HISTORY: Preserved

Friday our two kids and I went out to the 18th Century Market Fair at Fort Frederick, Maryland. If you live within a day's drive and are newly into reenacting or want to have a one-stop place to buy all things 18th century reenacting - this is the event to go to! There were 140 sutlers. Can you believe it? There was a lot to see. Besides the vendors, many reenactors themselves had blankets out of things they were selling.

One camp we stopped at had caught my eye with a sign about a tent for sale for a stinkin' good price. It was a unique, oblong rectangle shape with scraped wood poles, two door openings and even a hole for a camp stove pipe. I called my husband and we decided to get it since we're wanting to get into Rev War reenacting. I am pretty excited! We met the couple halfway yesterday morning to get the tent from them on their way back home. Once we got home, we didn't lose any time setting it up to dry out more since we had rain this weekend. The kids have had …

It has finally warmed up here in northern Maryland and at last it feels like spring! The sun is shining and it is a great day! We got chicks for the first time last month and they are out in the coop & run my husband built. It's a life-long dream come true for me to have chickens and if all things go well we'll have eggs this summer!

I realized I hadn't tried any rationing recipes for beverages and I liked the sound of this sunny drink for a fine spring day - Florida Milk Shake. The interesting thing about this is that it uses evaporated (or "tinned") milk along with orange and grapefruit juices and I was absolutely convinced it would taste like an orange cream-cicle.

The recipe comes from my fun Lysol Victory Cook Book. I love the little blurbs they put before each section of recipes focused around one of the "Basic 7" food groups.
I'm not sure how widely available oranges and grapefruits were through the war for Americans, but I'm sure they…

A few weeks ago, my friend Lori and I swapped cookbooks for a bit. I recently acquired a 1945 Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book with a wartime insert at the front. She has the same cookbook, but it's a 1943 edition and the wartime insert is a bit different than mine. So, since we both enjoy reading WWII recipes & cookbooks, we decided to swap! It's been fun perusing the different recipes. During the war, BH&G published their cookbooks as usual, but to help with wartime-friendly recipe ideas they put an insert at the beginning. How thoughtful!  :-)


For this week's recipe I decided to try a recipe from Lori's 1943 cookbook and I was intrigued with one for Orange Honey Loaf - a sweet, orange flavored quick-bread with a little note at the end of the recipe stating you could put cream cheese between two slices for a nice wartime lunch sandwich. What a fun idea! Don't you think that would be a nice change from a regular ol' sandwich with regular ol' b…

I realized that working on this project would be a lot easier if I more fully incorporated the recipes into our every day cooking. Like Tuesday morning, for instance. I wanted to make pancakes and bacon for the kids, but instead of going to my usual recipe for pancakes, I looked up a recipe in my October 1943 Westinghouse Meal Planning Guide. The Oatmeal Griddle Cakes sounded good and they made use of molasses and a small portion of flour, so that interested me. I also found an interesting Molasses Syrup Spread for pouring on top of the griddle cakes.

I just have to say that I am loving these Westinghouse Meal Planning Guides! I wouldn't say I'm trying to collect them all, but each one has different and wonderful information about American rationing and one company's ideas in helping Americans make the most of their food rations. I'm tempted to try and track them all down to get the complete picture of American rationing from this source. :-D

We woke a little late, so …