Day 9 Birthday Party on rations

Today was our daughters 10th Birthday!! 

When we started this month of rationing I knew we would have a problem on this day and kinda decided we would probably have to havethis day off rations. However, as the first week progressed I thought harder and decided with a bit of extra planning we could probably manage something special within the constraints.

In the end we stuck to rationing with one small concession - a bag of popcorn.

I read up on life on the homefront and found out that fish and chip shops still opened in the war and were an occasional treat (you could buy or swap ration vouchers for them). So our birthday Lunch was proper fish and chips wrapped in paper and eaten in a Park!!

With that for lunch I knew we wouldn't be too  hungry at supper, but it would be nice to organise a special meal for her. I saved some of my rations and points from last week and looked for recipes that werent overly eggy or sweet! I had enough for a  sponge a carrot cake (requested by daughter) and a trifle!!

Served alongside cheese or Jam sandwiches it was more like a birthday tea from my childhood (minus the cheese and pineapple hedgehog!)  than a normal party fare these days!

The children and their grandparents thoroughly enjoyed it and we have leftovers for the next few days!!

Breakfast

Bacon Butty or Pancakes

Lunch


Fish and Chips



Rations Birthday Tea

Cheese Sarnies
Jam Sarnies
Eggless Sponge
Carrot Cake with cream cheese icing* decorated with sweets from my rations!!
Trifle

* Icing cakes was banned in 1942.

Extras / Treats

Popcorn at the cinema (you're only 10 once I couldn't refuse

Struggling with rations - Extras and obstacles

Something thats creeped into our menu pages on the last two days have been 'Extras' its been difficult to know how to handle these whilst sticking to the rules!

1. Coffee at friends - On Tuesday I was invited to a friends for coffee. Now I'm sure people were invited to friends houses for a hot drink during rationing, so of course I went, and I did actually have coffee (In rationing i'm sure I may have been offered ersatz coffee!) Before the visit, I had decided that I would decline any biscuits and cake offered, BUT my friend said hearing I was on rations instead of baking, she had gone out and specially bought coconut macaroons that she thought were a ww2 recipe. It was so kind of her, so when she offered I had one! (normally we'd get through a small packet between us or a few slices of cake!)

I hope that you agree this should be permissible? It wont happen again during the month.

2. Children Cooking elsewhere - Both children have baked either at school or Brownies this week, 2 x fairy cakes and 1 x biscuit.

I've let them eat both of these freely, replacing ration snacks i had planned.
Likelyhood is I'd have enough ingredients on ration to make these

3 Well meaning Friends & Family -

These include Suggestions that ...

"surely anything could be bought 'on the black market' so why don't I bend the rules"
uh nope I'm trying to do this as straight as possible!

"If you eat it at my house it doesn't count"
Generally if the goods are off ration, we'll eat them freely there (veg etc) but meat we would take off our ration. I'm not counting  cooking oil etc.


"As long as it existed in 1940 and wasnt rationed you should have whatever amount you want"
No, I will only buy what points will allow.


4. Freely available but hard to comeby foods

Lots of foods are listed as such, so I've set up a plan for this. I'm planning to only buy one of these things a week. eg 1 pack of sausages week 1, Fish in week 3 etc.

5. Things I would have had anyway

I live in the country, I bake my own bread, I preseve and make from scratch, so if I can make it i'm calling it allowable.
Eg I will make Soft cheese and yoghurt but will take the milk from my allowance.
I have chutneys and pickled onions in my store cupboard....so i can add them to meals.

As long as we don't abuse this i think this is fair.

Day 2

I was definitely starting to feel hungry during the day today but I think honestly thats the lack of Tea Drinking in between meals I'd normally do. Hubby has taken a larger packed lunch today as he felt yesterdays was too small!

Breakfast

Fadge or Porridge
Pear

Both Children had Fadge today, grown ups had porridge (although this has almost used up the 2 points worth of oats I bought, with only enough left for 1 more bowl) tonight I'll decide whether we need to buy more or will look for more ration friendly breakfast recipes!

Lunch

Soup and Bread (children)

Jam sandwiches, ww2Potato Salad*, Parsnip Soup
Potato, Mustard and Lettuce sandwiches

* Poatoes boiled in stock, chopped herbs

Supper

Carrot Soup

Toad in the Hole, Potatoes and Veg

Stewed Apple

Extras

Lollipop (Class reward for son)
Biscuit ( Cooking at Brownies for daughter)
Coffee and biscuit (Offered at a friends)

Todays evening meal was a definite success! Potion sizes were generous and everyone was very satisfied. We'll repeat this one I think!

So why the picture of cabbage heading up today, welllll, today I managed to Burn the cabbage for tea!!  What I didn't really think about was the amount of time I'd be needed in the kitchen and with 2 kids homework to supervise I didn't quite make it back to the kitchen in time to pour the boiling water into the pan of cabbage when interupted!!

I'm finding myself thinking about food alot more now. Not the fantasizing but the praticalities of it all. Driving to school I declared to the children 'Oh no!' 'What mummy?' 'I've forgotten to drain the fat out of the pan, to save for later!' Suddenly the little things matter!

Today presented a few firsts (see extras above) for today i'll just list them and do a seperate post on this tomorrow.



Low Points


Burning the cabbage!! And then serving it up anyway - covered in gravy!!!
Reading a post on FB with everyone reliving childhood crisps, (snaps, frazzles, fish & chips crisps in a newsprint bag etc ) then being able to think of nothing else so going to bed early!!!!

High Points

Coffe and a coconut macaroon with a friend.
Finding more recipes on the internet!