Day 7: Crunchies & Rhubarb Bread Pie

We've made it through the week and I sincerely thank God that this caper is finally over. I hope that doesn't make me sound too spoiled, but I really am glad we can go back to regular eating. I love cooking from scratch and even cooking with very basic ingredients, including carrot. I could cook again with almost all of the ingredients I've used in the last week, but I'd use them a little differently. The lard no longer has a place in my fridge.

Tonight's dinner consisted of a plain, but tasty vegetable soup. It was my own creation, but very much in the ration book spirit. My approach was to use any vegetables I bought for this week but didn't use. Into a pot went diced onion, parsnip, swede, potato, carrot (!!!), beans, tomato, celery, peas and some herbs. I can no longer stand the taste of vegetable stock, so I stuck with salt and pepper for seasoning, and a little lemon juice and zest at the end. It worked really well and resulted in a warm, wholesome and satisfying dinner. I diverged slightly from ration book cooking and made some garlic bread (with margarine) to fill it out. Yum.

The two final authentic ration book recipes I have from the past week are for crunchies and rhubarb bread pudding. I made the crunchies at the beginning of the week. I tried one and they're very much like the old fashioned oatmeal biscuits I used to love. Tim certainly had no problem with them and polished off the lot. I will be making them again.

On the other hand, the rhubarb bread pudding wasn't a favourite. It's a version of a bread and butter pudding, except you don't use any butter. Also, you don't sweeten the rhubarb and that does make a difference as rhubarb can be quite tart. Because I used regular bread, I couldn't eat this one either (poor me) but Tim has been trying his best to work his way through it over the last couple of days. Not even the offer of hot, fresh custard has made it go down any easier so it sits in my fridge, unloved and uneaten.

Crunchies
100g margarine, lard or clarified dripping (I used margarine)
50g sugar
50g syrup (I used golden syrup)
100g medium oatmeal
1tsp baking powder
vanilla flavouring

Cream together the fat, sugar and syrup. Add flour, oatmeal, baking powder ad a few drops of vanilla. Knead until the mixture binds. (I then wrapped the dough in plastic and left it in the fridge for a couple of hours). Roll out about 5mm thick, cut into rounds or fingers. Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown for about 20 minutes. These biscuits keep well stored in air-tight tins.


Rhubarb bread pudding
225g stale bread
jam for spreading
6 sticks of rhubarb
150ml water
2tsp custard powder
275ml milk and water

Cut the bread into neat thick slices. Spread each one with jam. Cut the sticks of rhubarb into 25mm pieces and stew these in a pan with a little water until almost tender. Strain the fruit, retaining the liquid, and lay (half) the pieces in the bottom of a pie dish. Cover the fruit with a layer of bread and jam slices, add another layer of fruit, then another layer of bread. Pour the rhubarb liquid (which should still be hot) over the fruit and bread and leave to soak for 1/2 hour. Mix the custard powder smoothly with a little milk and make it up to 275ml with hot milk and water. Pour the uncooked custard into the pie dish and bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

Recipes from: Ration Book Cooking; Gill Corbishly; 2004

Day 6: The Oslo Meal

Last night's dinner wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. After a bit of a disaster where I couldn't get the car started and therefore couldn't pick Tim up from work, going out anywhere for dinner was off the menu. Instead, I veered slightly off the ration course and had a glass of wine while I waited for both Tim and the RACV man to arrive. They did, almost simultaneously.

With the car situation sorted very quickly, we made a decision to stay in and stick to the program. The wine helped. I couldn't bring myself to eat the battered sardines, but I tried the carrots and rice and they were edible. Tim thought so too, although he says he will be glad when the seven days are over.

Without doubt, our favourite meal this week has been the Oslo meal and although it's meant to be a lunch, it is something I will gladly have for dinner, even on so cold a night. I don't know where the name came from, but the Oslo meal was apparently tried out on children during WWII as a way of providing a nutritious lunch. You can see why it worked so well. All the important bases covered with a simple salad, bread, cheese and milk. I suppose the idea might have been to make sure kids had one decent meal during the day, given the whole ration situation.

Making an Oslo meal is the easiest thing I've done all week and has been the easiest eating too. It consists of lettuce and other salad items, including tomato, cucumber, carrot, etc. Probably any salad vegetable you could find would have done. After day two I avoided adding carrot, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Also included is a small piece of cheese (about 25g) which could be grated over the meal. Next, two slices of wholemeal bread with margarine, and a glass of milk.

Verdict: this is such a fresh, easy and healthy lunch that became the highlight of the day for both of us. Far from being an out of date idea, it's the sort of thing I've taken to work many times in a lunch box. I don't usually drink milk by the glass, but I can see how it helps fill you up in a healthy sort of way. For Tim's lunch, I used cheese slices so that he could have it on bread because he won't eat chunks or grated cheese. So in other words, he had a cheese sandwich, salad and milk.

Tim says: simple and filling. In fact, it's deceptively fulfilling. I loved it best of anything I've had this week. I wouldn't mind if Julia keeps making me Oslo meal lunches.

Day 5: Sardine fritters, rice bake and more carrots!

Tonight's assault on the palate involved sardines, egg substitute and carrots. Unlike yesterday, I got super-organised and put it all together early so I could photograph in natural light. I was hoping that this would make things look a little more appetising. I was disappointed. Nothing could make this lot look any better.

If you hadn't guessed already, I'm not feeling quite so enthusiastic about ration food on day 5. I tried to make it a little more like a regular dinner tonight by making a few different things. I even made a dessert - rhubarb bread pudding. Notice the absence of 'and butter'. Thank God I can't eat bread. (Sorry Tim).

I thought sardine fritters could be good. First let me say that I have never liked sardines. I hate the look of them - slimy and greasy looking. I hate the smell of them, especially on someone's breath. It doesn't help that I come from a family of sardine eaters. My brother Sam sings the virtue of a good sardine and advised me to make sure I bought good quality. I did and I was willing to give it a try.

This is no Mediterranean delicacy where fresh fillets are lightly tossed in seasoned flour and gently fried in olive oil. This version involves taking chunks of sardine from a tin and dunking them in a stodgy batter before frying.

Next we have curried carrots. They're pretty much like curried sausages without the sausage. For my money, this was the best of the lot as it's fairly tasty and I didn't boil the carrots to death beforehand so they retained some texture. Not sure that's how they were done in Britain during the 1940's but I'll never know.




Last of all, I made egg and rice loaf. This was looking alright, in spite of the egg substitute. It smelled great but didn't work that well. It should have bound in the oven so that it could be turned out of the tin in a loaf. This didn't happen so I had to spoon it out in a pile. Also, it was bland.




Verdict: I have offered Tim the option of going out for dinner. I just don't think I can do it to the poor man, five nights in a row.

Day 4: Waste not, want not...

It's day four of the ration book cooking challenge and my insides are a little bit sick and tired of carrot and potato based meals. On their own, each dinner so far has not been too bad. But eating like this every single day is starting to get monotonous.

I had grand plans for tonight's dinner that involved sardines and rhubarb - not in the same dish! Two things intervened with my well-laid plans. First, I had to go into Melbourne at short notice. This took most of the day and I wound up with a cracking great headache as a result. I really didn't feel like tackling canned seafood. Second, and possibly more unfortunate, there was a lot of leftover Lord Woolton pie, carrot and mashed potatoes looking back at me every time I opened the fridge.

In true wartime spirit, I decided it was time to get creative with the leftovers. I certainly couldn't make Tim eat them as-was, although I noted that the potato scones were almost all gone. It took about five minutes to throw together a more substantial and tastier pie.

First, I greased and lined a pie dish with some pastry. (Yes, I did use a sheet of frozen stuff - remember the headache.) Next, I made a filling by combining the rest of the original pie, leftover grated, cooked and seasoned carrot and some fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs and chopped parsley. I placed this in the pastry, and topped it off with mashed potato and some salt and pepper. I baked it until it started to brown.

The result was a pretty good pie. It was warm and hearty, it felt closer to a normal meal than previous nights, and it means that nothing has been wasted. I would have grated a little cheese on top, or perhaps even under the potato like I do with cottage pie, but I ran out of cheddar.

Verdict: Waste not, want not! This is a classic example of how bits and pieces can be pulled together to make an enjoyable meal. The carrot and fresh breadcrumbs gave the original pie more body and the parsley freshened it up. With the potato on top, this was like a sort of vegetarian cottage pie and I enjoyedit. I'd definitely make something like this again.

Tim says: Next to fried Spam, this is my favourite dinner so far. It was tasty and filling without being heavy. Much better than potato scones.

Day 3: Carrot roll and potato scones

 

Day three and we're hanging in there with the ration book dinners. It's not that there isn't enough food; it's more that it's becoming clear that it's all fairly similar food. There's no doubt that it's low in fat,  healthy and designed to fill people up by making the absolute most of what was available. It's not even particularly stodgy or lacking in taste. It's just that what was available was a lot of carrots and potatoes.

Tonight's dinner was slightly more involved than the last few days' efforts. This is because I had to make mashed potatoes in one pot, and grate and cook carrot in another pot. Then came the challenge of moulding the whole thing together to make it look sort of like a roll. Even more of a challenge was photographing it because like yesterday, it isn't the prettiest dish. Still we persevered and here's what you get when you mould mash potatoes around grated carrots and bake.

We also had potato scones. These aren't like the normal, light and fluffy scones you may know and love. You can probably tell that from the photo.

By mixing mashed potato and flour together, you get a fairly sticky dough that you roll and cut discs from, before frying them in dripping. First, they really don't cook very well in a frying pan because the dough is quite dense. Leave them in for too long and they burn. Leave them in too little and they're still raw and gluey inside. My solution was to brown them up in the pan and then throw them in the oven in a tin covered with tin foil. It helped because they cooked right through and were much lighter.

Verdict: Tonight's dinner only required slightly more effort than the last two nights but was still pretty quick and easy. I enjoyed the carrot roll and I could happily have this again as a side with with a roast and some tasty gravy, instead of the usual versions of mash. It's quite tasty and light in texture which was a big difference from the scones.

The scones I wouldn't do again. I found them heavy and not at all tasty and they were no substitute for regular scones or bread. (Or nothing!) I think the recipe book may have left out a few instructions, but I used common sense and they seemed to work out as intended.

Tim says: Not as yummy as last night and I really noticed the lack of meat. The same sort of vegetables are starting to get a bit tiring on day three. The scones aren't as good as normal scones. They're very stodgy. This food might be low in fat but it's energy dense food and can still be heavy.

Carrot roll ingredients:
2 large carrots
salt & pepper
1 tsp vegetable extract (I used half a large stock cube)
2 tsp fine oatmeal, toasted
cold cooked mashed potato

Grate the carrots coarsely and cook for ten minutes in a very little water. Season well and add the vegetable extract and toasted oatmeal. Boil for five minutes, stirring to thicken. Cool. At this stage the mixture will be quite stiff. Have some cold mashed potato ready, dust the pastry board with flour and roll out into an oblong shape. Place the carrot filling in the centre, then fold over and shape into a roll. (I just spooned out some potato and flattened it, arranged the carrot on top and folded the edges over, using extra potato to cover any gaps. I did this directly on a lined baking tray). Dot with a few shavings of fat and bake in a moderately hot oven until nicely browned. Serve well seasoned with brown gravy.


Potato scone ingredients:
225g mashed potato
225g flour (I used spelt)
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
milk
1 tbsp dripping (I used lard)

Mix the potato, flour, salt and baking powder together with enough milk to make a stiff paste. Roll out about 5mm thick. (I just patted it into shape on a floured board, then used a cookie cutter to cut discs) Fry the first cake in a little dripping, the others will do without. (I fried in two batches.) Butter and serve hot, in a pile.

Recipes from: Ration Book Cookery, Gill Corbishley, 2004; pp34 & 38

Day 2: Mock goose and fried Spam

 

Ration book cookery seems to have involved a lot of 'mock' stuff. Mock goose. Mock beef rissoles. Mock crab. Mock clotted cream. And so on. Not very appetising propects on the whole. Tonight's dinner involved mock goose, but I can categorically state that it neither looked, nor tasted, nor in any other way resembled any breed of goose known to mankind, even in the slightest. Whichever clever clogs down at the Ministry of Food invented and named this dish, must have thought the British public were either complete dolts or very easily fooled. I bet they weren't.

It was even difficult to photograph because it's not very attractive. I was dreading serving it up, imagining having to throw the whole lot out and make us toast instead. But here's the surprising bit. It actually wasn't bad.

In the most basic terms, mock goose is a bit of stuffing made of bread crumbs combined with onion that has been sauteed in stock, and pressed between two layers of boiled lentils. Then the whole thing is baked for a short time. I agree, it does not sound that good and if someone said they were making this for dinner and would I like to join them, I'd find some reason not to go.

Now I wouldn't want to have to eat this every day or even every week, but as a meal I can value its merits. It's filling, contains no fat at all, costs practically nothing to make, and with the right amount of seasoning, it's quite tasty.

Verdict: This is another quick and easy dish to make, although I had serious doubts about how well it would work. I'm glad that once again my doubts were unfounded. The whole thing binds together pretty well and can be sliced to serve. I added the tiniest bit of grated cheese on the top, mainly for photographic purposes, but you don't need it. I had one small piece and along with two slices of Spam and some iceberg lettuce, I felt full without feeling heavy. Satisfying is probably the right word.

Tim says: It was salty, yummy goodness. I would be happy with that every night. I even ate my lettuce, although I could do without that. I LOVED the fried Spam. 

Ingredients
150g split red dried lentils
275ml water
15ml lemon juice
salt and pepper

For the stuffing:
1 large onion, chopped
50g wholemeal fresh breadcrumbs
15ml fresh sage, chopped

Cook the lentils in the water until all the water has been absorbed. Add lemon juice and season.

Then make the stuffing: saute the onion in a little water or vegetable stock for 10 minutes. (I used stock and cooked until the onion was soft and the stock evaporated. Probably closer to 15 minutes). Drain, then add the breadcrumbs. Mix in the chopped sage.

Put half the lentil mixture into a non-stick ovenproof dish, spread the stuffing on top, then top off with the remaining lentils. Put in a moderate oven until the top is crisp and golden.

NB. I lined a small tin with aluminium foil to avoid any sticking as there is no fat in this one. This took about 20 minutes to cook at 180ºC.


Ration Book Cookery, Gill Corbishley, 2004, p24