pantry

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10 Wartime Stale Bread Recipes to Save Food from the Bin and Feed Your Family!

Don’t you dare throw that stale bread ( or breadcrumbs ) away and join the CoronaVirus panic buying throngs who are now discarding all their rotting ‘fresh’ produce. Bread is one of the foods I’m seeing a lot of photos of in dustbins. SAVE IT NOW from the mouth of the hungry metal monster due to take it away on ‘bin-day’ by cooking some of these delicious wartime recipes (mostly puddings). They’ll keep in the fridge for days once baked, and in the freezer for months!

I’d like to apologise in advance for the ‘amazing photography’ from 10 years ago (British sarcasm) in several of the recipes below, it was in the early days of the blog which started in 2009, when I was flat broke and REALLY struggling. I think most of my photos were taken on an old flip video camera but I like to keep them to remember my journey and it’s various challenges.

Stay calm, stay safe, stay home,

C xxxx

Padded Pudding with Mock Cream: Watch the video above. The stale bread mixed with milk and cooked with jam looks like poo. I felt like Letita Cropley carrying out one of her great culinary experiments with strange ingredients. It actually tasted great! A good life lesson, don’t judge something or someone on how it/they look, chances are they will taste surprisingly delicious… just sayin’! Click here for recipe.

Plum Charlotte: Here’s a super-frugal wartime recipe made out of stale bread and fruit that’s going a little soft. As I had two of these things in my kitchen and I’m always finding ways to make ends meet, when I saw this recipe I knew it was just what I needed.
Click here for recipe.

Bread and Butter Pudding: In Marguerite Patten’s “Victory Cookbook” there is always one pudding recipe that is an absolute ‘go-to’ when one needs comforting and one has spare eggs. All becomes good in the world when you take that first spoonful of sugary topped, eggy, bready, sultana sprinkled, nutmeggy deliciousness, especially if served with a little hot custard if you can overlook the fact that it looks like cockroaches are climbing all over my food in the photograph… Click here for recipe.

Duke Pudding: How can stale bread and grated old carrots possibly be decadent? Trust me they are when you make them into a wartime “Duke Pudding”… Seeing the rapidly drying bread on my countertop and the carrots beginning to get spotty in the fridge, it was time once again to turn nothing into something in true 1940s home-front style and create a truly delicious alternative comfort food, much needed today of all days. Excuse the photography, it was 8 years ago and I hadn’t a clue! Click here for recipe.

Danish Apple pudding: Possibly one of the WORST food photos I have taken in my life from 10 years ago. It’s blurred and I’m not sure what I took the photo with. It could have something other than a camera because I probably didn’t have one.. Don’t let the brown blurry blob put you off. I remember this pudding was fab! I need to re-create and re-photograph! Click here for recipe.

Bread and Apple Pudding:For pudding the request was for ‘bread pudding’ yet again. To avoid this wartime pudding permanently being referred to as “bread-pudding-yet-again” I turned to a large bowl of sorry looking apples for divine inspiration- after-all Sir Isaac Newton stared at apples for an awfully long time before being rewarded with an answer… Click here for recipe.

Bread and Prune Pudding: You know that can of stewed prunes that has been languishing in your larder for several years, that you don’t want to throw away because you have inherited your grandmother’s and possibly mother’s innate ability to have everything stored away for a ‘rainy day’, WELL, you are about to use it and it’s gonna taste pretty damn good! Click here for recipe.

Brown Betty: It was unusual to make bread pudding without raisins in, Brown Betty has none, no eggs or milk either which makes me think all bread puddings could indeed be made eggless. Instead, it has water, the juice, and zest of a lemon and a generous quantity of golden syrup, spices, two grated apples, a little sugar and of course LOTS of stale bread! Click here for recipe.

Bread Pudding: I re-created this recipe about 12 years ago. This wartime recipe is easy-peasy and tasty. And of course it all in the custard too. Click here for recipe.

Bread Stuffing: And finally a recipe made from stale bread that isn’t a pudding and doesn’t look like a formless brown blob. Bread stuffing is so easy to make! This photo is from about 12 years ago, my pre-vegetarian days! Click here for recipe.

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The Pandemic Pantry FREE online global community cookbook project

PandemicPantry

With the worrying Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic affecting most countries globally, our everyday lives are taking a different path while our countries try and contain the spread of the virus to a more manageable level.

During this period of uncertainty and adjustment, with some businesses on lockdown, with some people being laid off from work and increasingly empty supermarket shelves, accessibility to services, food, and a safe economy are no longer guaranteed for our shorter-term future. Therefore it’s important we try and pull together, become practical and savvy, make the best of what we’ve got, use our ingenuity and exhibit compassion and kindness for those in need and always ‘keep calm and carry on’.

One way we can do this is through sharing our knowledge of feeding our families and feeding the nation on basic, simple but nutritional and inexpensive foods.

The Pandemic Pantry FREE online global community cookbook project.

Do you have simple recipes with simple ingredients that you’ve tried and tested? The ingredients should include more readily available food items during these uncertain times or food that is easily storable long term.

It would be amazing if we could all be useful in some way while we self-isolate. Let us ALL build a FREE ‘Pandemic Pantry’ PDF community cookbook that can be used by everyone? We need something positive to come out of this horrible time. I’d like to get this out ASAP so am looking to have it online and ready for anyone who wants to download it by mid-April. Each recipe that is submitted and used will include your name, county/state, and country after it PLUS a link to your blog/Instagram/website (and if you want to submit a small head a shoulders photo with it to be used in the recipe book please feel free). You are also welcome to leave a short 1 sentence message to everyone who reads the book…xxx

PLEASE submit your recipes, hints/tips ASAP to carolynekinsuk@gmail.com ASAP. You can also leave it in the comments below but e-mailing with the SUBJECT LINE : PANDEMIC PANTRY SUBMISSION will allow me to see it easier.

Thank you so much.

C xxxx

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Pantry contains 3 months worth of staples..

My family think the zombie apocalypse is coming real soon due to my recent obsession with stockpiling. Before I go any further I’d like to assure them that I don’t have the inside knowledge on any forthcoming catastrophe or society breakdown and I do these strange things just because you have a weird Mum and I feel comfort in being prepared…. thank you 🙂

Cleaned up my pantry a bit today and added in some additional staples, did a count, checked my storage tubs and was pleased to see that infact I now have about 3 months worth of basic staples to hand. I’ve now written a list of the small stockpile and whatever I use from the pantry I will replenish once a week making sure to rotate foods because of the best before dates.

The majority of my day to day food is fresh (with the addition of canned or dried beans or lentils) but it does feel nice to have this supply that I can reply on. I’m sure I will tweak and adjust it but I wanted to store foods that I really do use in addition to fresh veg.

What do you keep in your pantry as staples?

C xxxx