The Wartime Housewife

22/06/2024

Treatment for tics:
Smother the tick with petroleum jelly every day until the tick drops off.

It will change colour (beige , brown, black) and get smaller, then it will just drop off leaving no mouth parts.

26/03/2024

Breakfast really is as important as 'they' say. If you're up and about in the morning, you need food that has protein, will tell your brain that you're full, fight off hunger hormones and, above all, give you comfort and happiness.

One of my favourite breakfasts (when I can't be arsed to do bacon egg and mushrooms) is a banana omelette.

Banana
1 egg
A couple of tblsp 0% fat Greek yoghurt
Optional: 1tsp maple syrup, vanilla
1/2 tsp butter

Mash the banana with the egg, syrup, vanilla and a tablespoon of the yoghurt. A stick blender does this in an instant if you have one.

Melt the butter in a small non- stick frying pan.

Add the banana mixture and cook until set and lightly browned.

Serve with the remaining yoghurt.

Sadly, I scoffed said omelette before I remembered to photograph it 🤣

16/03/2024

We were desperate for cake the other evening but didn't have enough butter to make cake, WITH a filling AND sandwiches for Gary's packed lunch.

Desperate times called for desperate rummaging in the larder. Anything was an option as long as they'd result was moist, sweet and a bit creamy.

Pray silence for the
Emergency Black Forest-ish Gateau

Chocolate sponge
Cherry pie filling
Thick custard (using custard powder with a small k**b of butter, a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of vanilla, then whipped until light and creamy).

Bloody gorgeous.

08/03/2024

I was given a box of fabric paints for Christmas, which I have used for touching up worn t-shirts and scuffed, coloured plimsolls.

Last night, I remembered that I had a pack of Alice bands, most of which were really boring colours that don't match any of my clothes; I tend to wear black, or really bold colours, or black with bursts of coloured accessories. 12 shades of grey/beige are not going to cut it, so I got my paint box out.

Now I have hairbands to co-ordinate with Docs, fingerless gloves, tights and necklaces.
First world issue, (obviously) but it's the being cheerful wot keeps me going.

05/03/2024

My, much loved, fluffy slippers were knackered. Gary tried to tempt me to buy new ones ("they're just bloody slippers!") but the tops were still perfect, apart from two pom-poms that Jessie chewed off four years ago. I couldn't bear not to repair as we really try not to buy new things if we can help it.

I found some wool padding in which some frozen mice had been delivered, a remnant of pleather from an old jacket and some carpet thread and went to work.

Slippers restored and more robust than they were to start with.

01/03/2024

This video is important, if a little long and, if you can ignore the slightly annoying delivery, mispronunciations and jargon, full of serious information about the importance of returning to a more natural way of eating.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/D5GbkYTjH4XgLo2L/

25/02/2024

Walking round the fields this evening, I was thrilled to see the first tiny leaf buds appearing on the hawthorn, elder, wild rose, blackthorn, blackberry and crab apple bushes.

If you genuinely want to experience magic or the divine, ruminate on this: in six or seven months time, these tiny buds will have blossomed, fruited and filled our larder with jams, ketchup, jellies, cough remedies and vitamin C rich syrup which will nourish and sustain us for the following year.

06/11/2023

From Patterson’s Butchers of Sheffield

Just in case anyone is stressing about Christmas Day, here's their top tip:

🎄Christmas Dinner....
I have concluded that the inevitable stress of Christmas dinner is created by adverts, supermarkets and TV chefs...
It's a Sunday dinner for goodness sake!!!
The only difference is that you are allowed to open a bottle of wine before you open the kitchen curtains. 🍷🍷🍷

🙄We do it quite happily 51 weeks of the year but can we the consumers be trusted to manage by ourselves on one day of the year...apparently not!

1. Turkey... It's a big fecking chicken that's all, 20 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes at 180 degrees - jobs a good un! Get yourselves a meat thermometer £3 off the Internet poke it in the offending bird if it says 75 degrees or over its cooked!

2. Stuffing - regardless of what Jamie Oliver says you do NOT need 2lbs of shoulder of pork, onions breadcrumbs,pine nuts and a s**t load of fresh herbs to make stuffing....( no wonder he's bankrupt if thats what he spends to make stuffing!)😜
What you need is Paxo and a kettle!! If you wanna liven it up squeeze 3 sausages out of their skins and mix that in with your Paxo before cooking 😉.

3. Gravy - Jamie Oliver is copping for this one as well....
Bisto Jamie.... All you need is Bisto!
I ( nor anyone else I know) has got time on Christmas Eve to p**s about roasting chicken wings and vegetables, adding stock and flour,cooking it for another half hour, mashing it all up with a potato masher and then straining the whole sorry mess to make gravy 😠😠😠

4. Vegetables...🍆 Never mind faffing round shredding sprouts and frying them with bacon and chestnuts to make them more palatable... If you don't like them don't buy and cook the fecking things!! If your family only eats frozen peas then that's good enough!

5. Roast potatoes... Yes I par boil mine then roast them in goose fat but Aunt Bessie also does the same 😉.

6. Trimmings /Christmas pudding and the like.... Aldi or Lidl!
(oh and while we're on the subject of pudding- if birds custard is what your family likes on the wretched thing then that's fine - you do not need brandy butter /rum sauce etc or anything else that costs a fecking fortune and takes 2 hours to make!)

7. Family....
Children.. Feed the little blighters first separately, if they only want turkey with tomato sauce - fine leave em to it, it doesn't matter. Once they are fed, let them bu**er off to play with their Christmas presents so that YOU can enjoy your dinner in Peace!

8.Adults
Anyone that can manage to get their sorry arse to your dinner table is also capable of helping to serve up/ sort the kids out/ clear the table /wash up /dry up etc.

And Finally.....
NO ONE.... And I mean no one APART FROM THE COOK IS ALLOWED TO GET PI**ED AND FALL ASLEEP BEFORE THE WASHING UP IS DONE!!!
Rant over 😂
🎄Merry Christmas!🎄

25/10/2023

Hawthorn Ketchup

The fields and hedges are groaning with hawthorn berries at the moment and, believe it or not, they make a delicious ketchup.
Try it - I'm sure you'll be converted!

UTENSILS:
1 x large heavy-based saucepan
1 x large sieve
1 x large mixing bowl
Bit of muslin for a spice bag
1 x measuring jug
6 x sterilized 8oz jars with lids

INGREDIENTS:
350g / 12.5oz hawthorn berries
150g / 5oz crab apples
700ml / 25fl oz cider vinegar
700ml / 25fl oz water
300g / 11oz dark brown sugar
Salt – to taste
Possibly a little plain white flour or cornflour to help it thicken

Spice bag
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
1 good slice fresh ginger root
½ cinnamon stick
A couple of strips of lemon or lime peel

METHOD:
Put the spices into a little muslin bag and tie it up firmly
Remove stems, leaves and manky berries from the fruit. Rinse and drain them
Put the berries and crab apples into a large pan with the water, vinegar and spice bag
Bring to the boil
Simmer for about 30 minutes or until the skins have split and the fruit is soft
Work the fruit through a sieve, mashing it down with a spoon or a potato masher to push as much pulp and juice through the sieve as you can
Rinse the pan
Return the fruit pulp to the pan and add the sugar
Bring to the boil, stirring continuously to dissolve the sugar
Keep on a rolling boil for about 15-20 minutes to allow the pulp to thicken to the thickness of ketchup
Remove the spice bag, taste, then add more salt if you want to
If the ketchup has not thickened enough, it may be due to low pectin. So,
Mix a generous tablespoon of flour with a little water to form a thin paste
Gradually add it to the ketchup, stirring vigorously, until it achieves the desired thickness
If there are any floury lumps, take a stick blender to it or run it through the sieve again

Pour the ketchup into the sterilized jars and leave for at least a month before eating.
It should keep for at least a year or more, but once opened, keep in the fridge

20/10/2023

The autumn is such a wonderful time for free food. The shooting season is upon us and whatever your views on shooting, there is a lot of free game to be had as, depressingly, a lot of the birds go to waste. Seek out a shoot and ask if there are any going begging.

You don't necessarily need to pluck and gut, just take the breasts off with a sharp knife, peel the skin and feathers off them and bingo! Ready to cook.

Recipe:
Take two breasts, put a tablespoon of cranberry jelly (or redcurrant jelly or frankly any other fruity jam you have) and dollop it on one breast.
Then put a heaped tablespoon of walnuts on top.
Put the other breast in top of that, wrap the whole thing in bacon and secure with cocktail sticks.
Wrap them in foil and bake in the oven at 180° for about half an hour, opening the foil for the last 10 minutes to allow browning.
Check that the juices run clear to show it's cooked through.

06/10/2023

The hideous process of moving house does have the benefit of turning up interesting things, such as a couple of books from the 1950s 'Know the Game' series of educational books on sport.

The 'Camping' title is a particular favourite of mine. I loathe camping, but in the event of apocalypse/ revolution/ global power outage etc, there are a lot of useful tips for off grid survival.

I also enjoyed the section on Country Manners in which we are encouraged to "shed your townsman's reserve and be ready to speak and act in an open and hospitable manner..."
Quite right.

03/10/2023

Welcome to all my new followers!
I've neglected this page a bit recently, but I promise to add more useful and interesting stuff on a regular basis.

In the meantime, you can still buy my extremely useful and entertaining book:

'The Wartime Housewife's No-nonsense Handbook for Modern Families'
by Biff Raven-Hill
published by The History Press

by ordering from your local bookshop or from Amazon

30/08/2022

17/08/2022

This service is worth every penny.

Are you or your loved ones lost in a health a social care maze, feeling frustrated and finding life a bit more difficult?
Family Care Advice are all about "making life easier" so it was wonderful to receive this review.

Our services include listening to you and talking through care options tailored to you or your loved, finding a home care provider able to support you in the way you want or finding the right care home and supporting your move to residential care.

We can make health and welfare calls and monitor care packages that have been put in place.

In short, we can "make life easier" so that you can enjoy quality time with your loved ones.

Contact me on 0116 2404 976 or 0790 2544 938 for a FREE 20 minute discovery call to see how we can help you.

Thank you for all of the lovely feedback and take care, Michaela x

16/08/2022

Over 1,000 supporters of Asthma UK surveyed about how heatwaves had impacted on their asthma.

09/07/2022

10/05/2022

Ah nettles - free superfood!

It’s been quite some time since I shared a recipe. This (non Viking) recipe will be in my upcoming ‘eat like a Halfling!’ Book.

I’m not sure when it’ll be out, it’s pretty much complete, needs a good edit and a few photos added. Hopefully not long now 🤞

Lemon and nettle cake

Ingredients:
1L jug full of young nettle tops
Juice and rind of 2 large lemon
200g butter
200g caster sugar
3 eggs
300g self raising flour (sieved)
1 tsp baking powder (sieved)
1 tsp ground mixed spice
Method:

Stick the nettles into a saucepan, and cover with hot water. Boil for 3 minutes.

Drain the nettles and put them into a food processor, along with the juice and rind of the lemon. Blitz to a fine pulp.

Cream together the butter and sugar and break in the 3 eggs. Add the nettle/lemon and mix well.

Finally add the flour, baking powder & mixed spice, and mix well, until fully incorporated.

Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin and cook in the centre of a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius for 60-70 minutes, until a skewer can be cleanly inserted into the centre of the cake. If the cake is browning too much, cover with a piece of lining paper.

12/04/2022

Sow seeds in eggshells, plant the whole thing, the shell will break down and feed the plant. Brilliant.

Thanks to David Knibb for this x

12/04/2022

Community is the way forward.
Grow, cook, learn, share.

Thanks to my cousin Jane McCabe for this x

26/03/2022

Lard: not all bad

08/03/2022

Useful

07/02/2022

The other day I found a bread machine on a local website for £3 and bought it because if it didn't work it wasn't the end of the world. It didn't have the cup or measures but hey! Three quid!

The first loaf I made was delicious but collapsed because, like an anxious idiot child, I kept opening the top to see if it was actually cooking. When I was seven, I did the same thing with some carrots, to the amusement of the grown ups who couldn't work out why said roots never grew bigger than two inches. Part of the problem with the bread was also that I guessed at the amount of yeast and it was clearly too much.

On the recommendation of a friend, I did what I always do, and bought a book (any excuse!) My second attempt was a date and walnut loaf, but I substituted dried apricots due to a lack of dates, and we had it for lunch with a comforting bowl of home made pea soup. Utterly gorgeous.

This year, Gary and I are ever more determined to consume less of everything and, if we do need something that we can't make ourselves, we really try to get it second hand first.

In my case, this extends into clothes and footwear as well. I've been ransacking charity shops since I was a p***y teenager - taking things apart and remaking them to my own design - but now, heading eagerly into my (slightly slimmer) disreputable crone phase, I've discovered a 'pre-loved' apparel app and have sold my old stuff and used the money to get new-to-me stuff that actually looks funky and fits me properly.

Note to self: Go easy on the home made bread or I'll be back in floral tents by April 😂

24/01/2022

As you know, I am a huge supporter of British food and farming (if you live in the UK) and encourage local/seasonal food at every turn. Every time you buy Danish pork (other countries also apply) you are effectively stabbing a British pig farmer in the back. Food should not be cheap and no-one can produce a decent chicken for £2.50 that meets any kind of welfare standard. My advice is always to eat less, but better, meat and poultry.

I'm also a big fan of game and have been known to scrape a pheasant or rabbit off the road if it still smells ok and has clearly recently met its maker. I have just discovered a fantastic company called Wild & Game who will deliver frozen packs straight to your door. They do pheasant, wild boar, venison, partridge, pies etc and their prices are excellent, no more expensive than good supermarket meat and they tell you exactly what date and time they will deliver. I bought some gorgeous wild boar chunks the other day and made a stew with chick peas and vegetables which was heavenly. I added sausages the next day and it lasted us for three days. They also do some terrific special offers

Trying game for the first time might be a bit daunting - so here are four reasons to give game a go:

Game is lower in fat and cholesterol gram for gram than any other comparative meat.
Game is better for the environment. Being wild, it's produced with little or no inputs such as feed, herbicides, fertilsers or machinery.
Game is local. Wild & Game only use game that is from the UK resulting in very few food miles.
Game is easy to cook. Treat venison mince like you would beef mince. Cook pheasant breasts like a chicken breast.

https://www.wildandgame.co.uk/

22/01/2022

This is a real eye opener.
A lot of these families spend more in a week than I do in a month.
And too many spend less in a week than many do in a day
I know everything is relative, but food insecurity is a blight on society and we must all play our part.

What the World Eats - Families with their weekly stash of food.
American photographer Peter Menzel and writer Faith D’Aluisio have traveled the world documenting that most basic of human behaviors—what we eat. Their project, “Hungry Planet,” depicts everything that an average family consumes in a given week—and what it costs.

08/01/2022

This is incredible!

(spotted on pinterest)