Christmas Fancy Dress

Its that time of year, where someone at work gets given the job of organising the annual christmas party! Some people jump at the chance for the responsibility, some hide under their desks in the hope that they won’t be asked.  Which ever type of person you are, why not consider having a fancy dress christmas party!  

After we lived 1944

When we planned living in 1944 we ha no idea what life would have in stall for us.

I planned to blog and tell the world our every move but i never had the time, working full time, and spending all my spare time either cooking or washing up, the blog etc did get negated.

I have updated it today best i can and hope to have some free time to post a few recipes etc that we used.

as a family we lost just over one stone in weight!

Friday 22nd September

Last day of powdered egg on toast

lunch jam sandwiches ( we never had much else left)

We finished today at 6pm

Thursday 21st september

Only one day left to go

breakfast toast

lunch we used a little bit of the cheese that we where given and we all enjoyed cheese sandwiches and a apple

evening meal  corn-beef in batter and salad

Wednesday 20th September

Porridge for breakfast

lunch was once again corn beef sandwiches with tomato

evening meal was cold chicken bubble and squeak and backed beans

Tuesday 19th September

breakfast powdered egg on toast

lunch  corn-beef sandwiches and a pear

In the evening we where taken out to eat. we ate within our diet best you can in a modern pub . 

We all felt very full after our meal. but only choose small portions 

Porridge for breakfast

lunch was once again corn beef sandwiches with tomato

evening meal was cold chicken bubble and squeak and backed beans

Monday 20th September 2010

Today my in laws came to stay and have brought extra rations.  so we have some more bacon, milk and a small amount of extra cheese.

Breakfast - toast 

lunch home made leek and potato soup

evening meal roast chicken roast potatoes carrots, roast parsnips, cauliflower and home made gravy.

semolina for pudding. 

My mother in law brought bacon to go over the chicken  but i felt this was a waste as only yesterday we shared one rasher of bacon between two!

Sunday September 19th 2010

The weekends are much  easier to manage as I have more time to cook.

cooked breakfast . beans, tomato, home made potato pancakes, fried egg and one rasher of bacon between two!!!

lunch toast and home made plum jam

evening meal : pasta in a strange vegetable stock sauce . it was very good 

Saturday September 18th 2010

One week done, and so far we have all enjoyed the experience.
With one week in we have hardly any cheese left for next week, have plenty of tea and sugar and fat.

breakfast porridge ( again)

lunch jam sandwiches and an apple

Evening Meal: toad in the hole but only one sausage each. served with fresh vegetables  from the garden .

Friday 17th Septembe

Porridge for breakfast. ( made with a little more water than normal as milk is running low)

lunch was ham sandwich ( last of the ham)

Highlight of the week was fish and chips from the chip shop, and to top it all a friend came round with some black market chocolate cake:)

Thursday 16th September

Powdered egg has been a great hit, today used it in making a great chocolate cake and once again scrambled egg on toast for breakfast.

Lunch - chicken soup, and bread and butter, its so good having real butter!

evening meal. mock goose. boiled potatoes and carrots.

the mock goose was great we ate it all even holly ate the boiled potatoes.

Mock goose was layers of potato and apple, and a very small amount of cheese, a vegetable stock was than poured over it.

and baked for about a hour. 

after we had washed up i made a great chocolate cake using black treacle and one tea spoon of bornville cocoa powder. it was a great treat and it turned out really  well. I will be making it again as it had so little fat and sugar in it , but still tasted and looked good.

I was hoping to be blogging lots but just don’t have the time.

night all. 

wednesday 15th septembe

Not a good start as lunch was meant to be homemade chicken soup, but as we went out last night, I  never had time to make it so i had to have spam sandwiches.  so spam fritters for tea was a no go.

Breakfast porridge

lunch spam and tomato sandwiches 

Tea potato pancakes this recipe used one rasher of bacon which we chopped up very small and shared between 3 . 1 tomato and a few baked beans.

pudding was chopped up apple.

Our tea rations are lasting very well, and 3 spoons of loose tea seems to happily make two pots of tea. Its amazing to think how many tea bags we would have used and just thrown away.

I made soup of lunch tomorrow, It was going to be chicken and sweet-corn, but the sweet-corn growing in the garden was  not right, the cobs had formed but no corn, so i just made chicken soup. Normally if this happened i would pop out and get some tinned sweet-corn properly buy lots of stuff we did not need at the same time.

Tuesday 14th September

Starting to get into the swing of eating on rations.

breakfast powered egg on toast, and jam on toast.

Lunch more spam sandwiches and a slice of bread pudding

Tea  jacket potato with beans a little salad and one rasher of bacon each.

The bacon tasted wonderful and was enjoyed all by. holly had cheese on her potato  but we never as their was not enough to go round as it still needs to last us into next week

We all went to the cinema which was a nice break from being in the kitchen. 

late home so never made soup for wednesdays lunch!

Monday 13th September

First day working full time and living on rations, the need for coffee and the dishwasher is very great.

Porridge for breakfast with golden syrup .

lunch spam sandwiches  , apple .

evening meal. chicken pie, boiled potatoes, and cabbage.

very tired from cooking and washing up, made bread pudding from sale bread crusts,  and some funny biscuits with powdered egg.

Holly still not eating much more than marmite and toast. 

Sunday 12th September

Sunday 12th September

We were  keen to try the powdered egg, and I was unsure that it would work let alone taste any good. I followed the war time instructions , once rehydrated it cooked just like normal egg , Scrambled egg on toast looked and tasted like normal scrambled egg on toast!

Home grown veg for sunday lunch , sweet-corn, carrots, parsnips.

We had a chicken for lunch we decided that we ha to eat a meat that was cheep and we would all enjoy. We hope to make it last all week.

Made gravy using a oxo cube ( normally use instant) 

apple and blackberry crumble for pud  

Tea  sardines on toast 

Today the washing up seemed to take forever and never end. had to  plan meals for Monday after work so I made  a chicken and veg pie  for mondays meal ( from chicken and veg already cooked)

we then made Jam tarts made from left over pasty.

Veg fro thr Garden 

Holly helped more I think was due to lack of tv  and being board , but she made the pastry and the jam tarts.

I did put the washing machine on as I could not face washing the huge pile of washing by hand and lack 1940’s experiment. 

highlights of today was the cup of camp coffee. and releasing i had worked the sugar rations out wrong and we have alot more sugar than i first thought.

I wish holly would eat more than marmite on toast.

to tired to write much more

September 11th 2010

First day of our 1940’s experiment living on rations.

First job cup of tea, half asleep I made a pot of tea. bit forgot the tea strainer, had to poor it all back into the pot and restrain milk and all!

Today we wanted to go and attend doors open day in bristol so i had acked lunches to make  spam sandwiches  and a apple. I also left holly a packed lunch or marmite sandwiches.

( we have decided to eat half and half bread as holly will not eat brown bread and it would not be fair to starve her) 

Breakfast was great we all had toast  with home made jam ( holly had marmite)

After a great  day out at doors open day we went blackberry picking and apple scrumping.

By this point stating to feel very tired as i have been on my feet since 6am and still not cooked tea. so we went for a easy tea.

Potato  fritters , one sausage each , home made chutney and beans. we finished with tined fruit.

The best bit about today was the washing up as we all helped and it was so much better than me loading the dish washer on my own and every one else just going of to do their own thing.

So with tea cooked washed up dried and put away we all sat down with no TV  it did feel a little strange, I started knitting a hat , holly did her homework and dave read!

By 9.30 we where all ready for bed!!!

Day before

When we wake in the morning our 1940's experiment will start.
One last cup of coffee for 2 weeks! feeling very scared that its here and about to start of 1940"s experiment.
Going to jump on the scales and before we start looking forward to see if we gain or lose weight.
Good night 2010

radio

Enjoying 1940's radio at
http://www.1940sukradio.co.uk/

One week to go until our 1940's experiment.

With Week to go until  our 1940’s experiment , its time to up the pace and start putting all our ideas and thoughts into practice.

Today i emptied all the cupboards and an sorted them into allowed food and rationed food.

It was a good experience. armed with the lap top and my in-laws we started going though the cupboards, in the no pile went the chocolate spread, pasta, sweet chili sauce and  salad cream, and all the good things that we all enjoy  or has holly said all the things she liked.

I weighed out 2 weeks worth of sugar which did not look to bad, and then the lose tea which again looked ok.

I got very sided tracked and learnt alot about home canning! The photos below show my cupboards before and after the clean out. 

The foods that we can't have.

My cleaned out cupboard ready for 1940's living.

powdered egg, powdered milk

I 

I have taken this from the imperial  war museum website.

I thought it  was great as so many shops and people are planting tomatoes and other plants so early.

In war time britain if you got it wrong not only did it cost you money it would cause you hunger.

‘Plant in haste, repent at leisure’ seems to be the main message of the May missive from the Ministry of Agriculture. Indeed, it compares the ‘fickle and fitful’ month to a newlywed maid, married in haste but that doesn’t seem appropriate for these PC times!

Despite its unpredictability, May is a busy month in the garden with important jobs to be done, including thinning seedlings, sowing winter greens, and planting Brussels sprouts and tomatoes. In the poetic words of the Ministry of Agriculture, lettuce, spinach and onion seedlings should be thinned when the weather is cool ‘with a promise of warm showers to come’. Brussels should be planted 2 ½ feet apart in May to June, which is irrelevant as I can’t get anyone in my family to eat them.

Tomatoes, on the other hand, are the perennially popular garden crop - they were ‘No 1 with war-time gardeners and allotment holders’, and their colourful fruit is still frequently found in allotments, gardens, balconies and window boxes. The Ministry of Agriculture was particularly concerned by what appears to be a black market trade in dodgy tomato plants: ’some amateurs have been taken in every year by unscrupulous people who sell them tomato plants far too early for planting outside’. This may seem small-fry compared with the threat of enemy invasion, but planting your tomatoes before the end of May is one of the biggest mistakes a gardening novice can make, as plants left out in the cold will turn a ‘dark, unhealthy colour’. However, if you plant at the right time and follow these detailed instructions, you should have a juicy crop to see you through the summer!

Home Guard Uniform

Our living 1940’s project is getting ever closer. This week David tried on his home guard uniform and as you can see he really looks the part.


I have sewn on all the badges hopefully in the right places and the correct distance apart!

The veg garden is coming along slowly and the cold weather is not helping their was even forcast of a frost last night so everything had to go back into the glasshouse.

One night in 1940

We had a great evening at portishead rotary club, one night in 1940.

It was a fund raising event with 1940 tea and costumes where provided which gave the whole evening the atmosphere of 1940. We even had a air raid during the evening and we all made our way( very slowly) to the air raid shelter.

The air raid wardens made sure we where all safe. the land girls milked a cow and the home guard where showing just what they where capable  of as they marched up and down the hall.

A great evening with lots of laughs and some local people giving their stories from the war brought it all home to us and made us all stop and think.

3rd March 2010

3rd March 2010

Its has all been about research so far. I am concerned about food, looking at rationing clothing and just thinking about how we are going to do this. we want this to be taken seriously and want it to be as true as possible.

This weeks task is looking into where i can buy powdered egg!

Dave being the man in the house wants to do his bit for the war effort so he has been pitting together his home guard uniform and researching the local home guard in portishead.

We where very lucky to have a home guard book given to us from a family member , it has proved a very interesting  read.

This week Daves  badges for his uniform arrived. he got them from monty’s locker a great company and very helpful. 

http://www.montyslocker.co.uk

Holly is still keen but does not seem to grasp their where no teenagers in 1943 !

Why are we doing this ?

Life is so busy and we often give no thought to where our food comes from, how much it costs and how  we could eat healthy  food on a small budget . even harder to eat healthy food when you could not get it.

By living and researching this project  I am hoping  on a personal level to try and understand a learn how people lived and survived. 

As a family i hope it will bring all our interests  together to make a great event that  we all learn from.

About Us 

The blog is written by me lindsay smith mother to holly aged 14 and wife to david . we live in a 1950‘s style house in the village of portishead. My family are from portishead so I have strong links with the community  and any family war time memories are local ones.

I love to cook and garden, so I am looking forward to my victory garden and cooking food on rations.

My husband david  has a great interest in social history world war 2.

Our daughter holly is sort of looking forward to this project, the rationing of food is going to be tough on her , as is the clothes, war time  fashions do not go down to well to a 14 year old.

But holly is great at filming and editing  , so her job is to record this event with blogs and short videos.

I hope you enjoy reading our blog and follow us as we lean about living in war time Britain.