Herring and tomato hotpot

Yesterdays dinner was herring and tomato hotpot!

Ingredients:
3 potatoes
1 onion
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 can herring in tomato sauce
Pinch or two of parsley

Method:
Grease a casserole dish. Slice the potatoes and lay a thin layer on the bottom. Slice the onion and layer this on top. Break up the herring and flake over. Then pour on a layer of chopped tomato. Repeat this, putting s layer of potato on top sprinkled with parsley. Place in a moderate oven (gas mark 5 to six) and leave to cook for an hour. Serve with vegetables.

This week's shopping list

2x Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce (410g) £0.52
1x Semi Skimmed Milk 6 Pints (3.41L) £1.74
1x Flora Lighter Than Light Spread (500g) £1.70
1x Loose Leaf Tea (250g) £0.94
1x Sherbet Fruit Cocktail Sweets (200g) £0.88
1x Sweet Pickle (290g) £0.24
1x Lyle's Golden Syrup Bottle (454g) £0.98
1x Spam Lite Chopped Pork and Ham (200g) £1.53
1x Lean Corned Beef (200g) £2.48
1x Extra Lean Smoked Back Bacon Rashers Thick Cut (8 per pack - 250g) £2.58
10x Apples by Weight (100g) £1.00
1x Macaroni (500g) £0.72
3x British Lamb Chops by Weight (100g) £3.00
1x Rosey Apple Sweets (200g) £0.88
1x Peas (1Kg) £0.95
1x Wholemeal Self Raising Flour (1.5Kg) £1.60
1x Free Range Mixed Eggs (6) £1.00
2x Medium Sliced Oat Bread (800g) £2.00
1x Mature Cheddar (350g) £2.00

Estimated Total Order:
£26.74

Split pea soup with a chocolate sponge for pudding!

Split pea soup is an old classic, so I thought I'd give it a go. It's very basic and quite nutritious. I used a recipe I found online, I later found a recipe in a old wartime leaflet that would have made it far tastier and more interesting!! I will definitely do that version next week and you'll see the difference! This time all I did was get some dry green split peas from a supermarket, measure out 1 cup full (for two people,) into a pan and add 3 cups of water and a stock cube then heated and simmered the mixture for about an hour skimming off the foam at the end and adding extra water as needed. I also added chunks of spam for extra flavour. It doesn't look like much so this version wouldn't impress visitors but the pudding should make up for that.....

Now onto the more exciting bit!! The chocolate sponge!! The recipe is from the ministry of foods leaflet, number 30, "Cakes, biscuits and scones without eggs."

Chocolate sponge

Ingredients:
1/2 lb self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp cocoa
3 oz. Sugar
1 tbsp syrup
12-14 tablespoons hot water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 oz. Margarine
A drop or two of vanilla essence.

Method:
Mix the flour, salt, cocoa and sugar together. Dissolve syrup in the water and add the bicarbonate of soda. Melt the margarine and mix all the ingredients together, including the vanilla essence, but do not beat the mixture, which should be very soft. Bake in a moderately hot oven for 20 minutes.

You can use two 8" sandwich tins if you want to make a classic sponge cake that you can put a jam, chocolate or cream filling in. I used a loaf tin as we are just going to have the odd slice occasionally with a nice cup of tea. :)

Meat curry

Yesterday I made meat curry. I got the recipe from a ministry of foods leaflet from 1946. Who says rationed food had to be bland!! This was really tasty and I highly recommend trying it!

Meat curry

Ingredients:
1 onion
1 apple
300-500g diced lamb/beef
4 tbsp flour
1 1/2 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tbsp mustard powder
3/4 pint of stock
1 tbsp chutney or vinegar
1 tbsp marmalade
1 tbsp syrup or black treacle

Method:
Fry the onion and apple in a pan for a few minutes until the onion starts to brown. Then add the meat. Fry lightly then remove the meat and put to one side. Then add the flour, curry powder and mustard powder to the apple and onion and stir until everything is coated. Then gradually add the stock, stirring as you go. Then add the chutney or vinegar, the marmalade and syrup or treacle. Stir this all together. Add the meat back in. Let the mixture simmer for an hour or until the meat is tender and serve.

I served mine with a little rice as I had some, but the leaflet advises the use of macaroni, potatoes, or cauliflower in place of rice.

Pineapple turnover

Yesterday we had shop bought kidney pie with chips and vegetables and a homemade pineapple turnover. Pineapple was an unusual treat bought over by American G.I's. to impress the English girls!

I however had a can that was still in date, but had been in my cupboard for about a year. I was never going to use it otherwise, so for the purposes of this recipe imagine I got them on the Black Market. Shhh! Careless talk costs lives!

Pineapple turnover.

Can of Pineapples
4 tsp Honey
227g self raising flour
85g sugar
85g margarine
1/4 pint of milk and water.

Take a cake tin that has a removable bottom and line it with grease proof paper. Grease the tin first to help the paper stick, then grease the paper. Line the bottom with pineapple and honey.

In a separate bowl rub the margarine into the flour and sugar to form breadcrumbs. Then add the milky water (hold back a little of the milky water and you can add the juice from the pineapple can if you want instead) and mix until you have a smooth batter. Pour this into the tin over the pineapple.

Place in a preheated oven at gas mark 4 for approximately 45 minutes or until golden brown and firm. Leave in the tin to cool for 5 minutes. Then remove the tin and slide off the base. Take off the grease proof paper and voila! Your turnover is done! If you don't have pineapple why not use cooking apple and add a tsp cinnamon to the flour? You can use berries or pears too!

Spam fritters

Today we had spam fritters with a fried egg, beans and chips.

Spam fritters are really easy to make:

Ingredients:
340g/12oz Spam
Frylight
125g/4oz (1 cup) Plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 egg
125ml/4 fl oz (half cup)Milk and water.

Method:
Mix the flour, egg, milk and water to form a batter. Slice the spam and dip the slices in the batter. Heat the frylight in a pan then add the battered spam. Cook on each side for 2-3 minutes. Serve with mash or chips and beans.

Chicken casserole with fruit crumble for pudding

Today we had chicken casserole for dinner with fruit crumble for afters.

The chicken casserole was a very simple affair. I popped raw chicken and chopped root and other vegetables, in a casserole dish. I then put in enough water to cover the ingredients and a couple of stock cubes. I put the lid on and placed the dish in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 4 for an hour.

With the fruit crumble, I took a few blueberries and chopped up 3 brambly apples and 4 plums. Each layer I popped in the dish, I covered with a tablespoon of brown sugar. For the topping I took 5 tbsp of flour, 2 tbsp brown sugar and 2 tbsp of margarine. I rubbed the margarine into the flour and sugar until it looked like breadcrumbs. I sprinkled this on top and popped the dish in the oven at gas mark 4 for 45 minutes. I served it with a little plain yogurt.

This weeks shopping list.

1x ASDA Smartprice Porridge Oats (1Kg) £0.75
1x John West Herring Fillets in Tomato Sauce (190g) £1.27
1x ASDA Smartprice Tuna Flakes in Brine (185g) £0.49
2x ASDA British Skimmed Milk 4 Pints (2.27L) £2.00
1x Flora Lighter Than Light Spread (500g) £1.70
1x ASDA Parsley (11g) £0.66
1x ASDA Chosen by You Liquorice Twists (275g) £0.88
2x ASDA Granary Farmhouse Loaf (400g) £1.40
4x ASDA Smartprice Instant Mash Potato (120g) £0.80
1x ASDA Smartprice Orange Marmalade Medium Cut (454g) £0.27
1x Princes Lean Corned Beef (200g) £2.48
1x ASDA Smartprice Pears £0.73
1x ASDA Extra Lean Smoked Back Bacon Rashers Thick Cut (8 per pack - 250g) £2.58
6x ASDA Smartprice Apples by Weight (100g) £0.60
5x ASDA Onions by Weight (100g) £0.38
1x ASDA Spring Onions £0.67
1x Great Scot Green Split Peas (500g) £0.68
1x Colman's Mustard Powder (57g) £1.34
1x ASDA Smartprice Wrapping Film (300mm x 60m) £0.60
2x Goblin Steak & Kidney Pudding (155g) £1.56
1x ASDA Diced Lamb (300g) £4.00

Estimated Total Order*:
£25.84

Week 2 Meal Plan

Monday

Breakfast
Cereal

Lunch
Egg sandwich with spring onion and apple.

Dinner
Spam fritters, fried egg, chips and tomatoes
Rice pudding

Tuesday

Breakfast
Jam on toast.

Lunch
Cheese sandwich and an apple.

Dinner
Steak and kidney pudding with chips and beans
Pineapple upside down cake.

Wednesday

Breakfast
Porridge with fruit

Lunch
Bacon and pickle sandwich and a pear.

Dinner
Meat curry with rice.
Pineapple upside down cake.

Thursday

Breakfast
Marmalade on toast

Lunch
Tuna jacket potato with a pear

Dinner
Baked leeks in a cheese sauce with mash.
Pineapple upside down cake.

Friday

Breakfast
Porridge with fruit

Lunch
Corned beef salad sandwich and an apple

Dinner
Split pea soup
Chocolate sponge cake.

Weekend off.

Monday

Breakfast
Jam on toast

Lunch
Bacon sandwich with apple

Dinner
Vegetable pie
Chocolate sponge cake.

Tuesday

Breakfast
Porridge with fruit

Lunch
Cheese and pickle sandwich

Dinner
Herring hot pot
Chocolate sponge cake.

Corn beef hash mash and beans.

For Sunday lunch we had corn beef hash mash and beans. This was all made from leftovers; great if you don't want to waste anything. Corn beef hash is a proper filling comfort food and this mash version is no exception.

First we took the leftover mash out of the fridge and mashed in the leftover corn beef and a spring onion. We fried the mix in a frying pan for a few minutes each side and arranged it on a plate with the reheated baked beans. Yum!

Cottage pie with gingerbread cake for pudding.

Today we made a cottage pie by frying spare root veg, what mince we had left and oxo beef stock in a pan. We then popped it into a casserole dish and covered it with sweet potato mash before popping it in the oven at gas mark 6 for ten minutes. You can use normal potato mash if you want to stick to a more traditional recipe. We used sweet potato so we could up our 5 a day intake.

Then for afters we had gingerbread cake. I got the recipe from a ministry of foods leaflet. It is eggless so good for those with allergies or in our case for saving our rationed eggs!

Gingerbread cake.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb self-raising flour
6oz syrup
1tsp ground ginger
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 pint tepid water.

Place flour and syrup in a bowl. Mix the ginger and soda with the water, add to the flour and syrup and mix all together. Turn into a greased tin about 11" x 7", and bake in a moderate oven for about 1 and a quarter hours. Do not cut for 2 days.

I made this cake on Wednesday so it could sit for the required time. Pop it in a cake tin like I did to keep it fresh. (An old used quality street tin does the job just as well.)

My other half loved it! :) I didn't even get a chance to photograph it before he tucked in!!

Faggots, Mash and Veg with Fruit and Yogurt for Pudding

Tonight we are having Faggots with mash and Vegetables.
See the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food))

My other half wants pasta as he seems to think they are like meatballs, (Eh?!) but I'm having the traditional potato mash and veg.

We are also having blueberry and apples with yogurt and toasted oat topping for pudding. (As the blackberries I had originally planned to use are canned and the blueberries are fresh and will go off, I am going to use the blueberries. I toast the oats in a frying pan with a little frylight and sugar.)

I'm cheating today and using Mr Brains Faggots in place of making my own. I'm saving up for a mincer though so hopefully I'll be able to make my own soon. You can pick up homemade ones directly from the local butcher sometimes if you'd rather not do it yourself, or you can use supermarket bought Mr Brains Faggots as a alternative, but please be aware they don't have all the traditonal ingredients and contain a lot of salt. It's entirely up to your own taste though, I'm just using pre-packaged as I didn't get to the butchers in time to buy ready made.

I personally always advise buying from the local butchers (whether you are getting the ingredients to make faggots, faggots ready made or any other meat products,) thereby supporting your local butcher/farmers.

If you have a mincer and want to make your own, one version of the traditional recipe is:

Traditional Faggots:

Ingredients
1 pint Tepid Water
3 oz Breadcrumb
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
1 egg beaten
1 Pigs heart
1 lb Pigs liver or (mixture of liver & lights)
8 oz Belly pork
Bacon scraps
Pigs Caul
2 Onions
Salt & Pepper to taste

Method:
Basically you pop all the meat through the mincer and pop it in a bowl. Add the other ingredients, stir, then shape, wrap in Pigs Caul put on a plate and chill in the fridge for an hour. Then place them on a baking tray. Spray with oil and Cook on gas mark 6/7 for 40 minutes. Make up some gravy, you can even make onion gravy if you want. Take the faggots out of the oven and serve with the gravy and vegetables.

Here is the nutritional information and further description from a pack of Mr Brains Faggots if you want to buy pre-packaged;

Mr Brains Faggots - Pork faggots in a West Country sauce.

Rich & tasty. A firm family favourite since 1925.

Herbert Hill Brain, a butcher from Bristol, first started making heart warming family meals in 1925. With their unique West Country Sauce, the dishes soon grew in popularity to become firm family favourites across the country. Today, the same passion and love goes in to creating each dish as Mr. Brain's continues to provide tasty meals for families both large and small.

Ingredients:
West Country Sauce (62%) contains: Water, Lard, Wheat Flour, Modified Maize Starch, Tomato Puree, Salt, Colour (E150c), Yeast Extract, Sugar, Onion Flavour, Spice & Herb Extracts (Celery),Pork Faggots (38%) contains: Water, Rusks, Rehydrated Pork Rind, Pork Liver (15%), Onion, Pork (4%), Pork Fat, Wheat Flour, Salt, Sage, Spice Extracts

Allergy Information:

Contains: Celery, Gluten, Wheat

May Contain: Soya\Soybeans

Per 238g serving cooked:
Calories: 241

Sugar: 3g

Fat: 10g

Saturates:4g

Salt: 4.0g

These are very high in salt (one serving has 67% of your GDA) but whichever you choose to use is entirely up to you.

After this time I will be buying ready made from my butcher (until I have a mincer).
When I do get a mincer and I make my own, I will post the results and recipe again for you. :D

Liver and onion

Yesterday the other half made liver and onion. It was a really tasty but quick meal.

I suggest going to a good butcher for your meats as then you can get the leanest cuts. In the case of offal, having it properly trimmed is essential.

After you have bought your liver, simply slice it into chunks, (you can ask your butcher to do this for you if you like,) then fry it with chopped onion until brown.

We used lambs liver, but you can also use pig or ox. If you don't like a strong flavour though, you could try chicken liver.

This is so simple and tasty. We served it with sweet potato (in place of regular potato as it counted towards our 5 a day,) broccoli and cauliflower.

Sausage and mash with baked apple and blackberries for pudding.

Today we had sausage and mash for dinner. The sausages were made with lean meat and the mash was mixed with a little salad cream (which was available at the time on points), peas and spring onion.

I then baked the cored brambly apples in the oven and waited until they were baked through to heat the blackberries in a pan on the hob. I then placed both in a bowl and sprinkled over a tsp of sugar. Simple and yum! :D

Stuffed hearts with step by step photo guide.

Today I'm making stuffed hearts to my nan's recipe. I've been taught by my mum who was taught by my nan, who was a live in servant (a maid and cook) for jewish families for a number of years in the late 1920's. She married my grandad in 1931, and with his four kids by his first wife, she had 12 kids to deal with by the mid 50's. So about 6 or 7 mouths to feed during wartime. So if anyone knew how to cook a meal from nothing, it was her!

Stuffed hearts.

2 hearts
Half a box of stuffing
Cooking fat (in this case frylight.)

Take the heart and remove the tubes and innards to create a pocket. Make up the stuffing and fill the heart. Take a casserole dish and fill the bottom with stuffing. Lay the hearts on top. Rub the tops with fat or spray with frylight. Place the lid on top and put in a pre heated oven at gas mark 5 for 2 hours, turning the hearts over halfway through. Serve with roast potatoes and vegetables.

The stuffed hearts (without the veg) cost a ridiculously cheap 79p each for the hearts and 99p for the box of stuffing, which would easily stretch to four or five as the two of us only used half the packet! You could stretch it out even more by mixing in more breadcrumbs. This makes a good, filling, but cheap alternative to other meat dishes, perfect for large families.

Equality pudding

Made the equality pudding! Huge success! Better with custard tho. Nom, nom, nom! :)

Equality pudding

This recipe is for 4.
(You may need to use a conversion chart for the weights. I halved the ingredients as there are only two of us.)

2oz cooking fat or margarine
8oz plain flour
1-2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons jam
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Approx 1/4 pint of milk and water mixed. (Women used to fill emptied milk bottles with water and used this milky water for baking.)

Rub the margarine or fat into the flour and mix in the sugar. Add the jam. dissolve soda in the milk mixture and mix the pudding to a soft dropping consistency. Turn into a greased basin, one and a half pint size, and steam for 2 hours. Serve with custard or a sweet sauce.

I tried topping mine with jam but all that did was make it hard to remove from the basin. Maybe next time I'll experiment making it with a jammy centre, or maybe not mix the jam in quite as thoroughly to see if it leaves little pockets of jammy bits!

I also used my kitchen top steamer rather than a hob steamer as I could just leave it for the 2 hours and wait for it to go ping while I got on with making the fish cakes and sticking them in the George Forman grill. Although a usual grill would have been just as good, I like the convenience and the fact I could sit back and enjoy one of my three steeped cups of tea a day and a couple of homemade digestive biscuits without having to keep a constant vigil on everything.

Using modern kitchen equipment is the key to this rationing plan as no one has as much time for food preparation as they once did, and something that once took hours can take half the time or less, with careful planning, preparation and use of kitchen equipment.

Week 1 Meal Plan

Monday

Breakfast
Cheese and egg on toast.

Lunch
Baked potato with beans and an apple.

Dinner
Fish cakes, tomatoes, courgettes, peas and pasta.
Equality pudding.

Tuesday

Breakfast
Jam on toast.

Lunch
Cheese salad sandwich and an apple.

Dinner
Stuffed lambs heart with roast potatoes and steamed veg.
Raisin dumplings and custard.

Wednesday

Breakfast
Scrambled egg.

Lunch
Baked potato and beans and a pear.

Dinner
Sausage and mash.
Baked apple with blackberries.

Thursday

Breakfast
Porridge with blackberries.

Lunch
Egg sandwich with a salad.

Dinner
Liver and onions with sweet potato mash and steamed veg.
Rice pudding with apple.

Friday

Breakfast
Jam on toast

Lunch
Baked potato with spring onion.

Dinner
Faggots, pasta and steamed veg.
Apples and blackberries with yogurt and toasted oats.

Saturday

Breakfast
Ham, egg and fried bread.

Lunch
Corned beef salad sandwich and an apple.

Dinner
Cottage pie with sweet potato mash and beans.
Ginger bread cake.

Sunday

Breakfast
Cereal.

Lunch
Corned beef hash and peas.

Dinner
Chicken casserole with dumplings (lots of veg in the casserole).
Apple and Plum Crumble.

Eating for Victory

Myself and my other half are big fans of everything forties and fifties. After reading so many books and website pages that said Britons were a lot healthier during WW2 and the rationing years, we decided to start our own rationed based eating plan based on the Ministry of Foods rationing during the war.

This week I'm attempting to use up all the more modern foods while introducing more traditional items. Week to week meals should become more authentic as we phase the more modern items out.

The original rationing per adult person per week (April 1945):

Butter 2oz
Margarine 4oz
Cooking Fat (usually lard) 2oz
Bacon and ham 4oz
Sugar 8oz
Meat: To the value of 1s 2d
Milk 2-3 pints
Cheese 2oz
Loose Tea 2oz
Preserves 1lb per month
Eggs 1 fresh a week and a pack of dried egg every 4 weeks (pack makes up 12 eggs) per house.
Sweets 12oz per month

Our version per person per week:

Margarine 170g
Frylight for cooking fat.
Bacon and ham 113g
Sugar 227g
Meat: 2 small lamb chops (300g approx) or 350g mince beef (Chops were more expensive cuts, so you got less weight.)
Milk 3 pints
Cheese 57g
Loose Tea 57g or 22 tea bags (approx 3 tea bags a day.)
Preserves 113g per week
Eggs 2 fresh each
Sweets 85g per week

Offal and sausages were not on ration although the sausages had a high proportion of bread, as meat was scarce. We are going to replace normal sausages for extra lean sausages in order to keep the fat intake as low as possible. Sausages weren't used as often as we do today due to popularity and under-the-counter trading. Women often sacrificed their sweet coupons to give to shop assistants to buy these little tit-bits. On the weeks we have sausages I will give up that weeks sweet allowance.

Tinned meats, fish and beans, cereals, pulses, dried fruit, biscuits, suet, some types of preserves, table jellies, canned sweet puddings, syrup and treacle were bought on points. You got 24 points a month at this time, these items were popular and snapped up, so weren't always as easily available as other items.

Also as we buy our vegetables from Abel and cole, we get the occasional vegetable delivered that wasn't
available to our wartime counterparts. These I will be including as I want to try to include our 5 a day as often as I possibly can for added health and variety. (For those of you who don't know Abel & Cole supply organically grown seasonal vegetables, other groceries plus household cleaners etc.. at very reasonable prices, delivered weekly without fail. They even got to us when it snowed heavily!)

We will also be taking advice from a quote from the book "Keep Fit in War Time" by Dr Harry Roberts by taking a 30 minute brisk walk daily as well as gardening and growing our own vegetables to supplement the bought fruit and veg.

I'll post this weeks menu shortly.