Carrot Cookies - a great place to hide fruit, veg and nuts

We were really surprised by these little gems. I had expected the final cookie to come out, well... carroty... but they were very tasty and the carrot had cooked soft. I only wish I had baked more than the 8 tester cookies, because they were gone almost instantly.

Ingredients -

These ingredients make about 8 reasonable sized cookies (tennis ball width) just double the ingredients to double the number of cookies.
1 tablespoon of Margerine
2 tablespoons of sugar (white or brown) we used white
a few drops of vanilla/ almond/ orange essence (flavor)
4 tablespoons of grated carrot
6 tablespoons selfraising flour or plain flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder
You can also add dried fruit (e.g. raisins) or nuts (e.g. walnuts) to the mix to mak it a little different... i added both vanilla and orange drops but next time I think I'll try some orange zest and a few walnuts to the mix just for fun.
Cream margarine and sugar together util its light and fluffy.
Beat in the flavoring (essence) and the carrot then fold in the flour.
Stir  until the mixture is moist... mine was a little dry so I added 2 tablespoons of milk to the mix.
Drop small spoonfuls (i used a teaspoon) of mixture onto a greased baking tray and pat them down, the 'blobs' of the mixture may look a little funny but they WILL spread a little during baking.
Sprinkle with sugar ( i forgot this and still loved the cookies) and bake in at gas mark 7 for about 20 minutes.

Minced beef slices

Ingredients

8oz mince (any cooked meat)
4oz cooked mashed potatoes
4 oz stale breadcrumbs (fresh is fine)
salt and pepper
fat, optional

Method

Mix well together the mince, mashed potatoes, breadcrumbs and salt & pepper (to taste).
Turn out onto a floured board and roll into an oblong 1/4 inch thick. Cut into slices and fry in a small quantity of hot fat or grill for 5 to 7 minutes.
Mr C made his ‘slices’ into little burger shapes as this would prevent them disintegrating when moved. //see above image// This mixture made 10 of these little burger shaped ‘slices’, and were eatedn with carrots, sweetcorn and some gorgeous green beans YUM.

FAT FREE FRUIT TEALOAF - YEP YOU HEARD RIGHT FAT FREE

This gorgeous little (not so little) tealoaf is great as an after dinner nibble but would be equally great as a snack, with a cup of tea/ coffee or even for breakfast.

Its FAT FREE, easy to make and its ingredients can be chopped and changed. As much as we LOVE this recipe Im definately going to add some nuts and different fruit next time to 'shake it' up a bit.

Ingredients

• // I used rather ordinary tea //1  tea bag
• 300g soft dried fruit such as apricots, prunes, apples etc // I used apricots, prunes and raisins (too lazy today to make my own dried apple... but any dried fruit will work great//
• 175g soft brown sugar
• 2 medium eggs beaten
• 225g wholemeal flour //I used plain white flour this time purely because i havent been out to buy wholemeal flour yet... it still turned out beautifully//
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp mixed spice

How to make it

Soak the tea bag in 300ml boiling water for 5 minutes

Roughly chop the fruit and add to the tea, discarding the tea bag and soak for 2 to 3 hours

Preheat the oven to 180C, gas mark 4

Grease and base line a 1kg loaf tin

Mix in the sugar and eggs

Mix together the flour, baking powder and mixed spice and fold into the fruit mixture

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until firm to touch and a skewer comes out clean

Allow to cool slightly before slicing

Sorry about my camera quality... It really does look ALLOT better in real life than in this photo, almost identical to the first photo. Anyway it tasted B-E-A-utiful.

hmmmm.... wonder what it would be like toasted? Food for thought lol.

Click HERE for the original recipe at shakeup or wakeup. com

This weeks menu and link to our new website

... This week Ive  included the puddings and extra baking we'll be doing aswell and, as usual, the recipes for everything on the list will appear as they are made so that I can include photos of how things start out and finish. Sometimes its nice to have a visual reference aswell as the written recipe.

 We're still sticking to our ration even if there is the odd bit of black market chicken every now and again. I've even lost some weight (10lbs in 1 month... not bad, just 2 stone to go) and thats with full fat milk, full fat butter not marg, cooking with lard not oil, cheese (not much for me as Im not a cheese fan), and any carbs we can get our hands on (loads of potatoes consumed here every week) and PLENTY of veg.
The trick I think here has been portion sizes. I think everyone knows by now that portion sizes have gotten out of control. Our meals are based on a LOAD of veg (really heavy on the veggies), a smaller portion of meat (deck of cards = 1 portion) and our usually dinner companion, potatoes.
Snacking has been the hardest part... with every ounce of sugar and leaf of cabbage spoken for, there hasnt really been allot to snack on. This is probably the biggest contributer to my weight loss (portion size a close second).
We havent given up on puddings either... just smaller portions.  We still bake biscuits and cakes and really enjoy 1 or 2 each after dinner. Sooooo...
Tuesday
Dinner: Minced Beef Slices (+veg)
After dinner Pudding: Fruit & Jam Stroodle
Daily baking: Fat-free fruit tealoaf
Wednesday
Dinner: Sandwich night
After dinner pudding: Apple crumble
Thursday
Dinner: Corned Beef Rissoles (+veg)
After dinner pudding: Suet Jam Rolie Polie
Friday
Dinner: Fresh Fish, green beans, carrots and rice
After dinner pudding: Carrot Muffins
Daily baking: Carrot cookies
Saturday
Dinner: Lord Woolton Pie (+with some sneaky bacon pieces)
After dinner pudding: Jelly and ice cream
Daily baking: (with 3 small assitants): Cranberry up side down muffins
Sunday (if not at mother in laws)
Dinner: Pork chops in cider (+veg and pots)
After dinner pudding: 1 egg sponge with mock cream and jam
daily baking: Bran muffins for monday
Monday
Dinner: Something interesting with fish...hmmm.... maybe fish cakes YUM
After dinner pudding: Apple crumble and custard
The apple crumble was such a hit with everyone we'll definately be having it again. (and again hehehhe)
What meals do your family enjoy regularly?

//P.S. OUR NEW WEBSITE IS NOW UP-TO-DATE AND UP AND RUNNING
www.rationingrevisited.com //

We're moving...

We're excited... hope you like the new EASY TO FIND site :D

...not far though just over to wordpress. Our new site is called ... wait for it... http://rationingrevisited.com/.

Mondays weekly menu will be the first NEW post on this site... hope to see you all there :)

xoxoxox
Mr and Mrs C

Apple crumble

Now admittedly we did make this recipe earlier in the week... however... it was eaten loooong before I had the chance to photograph it.... so we had to try again tonight (what a crying shame :P)


before shot: 1 family sized apple crumble as modelled by MrC

 I got this recipe from a site called The 1940's Experiment (click HERE for original recipe)
8 apples (2 per person)

1. 8 apples (I used an Aldi pack of 6 green apples)
2. 2 tablespoons brown sugar (original recipe calls for 4tbs but we found this a wee bit sweet for us)
3. 2 oz margarine/butter
4. 4 oz wholewheat flour (we used plain white flour and it came out beautifully, although wholewheat would be healthier and more filling)
5. 4 tablespoons of white sugar
6. small pinch of salt

Method
Peel and chop apples into thin slices (i cut mine into home made chip shapes)
Place in saucepan, sprinkle a little water over, brown sugar (and cinnamon if desired... i cant stand the smell so i didnt)
Simmer gently for 5 minutes
Drain a little and place in greased cooking dish
Mix together flour, salt and white sugar
Add in the fat in small pieces and rub together with fingertips until a breadcrumb look is achieved
Sprinkle over the softened apples
Place in over at 220 c (gas mark 7) for about 30 minutes

This recipe was so easy and simple to make.... its definately going to be used (and gobbled up) again

Macaroni and Bacon



Little Miss E's portion of Mac and bacon.

 Ingredients
half an ounce of dripping or other fat
2 ounces of leek or onion, peeled and chopped
2 ounces bacon, chopped
1 pint stock or water
6 ounces macaroni
1 teaspoon salt
pinch pepper
watercress or cheese etc for garnish

Method
Melt the dripping or fat in a pan and fry the leek or onion and bacon until lightly browned. Add the stock or water and when boiling, add the macaroni and seasoning. Cook for about 2o minutes or until the macaroni is tender and the water is absorbed. Serve very hot garnished with watercress (optional) or some grated cheese.

This recipe is another brilliant one from Marguerite Pattens Victory cookbook. Although the amounts lists here produced enough for us, we're not huge pasta eaters and so you might need to double up on the quantities if the dish was not being accompanied by a good load of veg. (or bread and butter)