As mentioned on yesterday's post here will be no shopping this week, indeed for the rest of this month. I will just be taking food taken from The Victory Garden, this weeks rations, if I have them in stock and the freezer. I have added £10 for each week left in September to the Royal Cash Pot and hopefully there it will stay.
This weeks rations look very different too, you might be surprised at how different ... it took a bit of thinking about. 😮
The Weekly Rations for week five.
Two ounces each of the cheeses with the shortest dates from the fridge.
An 8oz top up of the sugar jar.
Now it's gone quite a bit cooler I think this will be the week that I will make my Compost Heap Jelly and use some of this up at last.
My sweet ration is being taken in candy canes.
These are over from last Christmas and I think it's time I made some space for this Christmas' wish list.
One thing completely missing from the photo of this weeks rations is a carton of dairy-free milk. I don't have any in the cupboard and I don't want to spend any money on some so it's not there. If I decide that I do need some milk for something specific I can make it from either oats from the ration or from the almonds that I had in my pre-ration times cupboard.
Now I'll talk you through the swaps.
The roll of puff pastry from the freezer is in place of my usual 6oz dairy-free spread and 2oz oil, I should be able to manage with what I have left for this week from the butter dish if I have porridge for breakfast, or jam on toast instead of spread.
The two sausages I have instead of one of my eggs that I would get as a vegetarian on 1942 rations, are in the box along with last weeks two, that I have yet to eat. Mix the pastry and a couple of the sausage rolls and I see Sausage Rolls being on the menu.
The single 'No Chicken' garlic Kyiv is in place of the other egg. I have decided that after this month I am not eating any more eggs. I have two left in the fridge from the Monthly Ration and that is it. I will instead pick something with a higher protein content to replace them both weekly and monthly.
The other swap is this.
Alan needed some coffee and I didn't need my coffee this week ... as I have rather surprisingly found that my weekly allowed 2oz is more than enough and my jar still has lots in it for this week ... so I played the swapsies game as I am sure many people did with their neighbours.
I 'bought' my coffee and gave it to Alan and then I swapped it for something out of my bottom food cupboard. I'm not sure why I chose this, but I did. It was right at the front maybe that was the only reason. I definitely do not have a menu plan for this week yet but now I will incorporate this somehow. when I write it out.
So week five on rations has thrown up a completely different game plan for me and one that I am actually quite looking forward to going with. I'll share this week's menu plan with you tomorrow if you would like that.
Sue xx
Seems realistic that friends and families would have swapped surplus items.
ReplyDeleteYour jar of paste - I am being lazy and not looking back at your previous cupboard photos but I think you have some dried pasta? Had you considered warming the paste (which would probably thin it) and having it as a pasta sauce?
Yes, I bought 1lb of pasta with my points spend, and I have yet to touch it. I think I originally bought this paste with exactly that in mind, to make a variation of the Jack Monroe recipe that I used a long time ago.
Deletehttps://cookingonabootstrap.com/2013/07/17/creamy-salmon-pasta-with-a-chilli-lemon-kick-27p/
I think it is all realistic and totally in the right spirit - things are different now and one can still be 'on rations' without having exactly the same thing - I think, anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about the principle.
xx
I have to do something to use up the foods that I already have in so I think for at least the rest of this year there will be lots of swaps and bartering. My main priority has to be to save money on shopping.
DeleteThank you for sharing with us it’s so helpful as I’m also doing the ration challenge
ReplyDeleteAre you blogging about it?
DeletePlease can you leave a first name at the end of any Anonymous comment, I don't usually publish them without a name.
Sorry but having trouble signing into blogger hope to get it sorted but I’m Jeannette or jeangenie qq
DeleteThank you for letting me know. Blogger has been a pain for months now hasn't it, so I do now let Anonymous or Unknown comments through if they have a name at the end of them. Thanks for understanding. xx
DeleteYour swaps are all perfectly logical and, as someone else has said, swaps would have been done with neighbours during wartime anyway.
ReplyDeleteYes please to the menu plan!
I should imagine there would have been a LOT of swapping with neighbours and family during the war years.
DeleteI'll take a photo of the menu plan and publish it tomorrow. :-)
I'm sure that, at least during the first several weeks of rationing, people would have used items they had in the pantry to augment their rations and they would have swapped with friends and neighbors. And maybe even have bought items on the black market, if they had been able to! Looking forward to seeing your menu plan.
ReplyDeleteOoh I think I'll stay away from the black market, it was very frowned upon in the UK during the war years and you could get in a lot of trouble if you were caught. ;-)
DeleteYes, I do want to use up the things that I have in my cupboards, but in a sensible and controlled manner, it would feel like cheating to just use all of what I have at once. I may pick myself a few nice things to save for Christmas week as a treat, as I've no doubt lots of people did that during the first year of rationing.
We all know it was swapping, bartering, finding treasures from the back of the pantry/root cellar/getting gifts from country relatives ;-) People who had anything in they cupboards would have used them up at some point, maybe hiding things for Christmas/birthdays/weddings etc. If you hated coffee and got your rations, you surely bought it and swapped with your caffeine addict neighbour to a bar of soap, packet of sugar and tin of sardines? Or even for a length of fabric! Because it was not only food, there was a lot of different things rationed.
ReplyDeleteSue, next time you could swap your extra coffee for a hand cream :-)
You are just giving up eggs because you don't want to use them anymore, or are they giving you health problems?
Yes, exactly that. Oh I know virtually everything was rationed here in the UK, cleaning products, clothes, furniture, the list is quite long. Food is just the main thing on my mind at the moment.
DeleteOh I hadn't thought of that, Alan has a tube on hand cream on his kitchen table ... I wonder if he would notice if it turned into a little jar of coffee. ;-)
I was fully vegan until about a year ago and then reintroduced fish and eggs back into my diet, now I am not enjoying the eggs at all so I think I will use the last two that I have in this weeks quiches and then replace them each week with something else ... maybe a fish portion of some kind would be a good idea, I'm still thinking about it.