depression era recipes – Night Owl Kitchen (2024)

Morning everyone, I almost didn’t want to post today. I slept wrong last night and woke up with a severe crick in my neck, it’s at the nape of my neck and is very painful to sit in position to type. I took some pain reliever, just waiting for it to kick in.

Today’s post is, in my humble opinion, a winner! I didn’t grow up eating milk toast, in fact when I found the picture of the recipe at first I was a bit put off. One thought back to a Sunday morning when the ladies in my Sunday School class were talking about growing up eating milk toast. All I could picture was a piece of toast swimming in a bowl of cold milk, bland, and getting soggy. Not very appetizing to a young gal like me. This morning I wanted to see if I could revive a childhood favorite for some folks and give it new life! I hope you all give it a try if you’ve never had it before, and for those who grew up on it I hope you don’t mind the little addition I made to it 🙂

Now this recipe will make a lot so keep that in mind if you aren’t going to be feeding a lot of mouths. I had to cut back the recipe severely since I was the only one willing to be the guinea pig this morning. I’m hoping that I can get the rest of the family interested in trying this sometime 🙂 It really did remind me of eating a thick creamy bowl of oatmeal just without the oats. It is truly a hearty dish and I can now understand why so many people have such fond memories of it!

Obviously I did not do a quart of milk, I used about 3/4 cup of milk in a small sauce pan and about 2–2 1/2 tblsps of cold butter over a medium flame(or medium heat). You could use less if you like, even I’ll admit that 3/4 cup of milk was a bit much.

While the butter and milk got happy, happy, happy together I poured about three fingers width of milk (or 1/3 cup) into a glass and added two heaping spoonfuls of flour to it. Whisk it together to get a thick consistency. This is a method I use when thickening sauces and stews. It was at this point it dawned on me that this recipe was going to be awesome!

After rereading the recipe picture and how some people like it with salt–n–pepper and some with a little sugar I had a light bulb moment. Cinnamon sugar. BOOM BABY! Into the sauce pan I added three tablespoons of cinnamon sugar I had leftover from yesterday when I made the snickerdoodle muffins (those were a huge hit btw). Whisk it in and once the liquid comes to a boil pour in the flour milk, continue to whisk until the mixture has thickened.

With one or two slices in the bowl begin to slowly pour the thickened “gravy” over the toast. Now I used a lower carb bread this morning, it’s not gluten free but it was better than the fully loaded bread. Feel free to use any bread you like, I’m sure this would be amazing with some cinnamon raisin swirl bread, oh how the possibilities are endless!

For presentations sake I sprinkled another tablespoon of cinnamon sugar over the top! Time to commence eating 😀

You can see just how thick and creamy that milk sauce is, and it wasn’t overly sweet either which was another plus. You’d think with all the spoonfuls of sugar I had added it would be over the top sweet. Now if you’re not a sugar fan you can make this a savory dish for a quick dinner meal. I’ll have to try that and maybe add some chopped turkey sausage to milk gravy or some turkey bacon. This is definitely a keeper!

See, even the turkey sausage went for a dip in the remaining gravy 😀

I would definitely add this to a weekly winter breakfast menu, it’s a great substitute for oatmeal, it would make a yummy frugal savory dinner option, and it’s hearty enough that you won’t feel like a swollen tick later on.

Milk Toast (with a twist)

2 slices of toasted bread

3/4 c milk (lactose free, skim, almond, whatever you have on hand)

2 tblsp butter

3 tblsp cinnamon sugar, or regular sugar

2 tblsp flour

1/3 c cold milk

Bring milk, butter, cinnamon and sugar to a boil. Whisk flour and milk together in a small bowl or glass and pour into boiling milk, whisking until the liquid has thickened into a gravy. Place one to two slices of toasted bread into bowl (or on a plate) and pour or ladle milk gravy over the bread. Sprinkle a little extra cinnamon sugar over the top and serve! Enjoy with bacon, cooked ham, or sausage.

As I mentioned above, this can be made into a savory dish by adding some sauteed onion, garlic, a little thyme, basil, and crumbled sausage or beef that’s been cooked and well drained. Melt some cheese over the top and finish with a little dried or fresh parsley! Bon appetit!

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depression era recipes – Night Owl Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What were common dishes from the Great Depression? ›

Top 10 Great Depression Foods That Are Actually Tasty
  • 10 Potato Soup.
  • 9 Bread and Butter Pickles.
  • 8 Egg Drop Soup.
  • 7 Spaghetti with Carrots and White Sauce.
  • 6 Mock Apple Pie.
  • 5 Prune Pudding.
  • 4 Mystery Spice Cake.
  • 3 Hoover Stew.
Oct 5, 2023

What is depression cooking? ›

Depression Cooking is a zine of easy recipes designed to make mealtime a little easier, in the no-nonsense sense of the word, for depressed humans like me. It demonstrates one of the many lessons that I've learned during COVID: that we can care for one another without being physically present.

What is the poor mans meal? ›

Potatoes were also inexpensive and used extensively. Some meals even used both. One of these meals was called the Poor Man's Meal. It combined potatoes, onions, and hot dogs into one hearty, inexpensive dish, which was perfect for the hard times people had fallen on.

What did poor people eat during Great Depression? ›

Many cheap foods still common among the poor today made their debut during the Depression: Wonder Bread (1930), Bisquick (1931), Miracle Whip (1933), and Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup (1934). Ragu spaghetti sauce, Kraft mac-n-cheese, and Hormel Spam all appeared during the Roosevelt Recession in 1937.

What food was served at a 1930's dinner party? ›

A 1930s dinner party menu would probably also have included dishes that mirrored what Hollywood considered sophisticated European taste with items like scones, crumpets, cucumber or watercress sandwiches, salmon croquettes, trifles, tortes and meringues.

What is the word for eating when depressed? ›

Emotional eating is described as a “tendency to eat in response to negative emotions with the chosen foods being primarily energy-dense and palatable ones” [15]. This condition can be caused by different factors, such as coping with stress and other negative emotions such as depression and feeling loneliness [15,27].

What food was popular in the 1930s? ›

They included: Kool-Aid powder drink, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Bisquick, Spam (precooked canned pork), Twinkies, Ritz Crackers, Lay's Potato Chips, cereals of Cheerios and Chex and Three Musketeers Bar. Maybe the most favorite item coming from the 1930s was the new Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies developed in 1938.

What food items were popular in the 1930s? ›

They included: Kool-Aid powder drink, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Bisquick, Spam (precooked canned pork), Twinkies, Ritz Crackers, Lay's Potato Chips, cereals of Cheerios and Chex and Three Musketeers Bar. Maybe the most favorite item coming from the 1930s was the new Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies developed in 1938.

What was a typical meal in the 1930s? ›

Big families could be fed with soups from leftover meats, beans, and home-grown vegetables. Homemakers made many varieties of soup from available foods. The results included split pea, chicken-rice, potato-onion, bean, hamburger, and all vegetable. Dumplings were a filling addition to complement the soup.

What was popular during the Great Depression? ›

Radio programs, music, dancing and dance marathons, and cinema were popular forms of entertainment during the Great Depression. Many people affected by the economic downturn sought inexpensive ways to pass the time and distract themselves from the challenging circ*mstances.

What was popular in the Great Depression? ›

Inexpensive amusem*nts included backyard games, puzzles, card games, and board games such as Monopoly, which was introduced in 1935. Even the national pastime, baseball, changed profoundly during the Great Depression.

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