I’m trying to spend as little as possible so wartime recipes are really going to help my new budget! I very recently quit my job to achieve my dream of writing/photographing/designing/marketing and self-publishing my first WW2 cook book. I’ve enough money to pay my rent and bills for 3 months before deciding what to do next and I hope this will just be long enough, if I work very hard, to finish it!
I digress…
Watching every single penny will be crucial to give me those 3 months and although I am not officially starting rationing again until January the 9th, I am already cooking up simple wartime recipes from inexpensive ingredients. Actually, the last time I bought any food was last year! (that’s true, sorry I couldn’t resist!)
Over the next few months I am going to try and not waste anything and use ingredients I have got stored in cans and jars as well as preserve and freeze cheap fruit and veg when I come across them for sale. The other day I froze a while large bag of swede, enough for 5 large portions and that was only 5p!
Here is a recipe I used today from the wartime cook book “Health for All” by Margaret Y. Brady. I LOVE this book. It contains 249 recipes with health and simplicity in mind. It is one of my favourite little books!
Leeks & Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 1 large bundle of leeks
- 1 oz of margarine or Nutter (this was a type of nut butter back in the day)
- 1/2 lb of tomatoes
Method
Wash leeks well and cut them into short lengths. Cut tomatoes in quarters. Put them with leeks into previously melted margarine. Cover and simmer for half to three-quarters of an hour, or bake in a moderate oven.
Carolyn’s note
I used about half the ingredients, added a little water into the pan with a teaspoon of a low-salt vegetable bouillon powder, and simmered for roughly 10-15 minutes. I served this on a slice of sourdough toast! Yum!
C xxx
Looks delicious. Leeks are lovely but they’re quite pricey compared to onions which you could use in their place. That would cut the cost of this to less than £1.00 I think.
Yes onions are more affordable for sure at the moment. (I have so many onions and shallots to use up too!) I had two leeks in my veg drawer from two weeks ago that needed using up ASAP though so this was a perfect recipe for getting that done. C xxx
Looks fantastic, but would it be cheating if you made your own sourdough bread. Once you have the starter you just need the flour. I cook mine in a wood burning cook stove but using an electric oven really hikes up the electric bill.
Doing for yourself in a frugal way couldn’t possibly be cheating. In my mind, that’s kind of the point. If you can your own jam or bake your own bread (and well done you for baking it in a wood cook stove!), then that’s just another way of being able to care for yourself and your family with less dependence on the system outside of you in daily life or emergency. I’ve always felt, the more we could do for ourselves, the less of a burden we would be on the system if there were a national emergency.
That’s just the kind of veggie meal I love! These days that meal would cost much more in the US. My Aussie husband is now saying “Welcome to Australia” as we see prices in the US shoot up drastically. Prices were pretty high in Oz when I lived there ten years ago and I hear it is worse now, but Americans are getting a lesson in what the rest of the Western world has been paying for ages. Leeks are $4US for a bundle of two! At Walmart, the least expensive grocery around. :-/
Sounds just what I need right now & I’d need His-Nibs to cook it though😊…..I think you’ve virtually passed on your ‘stinking’ cold to me, just saying😉😂🤣🤧🤧🤧