So THIS is What We've Been Saving All That Butter For!

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving holiday!

We had a pleasant dinner with TMOTH's family. It was potluck style and we were in charge of the relish tray and desserts. I wanted to do something quasi-traditional but easy for the desserts, since I was working both the day before and the day after Thanksgiving. The following are the two dessert recipes I made for the day -both are do-able on rations as long as you've been saving up your sugar and butter (luckily, we had). They were both divine, especially when paired with homemade whipped cream.

Sorry for the lack of photos - neither dessert survived more than 24 hours past the big meal and we were all too busy stuffing our faces to take pictures. I think that's a sign of a successful Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

Ingredients

1 package yellow cake mix (yes, these were available in the 1940s)

4 eggs

16 TB butter, separated

1 8 0z package of cream cheese, softened

1 15 0z can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 tsp vanilla

8 oz powdered sugar (if not available granulated sugar will do)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

Directions

1. Prepare the cake layer by mixing together the cake mix, 8 TB melted butter and 1 egg.

2. Evenly press cake mixture into the bottom of a well-greased 9" x 12" baking dish.

3. Prepare the filling by beating together the cream cheese and pumpkin until smooth.

4. Add the remaining 3 eggs, vanilla and 8 TB melted butter to the pumpkin mixture and mix well.

5. Add sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to the pumpkin mixture and stir thoroughly.

6. Spread pumpkin mixture over the cake layer.

7. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 to 50 minutes (center will still be slightly gooey).

8. Let cake cool completely before serving (a few hours in the refrigerator will help).

Pecan Pie Bars

Ingredients

2 cups sugar (divided)
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup plus 3 TB butter

4 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups Karo syrup

2 cups pecan halves or pieces

Directions

1. Prepare cookie crust by combining 1/2 cup sugar, flour, salt and 1 cup butter (softened).

2. Beat until mix is crumbly.

3. Press cookie mixture into well-greased 10" x 15" baking pan.

4. Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

5. While cookie crust is baking, prepare filling by beating together the eggs, 3 TB butter (melted), vanilla and remaining syrup and sugar until well-blended.

6. Pour mixture over the hot cookie crust and top with the pecans.

7. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

8. Cool completely before cutting into serving sizes.

--Rational Mama

An Edible Mystery

We're still plugging away at house projects and rationing, and eating our sandwiches and Ramen...not much cooking going on. Things should start slowing down next week and hopefully the posting here will be more frequent and interesting.

In the meantime, I thought you might like to ponder this Double-Mix ad from a 1943 edition of the Topeka Daily Capital.

Apparently, Double-Mix is a butter extender; at 16 red points per pound butter is definitely one of the most price-expensive rationed items. But what, really, is Double-Mix?

Gelatin? Xanthum Gum? Petroleum Jelly?

Clearly it is something magical, having the ability to double the amount of butter with a little simple cookery. It also, apparently, allows one to have a disembodied, floating head. And hopefully it is something that even today we'd recognize as safe to eat.

I'm sure this worked well for situations where one wanted to spread butter, say toast or muffins. But I imagine it wouldn't work for anything requiring heat.

Thoughts?

--Rational Mama

How to Lose 1 Pound of Fat Per Month

Greetings, readers! Today's topic is that much-hated scourge of middle age: fat. But I'm not talking about a spare tire or love handles. I'm talking about...well...fat! Cooking fat!

In the 1940's it was not unusual for the dutiful housewife to keep reusing her cooking fats until there was nothing but sludgy grit and granules left. Then, down the drain or out with the trash the remaining gloop went. While this may sound especially reasonable during WWII rationing restrictions this practice actually caused a dilemma during the war: the U.S. government needed those fats to extract the glycerin necessary for making bullets and bombs!

Thus, in the middle of all the rationing hype you find plenty of reminders (such as this one from the March 30, 1943 Topeka Daily Capital) for women to not dispose of their waste fats but instead to set aside an amount for Uncle Sam.

With cooking oils being high-point items on the rationing list and consumers inclined to keep the waste fats for their own use (plenty of WWII recipes include a tablespoon of bacon or meat grease in place of shortening and/or oil), how was this campaign ever going to be successful?

In typical American fashion, the answer was bribery! Yes, for one pound of grease per month you could earn an additional two red ration points. Aha! Now we're talking! Civilians could bring their jars or cans of stored waste fats in to their butcher for the bonus two points.
Just by setting aside one tablespoon of waste fats per day the average household would have their one pound donation by the end of the month.

It takes our household much longer to come up with that much waste fat since we do not fry as much food as was typical in the 1940's. In fact, most of our waste fat has come from the two times I've made fried chicken. As such, we have been able to turn in two one-pound containers of fat so far. I don't see that number increasing dramatically as one of the things that rationing has taught me is that I'm absolutely repulsed by shortening. Ugh.

Oh, and one final thought here: anyone who touts U.S. WWII rationing guidelines as a weight-loss scheme isn't being honest with you. While certain things like fats, cheeses, butter and meats were rationed, most grain-based items were not. So, while you might not be allowed your thick-cut steak you can fill that void with crackers, bread, potatoes and a heaping handful of sweets if you portion out your sugar ration just right. Civilian rations in the U.K., however, were quite Spartan and more than one example exists of that type of system leading to weight loss.

In the meantime, I'm happy to stick to our U.S. civilian rations, especially with the prospect of fresh fruits and vegetables just around the corner. Summer will clearly be the golden age of the rationing year.

--Rational Mama

This Week's Scenarios and Menu...and Murphy's Law

Of course. Sigh. What happened soon after I announced on last week's menu post that:

"I think I'm going to try to stock up on butter, oils and cheeses over the next few weeks in the hopes that we can have enough ration points one week for a nice ham."

This happened!

Our scenarios this week:

Butter - none available for purchase
Chicken - only substandard quality available

Murphy's Law about the butter, I guess. I'll get back to that later. And the chicken was a bit of a disappointment since I've been craving fried chicken since last week (well, I pretty much perpetually crave fried chicken) and was determined to put it on the menu. Normally when I fry it at home I use boneless skinless chicken breasts but I interpreted "substandard quality" as bone-in chicken legs, which leads us to this week's menu:

Saturday: Fried chicken legs, coleslaw and mashed potatoes
Sunday: Vegetable burgers and crunchy salad (historic recipes)
Monday: Out to eat (mini-vacay - woot!)
Tuesday: Bean tostadas and (canned) corn
Wednesday: Grilled corned beef sandwiches and chips (in honor of St. Patrick's day)
Thursday: Ale-and-cheese soup with bread and baked cabbage
Friday: French toast casserole and (canned) fruit

Since butter was not an option this week I bought some stick margarine. Now, I pretty much never buy stick margarine - we usually have real butter and then a spreadable, heart-healthy blend for smearing on things (Smart Balance). Stick margarine is a bit of a mystery to me and I was thoroughly disappointed once I got the groceries home and read the nutritional information on the back of the box of margarine. Egads, all that trans fat!

And then I used some of the margarine in a meal - it soooo looked like fake butter. I mean, I know that's what it is, but the color was inconsistent throughout the bar and it gleamed in a way that real butter doesn't. It reminded me of the pretend food Sissy and Eowyn used to play with when they were younger ("What did you make me? Oh, a butter and pepper pizza with cornflakes? Yum!").

This is all very disappointing as I had already decided that baking with shortening is pretty much out because of a) all the trans fats, and b) it apparently gives TMOTH a special kind of intestinal distress that causes him to mimic the horrific gastric outbursts of the Minotaur after devouring a young Athenian offering. I had replaced some of the butter in baking recipes with canola oil but with limited success; said baked items dried out very very quickly. So I was really hoping that stick margarine would be my ace since it costs less red ration points than butter (butter is 16 points per pound whereas margarine is only 6 points per pound).

And today I was reminded of another reason to stay away from the trans fats...the cholesterol report from last week's blood donation arrived. Ugh. It's creeping up to the line that if you get over it the doctors raise an eyebrow and start talking to you about statins if you don't change your diet. So change my diet I must. I'm pretty happy with near-vegetarian fare, and so is Eowyn. But TMOTH and Sissy? They'd be happy to live on a meat-heavy diet. Somehow we have to strike a compromise.

Either way, it looks like I'm stuck needing trans-fat free butter (in moderate quantities, of course), even if it does cost 16 points per pound.

Knowledge is power. But sometimes it just a real pain in the ass.

--Rational Mama