Hello Lovelies!

Now I've been thinking, not easy to do at times around here, and I've decided that given the current economic situation and rising food costs, it's time we looked back to the past. Meat especially seems to be increasing in price at an alarming rate, and I got to thinking how did people manage during the war on rations? Any trawl of t'interweb can provide a wealth of information, but today I'm going to share some recipes that my mum left me.

There's every chance that you might find these elsewhere, but as written here they are from my mum's recipe book, and may well have variations on ingredients, depending on the season. Use what you have leftover!

The reason for these recipes is simple: it's time we all cut back, ate more seasonal vegetables, reduced the amount of food we throw away and used cheaper cuts of meat. This way of cooking and eating is exemplified in the Wartime way of life - waste not, want not - and I personally think would all do well to emulate it!

If you start really thinking about the foods in your veg rack, fridge and cupboards, how they could be used, what meals you might be able to make with them, then you will open up a whole new world of eating, not to mention saving money, reducing waste and eating much more healthily.

First up is a recipe that Mum has annotated as coming from her brother's Scout group, whether it is a well-known one, or simply from one of the Scout leaders she didn't say!

Pathfinder Pudding

Suet Pastry

6oz (170g) plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking powder
1oz (28g) suet
1 ½ oz (42g) raw shredded potato
water

Filling

2lb (900g) diced cooked swede
4oz (113g) grated cheese
1 sliced leek (raw)
½ teaspoon mustard powder
fresh or dried mixed herbs
pepper and salt

To make the pastry, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, suet and potato and add the water to a doughy consistency. Roll out and use ¾ of the pastry to line a greased 2 pint pudding bowl. Mix all the filling ingredients together and fill the pastry-lined bowl. Make a lid out of the remaining pastry and cover the pudding, pressing down firmly. Cover with a plate or greaseproof paper and steam for 2 hours.

Or you can cover with plastic food wrap and microwave for around 10 minutes, which I'd prefer as it uses less fuel! Mum's notes also say you can use any root veg other than swede, if you like.

Rissoles

Another meal that I remember her making when I was a child is rissoles, however, she never wrote down the exact amounts for these, so I've done my best! You may have to juggle the amount of meat around a bit!

8-12oz (227-340g) left-over cooked minced lamb/chicken/pork/beef
1 medium onion, diced
1-2 teaspoons mixed herbs (depends on your taste and amount of meat!)
1 egg (you might need 2 if you're using more meat)
salt and pepper

You simply mix all the ingredients together in a bowl until you have a firm ball of mixture. Then divide up into burger-sized rounds, flatten slightly and fry until heated through. Make sure you really really squish the mixture to tightly compact it, or they will all fall apart! You can, if you like, lightly batter them, or coat in breadcrumbs.

These were often served up on a Wednesday or Thursday dinner, as the very last of the Sunday roast was used up. Mum often served them with parsnip chips as opposed to potatoes.

Parsnip Chips

2-3 good-sized parsnips, peeled and chipped
oil for frying

Parboil the parsnips for 5 minutes or so, drain and dry. Heat your cooking oil just as you would for chips, and fry the parsnips in exactly the same way.

These were usually the last of the parsnips from the store that needed using up but were a bit on the bendy side, if you know what I mean! Just going past their best, but still usable. My mum never wasted anything.

Summer Pudding

Another of Mum's favourites was the fabulous Summer Pudding. We were lucky, we had fruit bushes in our garden, blackberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries were always to hand, and Mum preserved them to keep us going through the year as well. This recipe is ideal to use up your frozen surplus of fruit to make room in the freezer before this season!

You will need:

Approx 5 slices of stale bread (white, brown or wholemeal and you can use the odd-shaped bits and crusts as well)
Approx 1lb (450g) mixed soft fruits, whatever you have (the ones that are ‘going over' are perfect!)

Build up the base and sides of the pudding using most of the stale bread pressed into a pudding basin - one about 6-8 inches should serve a family of four. Mum always used to spread the bread very thinly with margarine or butter to help it stay in place, or sometimes she'd grease the basin.

Once you have the inside of the basin covered with bread, pile in the fruit until the basin is full to the top. Then press the fruit down using a spoon, until you can't compress it any more. If you now have a large gap between the fruit and the top of the basin, add some more fruit and press it down again. You're aiming to have about ½ inch between the top of the fruit and the top of the bread around the outside.

Then top this with more bread, sealing the fruit in. Place a tea plate or saucer on the top, and then put something heavy (a bag of sugar is perfect) on top of that so that it weighs the plate down into the basin and compresses it all. Leave it in the fridge or a cold larder, for at least 5 hours, or overnight. When ready to serve, turn it out onto a plate and all the juice from the fruit will have soaked into the bread. Serve with custard, cream or ice-cream.

So, there you have it, frugal but tasty meals, using up some foodstuffs that may otherwise be thrown away, or simply used as cold cuts and sandwich filling. Using a bit of ingenuity and learning from our forebears, we can make delicious meals out of next to nothing, or from things we previously thought were past their best and should be thrown out. You just have to think a bit harder about how to use them.

Wren x