Blossom: Day One, salad days

So far, so ...

 

Monday 1 Frocktober

Outfit

• Cotton printed dress
• Cotton pinny
• Black shoes

 Menu

• Breakfast - porridge with honey, coffee
• Lunch - salad and leftover lamb sandwich, tea
• Dinner - leftover macaroni cheese, shredded salad

Mood

• Hopeful

The first day of Frocktober turned out to be a perfect Spring day, and a public holiday to boot. Hooray!

My beloved pinny. Isn't it great? I'm not showing you my head because my hair is in pincurls.

Our only real plans for the day were to go out in the evening to see friends, so it was a housework-and-getting-things-done day. I decided to put on a simple cotton printed frock and added my faithful cotton pinny, pocketed for convenience and large enough to cover my frock against spills and splashes.

I wanted to set my hair this moring so it could dry naturally in pincurls. So most of the morning was spent scuffing around the house in pinny and slippers, with pins all over my head like some sort of alien monster. I would like to apologise to my neigbours for the sight when I popped out quickly to put something into the rubbish bin.

Me AFTER I brushed out the pincurls and put on my 'red badge of courage' (lippie). The expression is because I suddenly noticed how badly the floor needed sweeping.

Porridge for breakfast, with stovetop coffee. I am the proud owner of a lovely little Nespresso, to which I have bidden a regretful farewell for the month (sob). The stovetop coffee isn't too bad, but I will have to eke it out as coffee isn't something I want to be buying much of this month.

This ...

... is not the same as this. Sniff.

I made my porridge with water, not milk, and added a little honey - not too much as I also want to ration it. Happily I don't like my porridge too sweet.

It was a nice peaceful morning of getting stuff done, in the midst of which I popped out to the shop for some vital groceries: cabbage, dried beans, margarine (butter rationed, darnit).

Lunch was sandwiches. Leftover cold roast lamb sandwiches. Yes, I celebrated my last evening before Frocktober with a lamb roast. Got to enjoy them while I still can! It was only a tiny roast and there wasn't a lot of lamb left over, so I shredded it for my sandwiches and added quite a lot of salad and some pickle to make it go further. It was lovely, of course - nothing bad can ever be said about leftover cold roast lamb with pickles and salad.

The first few days of Frocktober are usually all about Using Things Up, and I still had some leftover macaroni cheese, so have decided that can be my dinner. We often go to see friends in the evening, and we all gather around and enjoy a takeaway meal, usually something delicious like Thai or Chinese food. Mmm.

But tonight, while the Captain and friends enjoy their takeaway, I will be true to the spirit of Frocktober by bringing my own meal. Leftover macaroni cheese - can't waste food! - and my favourite 1940s salad recipe - shredded salad.

This salad is like a very basic coleslaw. I first made it years ago and absolutely love it. It is crunchy and fresh - real cravings food. In fact, I'm going to share the recipe with you now. It is ridiculously simple.

Blossom's Shredded Salad

These are your basic ingredients: carrots, celery and cabbage. You can add anything you have in your fridge that is nice raw: zucchini is also lovely. I don't peel my carrots, but I do wash everything very carefully.

Straightforward method: coarsely grate the carrots, finely slice the celery and cabbage, mix.

These are the dressing ingredients. Dijon mustard, oil (I have olive oil so that's what I'm using, even though in Australia in the forties a lot of people still thought olive oil was useful only for medicinal purposes. I love it, and Elizabeth David loved it, so bring it on), and vinegar. I am using sherry vinegar.

Pop a teaspoon of mustard in a sealable jar, along with a splash of vinegar and a glug of oil. I also decided to add freshly chopped parsley, because my plants are going nuts and need to be thinned before they go to seed.

Put the lid on the jar and shake it about like anything, to combine the ingredients. Pour over your salad and mix well.

 Voila! One shredded salad for my dinner, takeaway food 1940s style. I am saving half of it (and half the dressing, separately) for my lunch at work tomorrow.

I will leave you with a bit of household advice from one of my Australian 1940s cookbooks.

"Put an ordinary small pin in the saucepan when boiling eggs and they will not crack."

Thanks, Mrs Jean Law, Sec. U.N.A. (I tried it. The pin rusts and leaves a stain on the saucepan. But - the eggs didn't crack!)

Frock you tomorrow!

Blossom Darling