Crab Apples and Soup

 

Foraging was always encouraged during the war years and if you lived in the countryside you would have had lots of opportunity at this time of year.  I haven't done much at all this year, the blackberries passed me by as they were out much sooner than I expected and when I did spot them they already seemed to be massively over-picked by locals.  I am a firm believer in leaving lots for the wildlife, I do wonder though if I would have been so generous during the rationing years!

Anyway while I was in the park with the dogs yesterday I spotted lots of lovely little crab apples lying on the grass and decided to pick some of them up.  If nothing else they will make a good source of pectin for my next batch of compost heap jelly.  So once they are dry they will be going in the freezer until I have saved some more peels and cores to go with them.

Following on from Wednesdays post, I had one of my bowls of soup for lunch today, gosh it was nice.  The other three same sized portions went into the freezer.  That's three more ready meals for my collection.

Sue xx

This Week's Non-Ration Shopping ... and Scrumping

 

The fridge was looking pretty bare so I decided it was time to go to the supermarket and pick up my non-rationed foods.  There's also an invader in amongst all the almost authentic WWII goodies.

A banana!!  🍌

Alan wanted one, and it seemed a bit much to make the cashier do a single banana as a separate transaction so it's on my receipt and therefore in my photo.

The single potato as well as the bag of potatoes is there because I could get 60 extra Nectar points by buying loose potatoes ... so one was enough to qualify me for that.

I weighed all the potatoes together before putting them away and I have just under 7lbs of spuds.  Enough for me to be able to have the recommended 1lb a day.  It's a good job I like potatoes!!

And on the subject of potatoes, I have really been fancying some crisps this past week, so I thought what are the oldest crisps around, I'll buy those.     In the UK seemingly it was Smith's crisps, and by 1934 they were selling 200 million packets of crisps in Britain each year.

Smiths Potato Crisps, now owned by Walkers and called Salt & Shake.  

I remember getting these as a child and loving the little twist of salt in the blue paper.  Now it's a sealed packet of salt but back then it was just twisted closed.  The thrill of getting two, and the disappointment of not getting one at all, is still in my memory.

Here's my receipt ... and the apples that I scrumped from the park while I was walking the dogs on the way to the supermarket.   There were some lovely looking larger ones higher up the tree but even shaking the branches a bit couldn't dislodge them yet.  I'll have to go back with Alan and see if they're ready to fall off in a couple of days.

 Free food ... yes please.  😄

I know I went over my aimed for £10 per week spend this week, but as I was so far under it last week I thought I would let myself off with the overspend.  What took me over was buying the packet of fish portions.  

Fish was never on ration as it was regularly unavailable or only in the shops in small quantities.  So if you were near the front of one of the long snaking queues you might have been lucky.  I'll allow myself some sort of fish two or three times a month ... if I get in the queue in time.  😉

Sue xx