“A recipe is a story that ends with a good
meal.”— Pat Conroy
Day 25
My hair is so crazy curly and puffy again, so I pinned part of it up and wore a hairnet. I wore a white long sleeve shirt with my beige vest and black skirt with beige polkadots. I wore earrings my girls made me a few years ago and a sparkly brooch.
Breakfast was lemon honey tea and bread with margarine, wow butter and jam.
Lunch was leftover minestrone soup. It was amazing — even better than yesterday! I was so hungry that I completely forgot to take a photo!
We had poor man’s meal from the Great Depression for supper, which is a meal we quite enjoy. We had it with mustard beans and dilly relish. We also had bread. Yesterday I made whole wheat and today I made plain white bread using our favorite recipe from the Great Depression. It was all so good.
I baked another loaf of bread this afternoon using a recipe from the Great Depression. It’s our favorite loaf!! I made whole wheat yesterday and a white loaf today. Though white flour was banned in the ‘40s, I see tons of wartime recipes calling for regular all-purpose flour! I found a few recipes calling for stale bread, so I’m looking forward to trying more of them! The bread pancakes were so good!
We still have English Muffin bread left, that will be great toasted!
We measured out our rations this afternoon. We had a lot of sugar leftover and my oldest was saving her butter, so I made butter syrup as her request, and we made a 1940s dessert (I share more below). We still have eggs, my girls have jam and margarine we still had a few potatoes. Some weeks we go through ten pounds of potatoes and others just five. We have our sweets rations left and all of our coffee and about half the tea. We had some cheese left even after trying the Welsh rarebit! We also used up our milk rations. I always look forward to replenishing our rations!
My youngest wanted to try a wartime dessert, so we made a mock apple pie. This used up some sugar and lard rations so we made it before we did our rations. It looks great but was still too hot to try this evening, so we will try it tomorrow!
All in all, a pretty good day and we got a lot done!!
Day 26
Today I wore pants with a striped shirt, cardigan and dragonfly brooch. I pinned my curly hair up and tied it back.
Breakfast was pancakes which used 2 of our egg rations. Luckily we have eggs from last week’s rations as well as this week! We topped the pancakes with strawberries, cooked apples, whipped cream and homemade butter syrup.
Lunch was bacon potato dill pickle soup with bread. It was so good!
Supper was a recipe from the 1940s called Cabbage & Mince Scramble. We had that with cucumber salad and toasted english muffin bread. This meal felt very familiar and one I’m sure I have had before!
Dessert was a slice of mock apple pie and ice cream. It was actually really good!
After shovelling a lot of snow, I thought I would work on my blog — I am quite behind on posts after all. I worked on it all day and then suddenly ran into issues all evening so my apologies. I have had a lot of technical issues lately! Hopefully I’ll get it fixed and get caught up!
Day 27
I didn’t have a picture today. I tossed my hair into a ponytail and I wore pants and a T-shirt — not exactly 1940s Days! We were cleaning the house, and shovelling so I did not bother dressing nicely.
Breakfast was raspberry tea and leftover pancakes.
Lunch was the leftover soup from yesterday.
Supper was roast beef which I seasoned with bbq seasoning and tossed a bunch of homegrown hot peppers that I tossed in the freezer this past fall. It sure made it spicy, but added such great flavor! We also made rice, homemade tortillas which turned out so good, natchinka and cucumber salad. So good!
Dessert was mock apple pie which tastes so much closer to an apple pie today – much better than yesterday! We actually quite enjoy this pie!
Day 28
Today I pinned part of my hair up and left my hair down. It’s partly curly, partly not now. I wore pants, and blue and white shirt and my favorite cardigan.
Breakfast was skipped.
Lunch was leftovers from yesterday along with homemade relishes and mustard beans.
Supper was pasta with meat sauce which used up the last of our ground beef rations. We also used up our dried pasta ration. I toasted up leftover bread and put margarine on it and sprinkles some garlic seasoning overtop. It was delicious. I shredded cheese and used up the rest of my cheese rations.
Day 29
Today I wore my favorite plaid skirt, blue shirt and my favorite cardigan along with a bee brooch. It took us a while, but we finally found some brooches!
We ran errands today. We had over a foot of snow over the past few days so we simply stayed home because of the roads! There were 85 accidents in one night — crazy! But the roads are dry now, so that’s fabulous!
Breakfast was skipped because we ran errands.
Lunch was bread pancakes which used up some stale bread that I had already tore up specifically for bread pancakes today! I made strawberry syrup just by blending up some strawberries, water and sugar. It’s delicious! We also had butter syrup and whipped cream for the pancakes.
Supper was potato pancakes (like a homemade hashbrown), bacon and sausage, dried eggs that I reconstituted and cooked in bacon and onions, leftover tortillas and mămăligă which is a cornmeal mush that we eat with butter and cheese. Yum!
Day 30
Today is Day 30 of 1940s Days! I can’t believe we made it to Day 30!! Cooking from rations was a challenge at first and then became something I put thought into and it became second nature. I looked forward to replenishing our rations each week and it definitely helped save on our grocery bill — we were more conscious of what we were cooking and eating. We treated ourself once a week to something store bought or from a restaurant/fast food and we actually enjoyed our old fashioned home cooked meals much more.
Today I wore pants and a sweater and pinned some of my hair up. Then I made bread so I ended up pinning up all of my hair and changed into a short sleeved shirt!
I did my nails last evening. Some chipped from my doing dishes and cooking today – clearly, I’m really tough on my nails! But I do love this color.
Breakfast which was more like brunch, was leftovers along with a bread omelet which was actually really good!
Afternoon tea was Earl Grey and a couple cookies.
Supper was potato stew with dumplings which is one of our favorites and a slice of bread. It’s a hearty meal and so good!
Dessert was a pie from 1920s called Milk Pie or Poor Man’s Pie which is a lovely custard pie. It was delicious!
We actually enjoyed all of the different recipes that we tried this month.
I told my girls we were finished and they both said “awww…” in that sad tone. Thinking that we are done makes me feel like I don’t want to be. It makes me feel anxious for some reason. I like staying within our rations, using that to cook with and knowing what I can and can’t use was helpful with meal plans. We wasted far less food (hardly any in fact), ate up all our leftovers and learned new recipes. We learned different ways to use up stale bread and really thought about what ingredients we used. I really noticed just how much butter, sugar, cheese and eggs we were using weekly and how much further these items went just by following wartime rations.
I also enjoyed doing my hair ‘40s inspired and wearing red lipstick which I never thought I could, wearing red nail polish which I just never did and dressing ‘40s inspired. I thoroughly enjoyed it — much more than I thought I would!
We will most likely continue with our 1940s Days into April after a few fun days we have planned!
I hope you enjoyed following us this month: allowing me to share my love of history with you, seeing the different recipes we tried and I do hope you try a few too!
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours“As I moved farther away from the conventional path, I was becoming more
authentically me.”— Jill Winger – Old Fashioned on Purpose
