The Results of a Day in the Kitchen

 

I spent most of Thursday on and off in the kitchen and then just an hour on Friday to cook and pot up the jam.  Time well spent if you look at the results.

I ended up with two and a half pounds of Compost Heap Jelly*.  There are no labels on the jars in this photo as they are still piping hot, but I will label them as soon as they are cold.

*If you want to see how to make this look at yesterday's post which includes a YouTube video from Pam the Jam. 

They are definitely going to be a sweet treat as it took a kilo of sugar for the liquid I had to make the jelly.  It's a good job I only have a thin covering on my toast.  😄

I had decided to turn the roll of puff pastry that I had instead of my fats and oils this on weeks rations into as many things as I could.  In the end I managed to get four meals from it.

Two quiche bases part cooked and now in the fridge ready to turn into quick lunches over the weekend, one breakfast jam turnover that I had yesterday, very sweet but also very delicious.  What a wartime treat that would have been.

And a Sausage Plait that I had for my tea when it was hot straight out of the oven.  Served with just some salad from the garden and a drizzle of mayo, it was tasty and very filling.

This is what it looked like inside it's pastry overcoat.

I thawed two Linda McCartney sausages out and made up a couple of tablespoons of dried stuffing mix, then stirred the two together before forming into this patty shape.  I was aiming to have something that looked like the old Linda McCartney Sausage Plaits that were sadly discontinued many years ago and that a lot of people miss.  Then I decided a little smear of the garlic Jam that I still have left over from last Christmas would be good on top.

 I cut slits either side of the patty and criss-crossed them over until everything was covered.  I brushed it with milk and cooked it for about 30 minutes alongside everything else to make full use of the oven space.  I pulled the quiche bases out first, then the turnover and finally the sausage plait.

Inside the turnover was just a big dollop of this months jam, not quite as big as it looks in this photo!!  

I'm think that I'm doing really well as I haven't touched the other half of my bi-monthly jam ration so it's all going to plan ... up to now, and of course I have my new jars of jam which will be available to me at any time as they have been made from scraps and my ration of sugar.  Either for me to eat or to give as gifts.

So I think that was a good day in the kitchen, three things made off this weeks menu and a bonus breakfast to replace my porridge yesterday.  And using this pastry made me realise that homemade shortcrust pastry is definitely better, which is a good thing because during the war years there was definitely no shop bought, ready rolled pastry available.  In future making my own will be so much cheaper, mere pennies instead of the current Aldi price for a roll which is £1.19, so much kinder to my budget.

Sue xx

Making Proper Use of the Rations

 

 I really do need to make proper use of my rations.

Ration amounts were carefully worked out to give people the best nourishment possible during the times of shortage and as such they were designed to be used up in the time periods they were given for.  For example the weekly 4oz margarine and 2oz of butter, along with the 2oz of lard were deemed the right amount of fats to go alongside the weekly cheese, milk, egg, sugar and meat rations to provide the building blocks of a healthy diet, and all these were designed to go with the bread and vegetable rations that were recommended in the all Ministry of Food pamphlets.

So me having food from the rations left over at the end of each week is not necessarily a good thing.  This is what I am going to try and do something about over the next couple of weeks.  This week is my fourth week on rations and although I am not too bothered about having sugar store building up ... it will be used to make jam ... I have been noticing that I have had my fats and oil leftover every single week.

So to get on a level playing field again I decided that I would use up the fat left over from last week and make some scones and some pastry ... and also a little of my dried fruit bought with points and up until now not touched at all.

Scones are a brilliant use of ingredients for a wartime diet and my go to recipe is really simple.

8oz SR Flour

2oz Butter or Spread

Pinch of salt

1oz Sugar

1oz Dried Fruit

Milk

Rub the butter into the flour, add the salt and then add the sugar and dried fruit.

Bring together with just enough milk to make it into a ball and tip out onto a lightly floured surface.  Either roll out and cut with a cookie cutter or just shape into one large round and then cut into four quarters.

Place on a baking tray, brush with milk and cook in a hot oven for around 20 minutes.

(220/200fan, 425f or Gas 7)

Enjoy with butter and jam ... and of course a lovely cup of coffee.

I didn't eat them all myself, Alan was thrilled with his surprise snack to go with his afternoon coffee break.

While these were baking I weighed out what was left out of last weeks spread ration and used that with the correct ratio of flour to make a ball of pastry ... I had pies that needed to be made.  Now I am up to date with the fat ration and just need to make sure that this week I actually try and use it all up.

Sue xx