Did I tell you my rent is going up £200 per month? I am determined to cut down on my spending, every way I can this year, to continue to afford our housing. It blows my mind how expensive renting and buying is here in Swindon. I moved here to be closer to my Mum and Dad. I rented a 3 bed semi when I lived up North for £425 per month. I am renting the same size, end of terrace house here for £1050 now. That is well over 1/2 my take home pay. As the only wage earner you can imagine that is rather concerning! These wartime recipes sure are coming in handy!
This is an authentic wartime recipe for Vegetables en Casserole from a WW2 booklet produced by The Country Life Home Front. I used winter vegetables for this recipe plus lentils, and it made 5 large portions served with bread.
Based on Aldi prices, this costs around £2.50 to make 5 portions. Served with 1 slice of bread this is around 425 calories per portion and around 18g of protein. Next time I would add double the amount of lentils to add more protein and calories.
Ingredients for 1 person
- 1 medium potato
- 1 medium carrot
- 1 medium parsnip
- 100 g swede
- 1/2 celery stick
- 1/5th of an onion
- 1/10th of a cabbage
- 40 g red lentils
- Any other veg that needs using up!
Plus herbs/spices/gravy browning/Marmite to taste
Method
Simple really! Chop up the veg as per my video above, adding the cabbage in towards the end. I used vegetable stock and mixed herbs, pepper and salt to my own preference/taste.
I cooked in a big pot rather than in the oven in a casserole as it uses less power!
C xxxx
It looks quite delicious Carolyn. Love those winter veggies all mixed up together.
So sorry about your rent! That’s a steep hike!
I think lots or wartime wisdom will come back into use in the coming year, and that’s no bad thing.
A very healthy meal. I’m guessing that a herby dumpling made with suet wouldn’t be so slimming but might be a tasty edition?
Very healthy! I make casseroles/stews in my slow cooker. £200 a month rent increase is crazy! It should be illegal in increase rent by that much; there ought to be a set allowed rent increase by month/year. Something reasonable like up to £50. I’m in a one bed roomed housing co-op up north and the rent is £359.49 a month.
I am so glad that I scrimped and saved and bought my house when I could, and yes I know I was very fortunate indeed. Even the rent on your one bedroom flat exceeds my monthly income, I certainly couldn’t afford to rent anywhere.
A £200 a month rent rise should be a criminal offence! It’s daylight robbery.
If ever we needed Wartime Wisdom, we need it NOW. Our local chain grocer has tripled prices on some items, and our residential taxes and our utilities rates just increased, but incomes did not. Your recipes are a godsend. It always cheers me up to see your posts.
Thank you, your recipes are wonderful and I love your commentary in your blog. I don’t usually respond but I wanted you to know that your American friends feel your pain! Rent and home prices have increased dramatically along with the cost of groceries! It’s ridiculous that the worker bees in our global society have to struggle so much to make ends meet. We appreciate you! God bless and hope your financial situation improves soon! Val
Dear Valerie, Oh gosh I only just saw this comment when I came to upload a blog post, several comments were sitting in admin that needed approval, so sorry! Thanks for your lovely message xxx I need to work on improving my income so working hard on improving my skills to improve my situation later this year. It’s the only thing I can do. I think many people all over the world are struggling right now. My rent has gone up by £250 per month since 2020… prices have gone up for everything but not wages alas! C xxx