Rationing Challenge – Hints and Tricks

Stretching Rations and Saving Pennies

As I was researching recipes further for my challenge, I came across some simple hints and tricks for making basic ingredients go further.  So instead of cluttering up my daily challenge pages with these, I thought it would be best to pop them into their own post.  This post will be updated as I go along, if I find other hints to share, or when I take photos of what I’ve tried out.

Making 1lb butter into 2lb

1lb room temperature butter
1/2 pint lukewarm milk (or even water if rations are tight)

• • Carefully beat the butter until it is a soft paste – don’t over beat or it will separate.
  • Gradually add the liquid, mixing the whole time until it has been incorporated.
  • Pat the butter into a dish and store in the fridge where it will harden.

This recipe will harden like the butter that you originally started out with. If you want a more spreadable butter, the milk can be substituted for oil.

This extended butter is suitable for sandwiches and putting on vegetables etc., but is not recommended for baking.

Mayonnaise

1 level tbsp standard custard powder (use flour when custard powder is not available)
2 level tbsps of household milk powder
1oz margarine
1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
2 tbsps vinegar
Salt and pepper
1/2 pint boiling water

• Mix together the custard powder (or flour), milk powder, mustard, pepper and salt in a bowl.
• Warm the margarine, and blend it smoothly with the dry ingredients until soft and creamy.
• Gradually stir in the boiling water, then put the mixture into a saucepan.
• Bring very slowly to the boil, stirring all the time.
• Cook until the sauce is smooth and thick.
• When it is cool, beat in the vinegar. Any kind of spiced vinegar may be used instead of plain malt vinegar to give variety of flavour.

Mock cream

Mix 1oz of margarine with 1oz of caster sugar. Then beat in 1-2 tablespoons of dried milk powder and a tablespoon of milk until light and fluffy. Cool then use.

Dripping Spread

Mash two potatoes with 1oz margarine and 1 crumbled stock cube, until a soft paste is achieved.  Spread on bread or toast as a delicious alternative to dripping.

Dripping Spread on Toast

This was surprisingly edible and I would even add another stock cube to give it a stronger meaty flavour.  It’s one of those trial and error recipes as all it says is two potatoes, which is a little like saying “How long is a piece of string?”…