Day Six

Experimental Breakfast

Mock Fried Egg.

I reconstituted some dried egg, cut a hole out of two slices of wholemeal bread, and fried one side in beef dripping. When I turned the bread over, I poured the egg mixture into the hole. All in all, it was rather nice, although not a healthy breakfast by modern standards.

It's funny what you find out. Chatting with neighbours today, the Mock Fried Egg breakfast came up in conversation. We live somewhere pretty rural, and it turns out our neighbour, during the war, was involved in black market eggs. An area near to here was just filled with chicken sheds. Throughout the whole war he never had dried egg. It wasn't until after the war, staying at a hotel in the south of the country, at breakfast he was presented with something he didn't recognise, and had to ask what it was.... dried egg.

Lunch

We had a sandwich when out shopping today. This is the first food we have bought “out” all week. I had a corned beef and onion sandwich, Mark had tuna and onion.

Dinner

Baked Rabbit with carrot and coriander mash, steamed potatoes & onion gravy.

Rabbit was stuffed with a standard sage and onion stuffing, placed on a rack in a baking pan, with its legs folded under the body. The rabbit was then rubbed all over with a Rabbit Seasoning I get when I’m over in Malta. In Malta rabbit is eaten as regularly as chicken is here in Britain… it’s the staple meat really. [Note: if you think WE had it rough during WW2, look up Malta sometime!]

I put a cupful of water in the bottom of the baking pan, because rabbit is quite dry. I then covered the pan with foil, and cooked at about 190/400/mk 5 for an hour. (I removed the foil and cooked the rabbit uncovered for a further 20 minutes)

Meanwhile, I used my steamer and steamed some potatoes (skin on) and carrots. I also gently cooked 2 small onions in a little beef dripping. When the veg was steamed, I mashed the carrots in 2 tablespoons of the vegetable water from the steamer. Vegetable water was never wasted during WW2, as it if full of nutrients (great for gravy or making stock). Adding a tiny knob of butter and a handful of chopped coriander to the carrots finished them off.

I then added the remaining vegetable water to the onions, and with a little Bisto made an onion gravy.

Yum was the verdict.

We weren’t done though. The rabbit carcass was put in a large saucepan of water with the rest of the chopped coriander and some black pepper. That should make a nice stock I can use tomorrow for my chicken and bean casserole. I’ll soak dried split peas (yellow and green) and a handful of dried butter beans tonight to add to the stock and chicken.

Day Five Additional

Tonight I wanted to make coleslaw with my remaining cabbage. Then it struck me. Mayonnaise! I usually put mayonnaise in my coleslaw. So of I pottered to “Eating For Victory” and found a recipe for “Creamy Salad Dressing”. I had everything needed to make it. Flour, dried egg, mustard powder, sugar, salt and pepper, vinegar and milk.

Have a look…..

Hey, we made “Salad Cream”! Just waiting for it to cool properly. That should be great with our coleslaw.

Day Five

Due to total disorganisation on my part, I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning. So I had my lunch pretty early. But hey, if I get hungry later, I can have a bowl of cornflakes!

Lunch: Salad w/ a small piece of Lancashire cheese.

Luckily I had already portioned out the cheese for tonights welsh rarebit so I knew how much I could spare for lunch.

Dinner: Welsh rarebit with salad.

This is one of my all time favourite meals. I could have made the cheese go further by adding toasted oats (recipe from We’ll Eat Again), but as I was only catering for the two of us, the cheese we had easily made two generous pieces each.

1oz margarine, creamed. Add 1 tsp mustard, 1/2 tsp salt, sprinkling of paprika, a good dash of worcestershire sauce, 6oz grated lancashire cheese, and 2 tbsp milk. Mix thoroughly. Spread on top of toast, and grill until it starts to brown.

Day Four

The day started with a couple of slices of wholemeal bread generously spread with my homemade elderberry and blackberry jam. I’m glad I made so much last autumn, and I’d forgotten how nice it was compared to bought.

Lunch was a salad of lettuce, beetroot tops, sliced beetroot and a little onion. I had plenty of leftover pilchard to go with it.

I noticed today my work trousers feel a little looser than they did. Another thing I’ve noticed is I am ready to eat at each meal. I’m sure in the past I’ve eaten because it is meal time, not being truly hungry. I certainly appreciate each meal this week, as I am more than ready to eat when the time comes.

Braised Goats liver and onions.

I chopped some onion and coated the liver in seasoned flour. The onion was fried first, then the liver browned off. I added a little water, and made a nice gravy for it to simmer in. This was served with steamed potatoes and broccoli

Offal was unrationed during WW2, and I’ve found it to be pretty cheap these days too, as I think a few people are squeamish about eating internal organs. If you’ve never eaten goats liver, it’s very similar (i.e. mild tasting) to lambs liver. I eat goat regularly, as there is a goat farm (Capra Products) in the area, who raise goats in an ethical way. Goat offal is a little more difficult to get than the meat though. So few goats go through the slaughter house, and the meat inspector is obliged to test a set percentage of things like liver and heart etc for health reasons.

Capra Products are a "local food hero".

Day Three

Breakfast: The last of the Trenchmeat Pudding fried in a little beef dripping

Lunch: wholemeal bread with some homemade Elderberry and Blackberry Jam

Dinner: Pilchards on toast

I padded out the tin of pilchards in tomato sauce with some breadcrumbs. As you can see, there is plenty left to have with a salad tomorrow for lunch.

Apple bombes (recipe from Bombers and Mash)

Mix grated raw cooking apples with condensed milk and whip. Add a little orange juice. Arrange in large spoonfuls and top with ground nuts or grated chocolate.

The Apple dessert is seriously tasty! Very sweet. I had mine topped with a sprinkle of drinking chocolate, Mark had his with a sprinkle of nutmeg, and both of us had a few chopped nuts on top.

Day Two

Last night the Trenchmeat Pudding sat a bit heavy, but I can be prone to a touch of indigestion with stodgy foods. I get the same problem with too much pastry.

Breakfast: cornflakes & milk

Lunch: salad and slice of cold Trenchmeat Pudding from yesterday. It was surprisingly nice cold. Unfortunately there is some left, which means it will be lunch tomorrow too. I think I’ll be sick of the sight of it by then. It strikes home that we don’t have the luxury to think “I don’t fancy that, what can I have instead?”

Mark had a sandwich with half a tomato (he ate the first half yesterday for his lunch), salad, and also had a portion of the cold Trenchmeat Pudding. Mark wants me to add that the Trenchmeat Pudding reminded him of a steak pudding, which is one of his favourite things!

I opted not to have bread for lunch, because of its limited supply, and I don’t want Mark to be hungry. I guess this is a typical “wifely” reaction when providing for the family. I was very hungry by the time I was waiting for my train home though.

Dinner: homemade burgers with the remaining mince from the ration, with half an onion (the first half went in the salad) a dash of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, served with steamed potatoes and carrots, and some freshly podded peas.

Also I’m taking some of my frozen apples out tonight, because tomorrow we have dessert.

Day One

I’m normally an “eat and run” person on weekday mornings, as I have to get to the train station for my daily commute. I usually grab a cereal bar and a coffee. Today I took a couple of weetabix and some milk with me to work, which I ate at my desk before starting.

Speaking of coffee…. Coffee wasn’t really rationed during WW2, but that’s probably because it wasn’t as popular as now. Most folk were tea drinkers. We aren’t really tea drinkers, so to be fair, I decided to limit the amount of coffee we had. The tea ration was about 15 teabags per person for a week, so I decided we could have 2 cups of coffee a day at home. At work we can have a cuppa, because it isn’t coming out of our ration… it’s only the same as getting one at a tea shop or a canteen.

Lunch (in the spirit of not wasting…) was a sandwich containing leftover sage and onion stuffing from weekend.

All the guidelines from WW2 suggest you should have one raw vegetable a day, so I will tackle this by making lots of salads. Today’s salad is lettuce, white cabbage, beetroot tops, a little onion, a bit of cucumber.

I have just been flicking through “We’ll Eat Again”, and I have found the following: It’s a good idea to cook potatoes in their jackets. The skin stops the precious Vitamin C from escaping and getting lost in the cooking water. Steaming potatoes is best of all. I always cook potatoes in their skins, and I prefer to steam them too. It’s good to know I was already cooking them in the most nutritious way.

With our Trenchmeat Pudding I served mashed potatoes and gravy made from homemade veg stock & Bisto.

The pudding was much tastier than I expected, although if I did it again I think I would probably add more spices. Just a personal preference there.