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Printable Menu Plan: Great Depression Recipes
By
Danelle Ice - Home Ever After |
March 8th, 2009 |
Category:
Menu Planning |
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Menu Plan: Great Depression Recipes
Our menu plan this week features recipes from the most frugal era in history: The Great Depression. With all the comparisons between the current Recession and the Great Depression of the 1930s, it makes sense that we research Great Depression recipes. Jobs are shaky and income uncertain for many people right now, so making the most of our household grocery budget is an absolute must.
We have a definite advantage over the homemakers of the Great Depression, however, because we have many more resources available today. Check out our “recession proof your family” series for more handy information.
Great Depression cooking focused on cheap food, substitutions, and making do with what you had. We can learn a lot from the great homemakers of the past by finding original Great Depression recipes, recorded and passed down the generations, and even adapting them to make some of our own.
Our exclusive free printable Take and Make Menu Plans contain everything you need for an entire week’s dinners and all you have to do is the shopping and cooking! Print out the menu plan each Sunday, which includes:
- A printable grocery shopping list of ingredients. Print out the list, check off what you already have on hand, then take your shopping list to the store.
- A dinner meal for each day. Click the name of the meal to print the recipe and directions. (After the week is over, add the recipes to your cookbook for future use.)
Take and Make Menu Plans: Great Depression Era Recipes
Menu is planned for a family of 4. Please adjust ingredients and recipes up to accommodate extra people.
Printable Grocery Shopping List:
| Meats and Proteins: ____ 2 chicken breasts ____ 1 1/2 lb bacon ____ 1/2 lb ground pork ____ 3 lbs lean ground beef ____ 3 (15 oz.) cans kidney beans ____ 1 (15 oz.) can pork & beans ____ 1 (15 oz.) can butter (or lima) beans ____ 14 ounces of water packed tuna ____ 1 cup American cheese |
Vegetables/Fruits: ____ 2 (15 ounce) cans whole kernel corn ____ 6 1/2 onions ____ 1 lg. can whole tomatoes ____ 2 pounds + 8 potatoes ____ Green pepper ____ 1 (15 oz.) can stewed tomatoes |
| Liquids: ____ 2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth ____ 3 1/4 cups milk ____ 2 (12 fluid ounce) cans evaporated milk ____ 1 tbsp. vinegar ____ Worcestershire sauce |
Spices: ____ Salt ____ Pepper ____ 3 tsp. chili powder ____ Paprika ____ Garlic powder |
| Other: ____ 2 bottles of ketchup ____ 1 cup butter ____ 1/3 cup chili sauce ____ 1/4 tsp dry mustard ____ 1 tsp. mustard |
Grains / Baking: ____ 4 cups of cooked macaroni ____ 3 tablespoons of flour ____ 2 c. uncooked rice ____ 1/2 c. brown sugar |
Great Depression Meals with Recipes:
Monday
Dinner: Great Depression Era Corn Chowder with chicken breast cubes (from 2 cooked chicken breasts) added in as a source of protein.
Tuesday
Dinner: Great Depression Mock filet mignon. “Basically it’s meatloaf wrapped in bacon. If you have homemade chili sauce, all the better, but you can substitute store-bought or use ketchup. Mock filet mignon is cheap and delicious, if you’re not afraid of bacon fat. As the meat cooks, the juices run down into the mashed potato patty, giving it a reddish hue and a blast of flavor. From Kate Aitken’s Canadian Cook Book.” – Kim Honey, The People’s Forum
Wednesday
Dinner: 1929 Great Depression Casserole. This frugal depression recipe contains several of our favorite frugal ingredients: beans, potatoes, and ground beef (cut down with frugal fillers, of course)!
Thursday
Dinner: Great Depression Tuna, Macaroni, and Cheese Casserole. This depression recipe comes from the World War II era. Serves 6.
Friday
Dinner: Great Depression Day Soul Food. We couldn’t find the history of this depression recipe, but we love that it can be either cooked in a crockpot or baked in the oven.
Saturday
Dinner: Great Depression Mexican Rice with cooked beans (any kind) as a side dish.
Sunday
Dinner: Leftover Love. Spread out a buffet table of all the leftovers from the week’s Great Depression cooking. This means a day-off for the chef!
By learning the Great Depression recipes that have survived for more than 70 years, we can learn to think creatively and improvise to improve our frugality. The homemakers and parents during the Great Depression had the same uncertainty and financial worries as we do today, but they wer
e able to pull together, share knowledge, and find ways to make it work. We hope you enjoy the Great Depression recipes this week, and hope you’ll write down your own recipe creations for your children to pass down for years to come.
Did you like the Great Depression recipes? Print out our other Take and Make Menu Plans or check out other menu plans at Menu Plan Monday.
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[...] here: Printable Menu Plan: Great Depression Recipes | Homemaker Barbi Tags: frugal-living, holidays-seasons, home-housekeeping, Meals, menu-plan, menu-planning, recipe, [...]
Have you seen these videos on YouTube?
http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking
I love watching them!
Wow, I love this! I found you from “I’m an organizing junkie”. I can’t wait to look around more. Menu plans AND shopping lists? I think I found nirvana
.
@Michelle: I know! There are some fantastic cooking videos on YouTube from sweet grandmas passing down Great Depression recipes. It’s just too bad that YouTube didn’t come about sooner to record all the recipes that may be forgotten forever now!
Barbi
@Crista: So glad you found us! Isn’t OrgJunkie great? We’ve got menus each Sunday, so you’ll never run out of your source of zen! lol
Barbi
Sounds interesting! I will be trying some of these recipes.
Thanks for sharing!
LOVE this – we’re having beans tonight. This kind of thinking/cooking is good anytime, but especially now!
@Susan: I’ve got a big backstock of beans to use up too. Look for bean recipes on next week’s Take & Make Menu. Thanks for coming by!
Barbi
Barbi, do you recommend a cookbook or site that specializes on depression cooking? I’ve been watching stuff on YouTube that is fascinating. The food looks great and it has stood the test of time. I want to learn how to prepare more of these recipes. Thanks!
@Houstonmom: Yes, the only Great Depression videos I have found on YouTube are actually fantastic. The series is called “Cooking with Clara” and was one of my first stops about a year ago when I started researching the depression. Clara’s link is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking
I haven’t researched any cookbooks yet of the depression; I usually prefer to reference electronic recipes so that all readers have access to the same info immediately. Please let me know if you come across good depression cookbooks; we’d love to check them out and review them.
Thanks! Barbi
I love the videos of Clara. I have not found a depression cookbook, but I did order “More With Less” by Doris Longacre. It was published in the 70s. I have a friend who rec’d it as a wedding gift years ago and really recommend it for frugal cooking. I think it may have many depression type recipes. I ordered it and will let you know if it is any good.
@Houstonmom: Yes, please do let me know about the book after you get a chance to go through it.
Barbi
I have the More with Less book, plus its two sequels (although I forget their names…) They are fantastic, and I’d recommend that anyone who get their hands on them, does. They make you think about what meal planning and providing for your family are really about, and have lots of delicious recipes!
@Tiff: Thanks for the tip- I’ll look into the books
Barbi
Yes, I am looking thru several websites for depression era recipes to see if any came up that my 91 year old mother used on us. I haven’t seen any from way down south like chicken and dumplings.
I am currently writing a family cookbook and would like to see more from the Mississippi side of the depression era since we are one of the poorest or the poorest state. I welcome anything or website people have to share. Just doing some comparison work for my cookbook.