any of the commemorative events?  I’ll be at one at the Royal Albert Hall, that evening, wearing the poppy I purchased at the Longest Yarn exhibition. 

- Pip

The only thing my family does to mark VE Day is to put up the Union flag in the front window which is the same one that Gran and Grandaddy flew in the front garden of their Southampton home on the original VE Day in 1945, the garden where GIs camped in the days before D-Day, invited in for hot baths and home cooking (partly because through Grandaddy’s work he was one of a small number of civilians who knew what they were going to and, bluntly, what their life expectancy was…). 

The flag is now quite tattered and faded , but then it is eighty years old… I should probably stitch it onto a fine-mesh support backing.

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

PipneyJane said:

Nelliegrace said:

Thank you for the recipe for Anzac biscuits. We have our morning WI meeting on 8th May and they would go down well.

Perfectly timed for VE Day, @Nelliegrace.  

Will people be attending any of the commemorative events?  I’ll be at one at the Royal Albert Hall, that evening, wearing the poppy I purchased at the Longest Yarn exhibition. 

- Pip

The only thing my family does to mark VE Day is to put up the Union flag in the front window which is the same one that Gran and Grandaddy flew in the front garden of their Southampton home on the original VE Day in 1945, the garden where GIs camped in the days before D-Day, invited in for hot baths and home cooking (partly because through Grandaddy’s work he was one of a small number of civilians who knew what they were going to and, bluntly, what their life expectancy was…). 

The flag is now quite tattered and faded , but then it is eighty years old… I should probably stitch it onto a fine-mesh support backing.

I love this story, @Laura_Elsewhere.  I’m glad the GIs had kind memories of your grandparents to comfort them through the battle of Normandy.  Almost every metre of the route between Utah Beach and Paris is named after a GI that died nearby.  When I visited Utah Beach and watched people training racehorses on the sands, sometimes it feels strange that normal life continues.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - thankyou. I'm also very proud of the fact that when the white soldiers complained (!!!) that they were expected to use a bath-tub after a black soldier had used it, my grandparents simply said, "oh well, then, if you don't want a bath- who's next?"  

Dad says Grandaddy was exhausted, because he always asked the officers in for a drink after dinner (!), and often they would want to talk- their first relaxed conversation with a civilian in comfortable surroundings in months, presumably- and so the evening would stretch on and on and he always felt that, knowing it might be their last relaxed conversation ever, he really really couldn't say "ah well, nice to have met you but do go now, I'm sleepy", but had to wait til the officer decided to leave... so, whilst doing seriously important war-work (he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur after the war, very rare for a non-Frenchman) he was also having to stay up late every night all of that week prior to D-Day... 

maddiemay

@PipneyJane thank you for your warm welcome cup of tea was thoroughly enjoyed. I am fairly well, but it has been a hard winter for me with all the winter bugs.
The sweat shirt arrived, it looked huge, but was just as I wanted it, all ready for me Lake District holiday in a few weeks. Time I made a spread sheet now I have clocked up 3 purchases for 2025.