Week Two of 1940s Days went quite well. We had a lot of rations left since we used them much more sparingly than the previous week. Being as we have extras left, it’ll be easier to make a wider range of recipes requiring such items as lard, cheese, sugar or butter. I can understand why home cooks during this time had to be inventive, using the same, everyday, rationed ingredients in new ways.
“Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation — experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way.”
— Paul Theroux
Day 17
Today I’m wearing a skirt, white shirt and my favorite cardigan!! I’m wearing a chameleon brooch that we were gifted. It’s so sparkly! My hair is the same – partly pinned up and the rest of the curls down. You may recognize Rio from my videos – he’s just chillin’ in his bed!
Breakfast was oatmeal and tea. Lunch and supper were both leftovers.
I finally got all of our rations ready again for Week 3 of our 1940s Days – following 1940s rations! You can watch us prep our rations: Here!
Here is this week’s rations. Not only would you receive these rations, but you’d also have points that you could purchase other items with. Bread was about 4-1/2lbs of bread per person per week. Week One we ate a lot of bread, a bit less for Week Two and we definitely have not eaten as much bread this week!
I actually quite enjoy measuring out our rations. It has actually saved on our grocery bill because we aren’t consuming so much cheese or processed foods or sugary beverages. Our egg consumption has decreased though we have enjoyed some reconstituted dried egg. Our sugar consumption has definitely changed because we are more aware – I did not realize just how much sugar was in all of our baked goods. And we are enjoying more meatless meals again too, which we love! We are drinking more tea and less coffee and enjoying meal time again. I always look forward to ration day & grocery shopping! It really is enjoyable!
Day 18
Today, I wore my favorite plaid skirt (I may need to get another skirt!), a blue shirt and cardigan. I wore a new dragonfly brooch. It’s so pretty! Finding brooches has been more of a challenge than I expected! I pinned my hair up and tossed it in a hairnet. I wore my lady bug earrings again that my girls made me a few years ago.
Breakfast this morning was just a glass of milk while I worked on my laptop.
Lunch was chicken stew made from the leftover roast chicken, freshly baked drop biscuits and tea. Tea was an apple cinnamon tea which was quite good.
Had afternoon tea which was the tea from lunch along with a couple cookies.
Supper was cottage pie I made from the leftover roast beef. I ended up with a bit too much gravy which turned the cottage pie more like a stew with mashed potatoes on top! In any case it was yummy! I had a biscuit from lunch time and my girls had some crackers with theirs. It was very hearty and delicious!!
We have a lot of bread and rations, so I’m super excited to try different recipes like Welsh rarebit, bread pancakes, muffins and more! It’ll be a great weekend cooking up different recipes that I’m quite looking forward to!
Day 19
Today we were out at appointments most of the day, and then had ice cream with my folks & my brother for his birthday.
I pinned part of my hair up and left the rest down since my hair was a little curly. I did have it all pinned up when we were out and about. I did not wear a brooch and I wore pants, t-shirt and cardigan although I did wear a heavier sweater when we were out since the wind was cold.
Unfortunately we didn’t have breakfast because we were in a hurry. Lunch was skipped too since we did not pack a lunch and no one wanted to eat out since we wanted to still follow rations. My girls and I ended up sharing a bagel, since we were so hungry.
Supper was fried spam, fried rice using leftover rice and frozen veggies and leftover biscuits. It was delicious!
Day 20
I didn’t dress ‘40s style today since we had vet appointments and I must say, it felt weird to wear jeans and a sweatshirt.
Once again, since we were on the go, we skipped breakfast.
Lunch, since we were out, we decided to share a baby burger and some onion rings. Definitely not 1940s but we were hungry and did not pack a lunch.
Afternoon tea we enjoyed Lady Grey tea and cookies.
Supper was delicious! This week has been a lot easier to cook on rations. I think I am finally getting it! I made a 1940s meal and it’s a meal I’d definitely make again! We had mock goose (there’s a lot of variations but I made it vegetarian style), potato scones (more like potato farl – a potato pancake), baked potato with yogurt (instead of sour cream), green onion, bacon & onion, homemade mustard beans, homemade dill relish, and homemade carrot relish, cucumber salad and the leftover mashed potatoes I fried in some bacon & onion. It was so delicious! We basically had potatoes 3 ways which my girls enjoyed (they said, “yes! I love potatoes!”) because who doesn’t love a hearty potato!?! Potatoes were commonly used in the 1940s and potato production tripled!
Dessert was home canned raspberry and blackberry fruit.
Day 21
Today I set my hair in curlers again. I wore a black blouse with pink flowers, cardigan and pants along with a sparkly rose brooch. I’ll keep the curlers in until tomorrow morning so the curl stays a bit longer.
Breakfast was bread pancakes from the 1940s which was delicious and very filling. We ate the pancakes with Roger’s Golden Syrup, fresh whipped cream and strawberries. It was very satisfying and so good. I’ll definitely make these again when we have a lot of bread leftover.
Since we were still stuffed from breakfast, lunch ended up being skipped.
Supper was spruced up leftovers — leftover mock goose and potato scones from yesterday. I chopped some of the baked potatoes and fried it up with halloumi. I re-fried the mashed potatoes from yesterday. I also cooked leftover spam with cabbage and bok choy with bacon, onion and butter. It was all so good!!
Dessert was home canned fruit — raspberries and crab apples. So yummy!
Day 22
This morning I took the curlers out of my hair — yay because those were painful to sleep in! I always love the bouncy curls!! Then I always like how it looks after I style it. I wore a blue blouse and my favorite cardigan with a new bee brooch.
For breakfast, I made bran muffins from the 1940s which was delicious! The muffins are soft and oh so delicious with jam — surprisingly enough the muffins are definitely not sweet like I was expecting. We had Earl Grey tea as well.
Lunch was brunch at our lovely friends’ which was a crispy cinnamon sugar tortilla with whipped cream and fruit. It was so good!
Supper was spam fritters from the 1940s which is essentially just spam dipped in a simple two-ingredient batter, corn fritters with the left over batter (I had jam on mine), leftover baked potato that I fried up and the rest of the cabbage from the other night. It was all so delicious! We had mustard and ketchup on the “spam fritters.” I had leftover tea from this morning that I iced.
I prepared overnight english muffin bread and am letting it sit overnight in the warmed oven. Tomorrow I’ll turn it into a loaf of bread.
I’m looking forward to trying more 1940s recipes and replenishing our rations – we still have a lot, but then we will be set for another week.
Day 23
My hair is so crazy curly that I pinned it up and wore a hairnet! I wore a white top, black polkadot skirt and my favorite sweater in beige along with a dragonfly brooch.
Breakfast was Irish Breakfast tea and bran muffin with jam.
I baked the english muffin bread which rose beautifully and fell — I guess I didn’t put it in the pan soon enough! I honestly thought it needed to proof longer being as it’s whole wheat but I was totally wrong! So it is not light and fluffy but still tastes great!!
Lunch was fried spam, toasted english muffin bread with cheese, cucumber salad and homemade mustard beans. It was fantastic!
Supper was welsh rarebit from the 1940s, which is essentially cheese sauce atop toasted bread. It was really good. We finished up the mock goose and we had peas & corn too. It was quite good. Dessert was home canned raspberry fruit.
We spent the day cleaning and reorganizing the living room/crafting area which was a massive undertaking! It took nearly all day, but we got it done which is nice! Now we can tackle some sewing projects!
Day 24
My hair is so crazy curly again, but I pinned part of it up and left it down. I wore a blue top, my favorite plaid skirt and a blue cardigan with a flower brooch.
Breakfast was apple cinnamon tea and bran muffin with margarine and jam.
We headed to the city to run a few errands plus we went grocery shopping since we were out of a bunch of vegetables and other items for our rations. Strawberries were on sale so we picked some up and had that and an apple for dessert. While we were in the city, we treated ourself to a hamburger that we shared and some chicken “fries.” Definitely not 1940s and I felt bad eating it since it wasn’t part of our rations but we enjoyed it nevertheless. Once we got home, I started cooking yummy things!!
I baked bread using my pizza crust recipe and turned it into a loaf to have with supper which was minestrone soup. It was all amazing!
Soups were popular in the 1940s because it’s easy to toss a few ingredients into the pot and end up with a whole bunch to feed a hungry family!
I made another loaf of bread this evening using a recipe from the Great Depression. It’s our favorite loaf!! We still have English Muffin bread left, but we wanted some regular bread! There’s a few recipes I’d like to try out using stale bread, so I’m looking forward to that!
Tomorrow I will be measuring out our rations!! I had planned on doing that today, but had to get things like milk, margarine, lard along with a few other items. We have quite a bit of rations like sugar, but that’ll be used to make some different recipes.
Onto Week Four!!
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours“They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!”
— Dr. Seuss
