HISTORY: Preserved

Today's the last day of August when my challenge comes to an end. Having our house on the market really makes everything in life more complicated. Life sure threw me some curve balls during this challenge, making this a challenge for me in every sense of the word! For the very last menu, I tried what I felt was quite the doozy - Navy Bean and Peanut Butter Soup. This one was a little scary, folks. Beans and peanut butter. It's just something to give one pause, you know? Which is why I went for it. hahaha! Here's the original menu: Navy Bean and Peanut Butter Soup Crackers Chopped Meat and Vegetable Sandwiches Canned Salmon Salad Sandwich Apple Turnover   Oatmeal Cookies (from a different menu in August) Cheese Milk I added an apple after I took pictures, because I didn't think I'd adequately kept the nutrition of the original menu. I made the oatmeal cookies from a different August menu, so I decided to use them in this meal, though, belie

I'm so happy I was able to squeeze in a ration menu this week! This menu came from the lunchbox meals for taking to school.  Here's the menu: Baked Bean Sandwich Spiced Beets  Sliced Peaches Almond Jam Bars Milk I didn't have any beets, which was sad, because I would've loved to make spiced beets! I used some fresh peaches we had instead since they're in season anyway. First of all, about the sandwich... I love baked beans on toast spread with butter (I use Bush's Baked Beans because they're my favorite), but I was wary of this sandwich for some reason. Let me tell you though, this sandwich was awesome!!! Like beans on toast, but with the softer bread texture. I made it by spreading the bread with butter first, mashed up a 1/2 cup or so of room-temp baked beans, and then spread it on. So good! The Almond Jam Bars were interesting. They were more crumbly than I like, but were still yummy The almond comes from almond extract in the dou

I can't believe it's been six months already! The end of the challenge is finally here, and I've planned something special. I've pulled this month's menus from a ration cookbook from my collection that I haven't had the chance to explore yet. I've loved exploring the awesome variety of wartime recipes in this rare cookbook. The menus feature lunch box ideas. I wanted to go back to this topic, because it's fun and there are so many great lunch ideas from wartime! The book has four different weeks of lunch box menus for four different job types - school, office, factory, and home - and I share them all! That's a lot of great ideas to help give your own lunch box a boost of 1940s wartime goodness. Thanks again for following along! Please let me know if you try any of the recipes and how it went. Keep checking back for more vintage recipes, challenges, and miscellaneous History adventures! You can get the August menus HERE. (The menus ar