Category: Sandwiches

Jan 2004 – Pretty in Pink?

Hello, retro food lovers and welcome to 2004!  This month the random number generator chose Pink as the theme for our menu via the pages of Good Taste Magazine. Before we start though, maybe let’s throw around some phrases usually more prevalent in corporate speak than around here…

  • Maybe we just need to redefine what success looks like
  • It was a learning experience
  • And fun.  Don’t forget how much fun it was.

All of this means if the success of this menu lies in its pinkness…this month was a disaster. 

If we redefine success to mean did it taste good?  We are not quite in the pink but certainly faring a bit better than colour alone.  

Gravlax Salsa1

So back in January 2004, we were all shaking it like a polaroid picture to Ooutkast’s Hey Ya, some of you were still watching The Return of the King and people on mass were still reading the Da Vinci Code.  Surely by January 2004 we had reached peak Da Vinci? 

So, in a new year, where pop culture looks very much like the old year, let’s take a look at a pink-inspired menu.  

The Menu – January 2004

Pink Menu - Jan 2003

 

Pretty Pink Drink

Well, how can this go wrong?  There’s pink in the title and for people doing dry January (or Feb fast), it’s non-alcoholic too.  It’s lovely and refreshing.  In fact the only thing wrong with it is…

Pretty Pink Drink

 

It’s not overly pink is it?  I mean on a scale of one to Barbie..I’d give it a 5 out of 10. The Pretty Pink drink looks like the liquid lovechild of the two candle holders behind it. It is a pretty colour though, if not as pink as I would have liked.  It was tasty although having to buy three drinks to make one seemed a little unnecessary.  

Pretty Pink Drink Recipe

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Open Ham Sandwich

Open Ham Sandwich

Is there a sufficient amount of actual pink in this?  Yes!  Is it weird to have an open sandwich as a starter?  Also yes. 

I thought this challenge would be an absolute lay down misère.  Apparently, I vastly underestimated the prevalence of pink foods! 

I was a bit worried about the combination of chutney and avocado in this sandwich but they worked well together.  This was a very nice sandwich. 

Open Ham Salmon Recipe

zz Open Ham Sandwich

Salmon Ravioli With Fresh Tomato Sauce

Salmon Ravioli

I may have used the wrong sort of wonton wrapper for these because, not only was the “pasta” rather thick it was also not nearly as translucent as the one in the picture.  This was not only not overly pink but also a bit meh…the ravioli were hard to make and bland.  The sauce is pretty accurate though!  I also liked that they used the same colour plate as my bowl!

I am certainly alone in not liking this though, the comments on the recipe are all highly complimentary

Salmon Ravioli Recipe

Salmon Ravioli Collage1

 

Peach and Rosewater Sorbet with Peach Schnapps

Peach.  I mean, the clue is right there in the name.  And we’ll leave it to the picture to show exactly how well this met the brief of pink.

Peach Sorbet

Having said that, the peach sorbet was delicious.  I almost wish I had made it back in 2004 so it could have been in my life for the last twenty years.  As a bonus though, last year my mum gave us a…what do you call a really tiny tree?  This was basically a knee-high-to-nothing stick in the dirt when we first got it.  This summer though, we had our first three peaches from it.  So I foresee many summers of peach sorbet in my future life.  And that can only be a good thing. 

It wasn’t anything like pink though!

Peach Sorbet Recipe

zz Peach Sorbet

My Nigella Moment  – Gravlax Salsa

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious.  In these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share.  

I almost had this as the starter but I felt it was a bit cheaty in a pink challenge to have a salmon starter and main.  This, and the sorbet are the things I will take away from this month to be the things I make again and again.  The recipe for the gravlax salsa came with some caraway wafters – I don’t like the taste of caraway so I made my wafers with everything bagel seasoning.  I won’t make them again.  They were ok but for the time and effort they took I would rather buy some.  I haven’t included the recipe for the wafers.   You also do not need the mustard dill sauce for the salsa.

Gravlax Salsa Recipe

Gravlax Salsa2

 

Gravlax 1

Gravlax 2 (1)

So January 2004 was a total failure in terms of meeting the brief, but also gave me two amazing recipes!  And the drink wasn’t bad either.  Let’s see what February brings!

If you were making a pink menu, what would you include?

 

 

Nov 03 – Gimme Some Oven

Hello retro food lovers and welcome (back) to November 2003!  This month I am using Delicious Magazine to prepare a menu where we use the oven for each component.  I know a heap of people who never use their oven so I was hoping this might inspire some people to do so.  Unfortunately, this didn’t quite turn out as I was a bit disappointed with a few items on the menu.  There were many items to choose from, so maybe I just chose badly.  But before we get there, let’s take a little look at what was happening in the world in November 2003.

The War on Terror, the occupation of Iraq, and Paris Hilton’s sex tape were big news in November 2003.   There were also some cracking movies out.  Matrix Revolutions was number 1 at the box office, followed by Elf at #2 and Love Actually at #7. 

 The DaVinci Code was still the best-selling book and Baby Boy by Beyonce was #1 on the charts.  Personally, Outkast’s Hey Ya (#3) is a much better song but each to their own!

The Menu – November 2003

November 2003 Menu

Crab and Gruyere Tart

I was very surprised to find that the Crab and Gruyere Tart (I made one large tart instead of a few small tartlets) was largely tasteless.  This was a Rick Stein recipe and I normally find him very reliable.    This is not what I expect from a Rick recipe.  I feel this needed a herb or something to liven it up a bit! Neither crab nor gruyere is a cheap item so this also did not rate on value for money. 

Interestingly, Nathan Outlaw who, apart from having an amazing name, has worked with Rick Stein and, like Stein has a restaurant in Cornwall, has a recipe for a Crab and Cheddar Tart.  His recipe also contains spring onions and leeks.  I wonder if this would provide the flavour boost I felt was lacking in the Rick one.  

Crab and Gruyere Tart

Crab and Gruyere Tart Recipe

Nov 2003 - Crab And Gruyere Tartlets

Fish in a Herb Crust with Lemon Oil

In total contrast to the above, this is a Jill Dupleix recipe which I loved.  Personally, I don’t rate Jill Dupleix.  She hosted a night in conversation with Nigella Lawson I went to once and she came across as a bit obnoxious.  I really liked this recipe though!  It was quick and easy to make and was packed with flavour!  It was a lovely weeknight dinner. 

Fish in A Herb Crust

Fish In a Herb Crust with Lemon Oil Recipe

Fish in A Herb Crust recipejpg

Madeleines

I love a Madeleine.   So, as soon as I saw that there was a recipe for them in Delicious for November 2003 I knew I would have them as part of my menu.  In retrospect, maybe I should have chosen something else as this was not a good Madeleine recipe.  I have read many recipes for Madeleines and all, except for this one, call for the cake batter to be refrigerated for about an hour before baking.  This one didn’t.  It also only said to grease the Madeleine pan, not grease and flour it, again something that is in all the other recipes I have seen.  

Madeleines

These were a nightmare to get out of the pan.  They also lacked the nice crust that you usually get on the outside.  I think that was mostly stuck to the pan.  So another disappointment from this magazine.  

Madeleines Recipe

Nov 2003 - Madeleines

My Nigella Moment  – Turkish Pizza

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious.  In these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share.  

My Nigella moment this month came in the shape of a Turkish Pizza, which is not a pizza in the traditional sense but a totally yummy combination of spinach, feta, and mozzarella in Turkish bread. I loved this!  So easy to make and so tasty!  I will defintely be cooking the Turkish Pizza again!

Turkish Pizza Recipe

 

So, it was very much a mixed bag from Delicious Magazine from November 2003.  The oven did not deliver the loving I was hoping for with two of the four recipes not worthy of keeping. The fish was quick and easy and I will make it again.  That Turkish pizza though?  Perfection!  I have already made it twice more and it continues to delight me!

Have a great week!

 

 

The Elsa Greer – A Roast Beef Sandwich

Hello Food Lovers and Crime Readers!  The Agatha Christie aficionados out there may be thinking “The Elsa Greer? But she is from Five Little Pigs and we were expecting a recipe from The Moving Finger. Has something gone horribly wrong? The complete opposite in fact. Something has gone tremendously right in that I have a new job. At least for the next 12 months.  Things went a little bit like this.  Person x in my company got a 12-month secondment into another team. My boss then got a 12-month secondment into that person’s role. And I am now on a 12-month secondment into my now ex-bosses role. The 12-month secondment for my old role is yet to be filled so at the moment I am double hatting.  All of which means I have yet to cook the recipe for The Moving Finger. But I already had made this one because the Oeufs Caroline recipe was a last-minute idea.

Elsa Greer1

I’m also prevaricating on The Moving Finger post because I am trying to decide between two of the food items mentioned in the book.  And anyway, who doesn’t love a roast beef sandwich? Well, vegans, vegetarians, Hindus….but for everyone else, this is an awesome sandwich that befits a strong character like Elsa.  She is after all ranked sixth in a Reddit poll on Christie villains and the highest-ranked female wrong ‘un. So if anyone deserves a sandwich in their honor it is Elsa.  And as she was the little pig who had roast beef, the main filling for this sandwich was a no-brainer.  The rest of the ingredients are things that I like to eat in sandwiches and that I think go well with roast beef – such as watercress, pickled onions, blue cheese and horseradish. 

Elsa Greer3

The Recipe – The Elsa Greer

Print

The Elsa Greer – A Roast Beef Sandwich

A roast beef sandwich names after Elsa Greer, the villain in Five Little Pigs

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 2 slices of bread – I used a potato and rosemary bread
  • Butter
  • 23 slices of roast beef 
  • Slices of Tomato
  • Sprigs of watercress
  • Blue cheese, crumbled, as much or as little as you like
  • Horseradish cream 
  • Mayonnaise

To Serve (Optional)

  • Potato Chips
  • Beer (preferably non-poisoned)

Instructions

Place your onions, red wine vinegar and sugar into a small bowl and allow to quickly pickle.  You can leave this as long as you like but they will be ready after 30 mins.

Mix the mayo and the horseradish in a small bowl.  Start with a tablespoon of mayo to half a teaspoon of horseradish but feel free to adjust to your level of bite!

Spread one slice of bread with butter and the other with the horseradish mayo.

Layer your your watercress, tomato, cheese beef and drained onion onto one slice of bread and top with the other.  

Serve with chips and a cold beer!

Enjoy while reading Five Little Pigs! 

Notes

If you don’t like blue cheese, you could use a nice sharp cheddar.

Hate horseradish?  Or mayo?  Sub in some mustard.

No Watercress?  Iceberg or Cos will work.

Elsa Greer5

 

Have a great week!  The Moving Finger Post is coming…

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Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches

Hello friends!   Welcome to the latest post on “What Posh People ate in the ’80s”. This recipe for Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches comes from the Vogue Entertaining Guide from Autumn 1986.  The article features a mother and daughter who love to entertain after a match or two on their private tennis court.  When I said posh I meant swish enough to have a house with its own tennis court!

Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches

I would LOVE to be invited to a spot of doubles followed by an elegant afternoon tea!  (Note to friends – can one of you please get rich so we can do this?  And can we also wear gorgeous tennis dresses like these?)

Tennis Dresses

The whole thing reminded me very much of the John Betjeman poem called A Subaltern’s Love Song:

Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament – you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father’s euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o’clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches2

Rather than lime juice and gin, this article waxes lyrical about a boysenberry daiquiri served with the afternoon tea:

One of Helena’s specialties is the delicious boysenberry daiquiri which is smooth in texture, with a wonderful colour and just enough zing in it to revive tired tennis bodies

And even includes a large picture of said daiquiris:

Boysenberry Daiquiri

But, back in 1986, if you had a tired tennis body and needed the reviving properties of a boysenberry daiquiri, you would have been SOL as the Vogue Entertaining Guide did not give you the recipe for it!  It’s the opposite of Chekhov’s Gun.  Even today, with full use of the internet, the closest thing I could find is this recipe for a berry daiquiri from the BBC.  Never let it be said that I don’t give you something to soothe your tired tennis body! I mean it’s not boysenberries but what can you do?  Maybe boysenberry daiquiris only exist in the realms of people who have their own tennis courts and would never dream of publishing their recipe on something as mucky as the internet!

The Recipe – Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches

The article made no mention of who Margie is/was so neither shall we.  These were very yummy and delicate sandwiches.  And whilst I don’t want to drag Agatha Christie into every post, they were certainly something I could imagine people eating after a hit of tennis in one of her novels.  Whilst someone was being stabbed in the drawing room.

Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches

Avocado and Crab Finger Sandwiches3

I added a sprinkle of chives from the garden and some chive flowers as a garnish for my sandwiches.

The Saratoga Torte which I featured a while back is from this same article.

I am now going to go dream of a life that includes

The traditional charm of a tennis afternoon tea expressed through the use of gleaming family silver and old lace

 

 

Have a wonderful week!

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Orange and Poppyseed Cupcakes – November 2002

Hello Friends!!!  For today’s twenty years ago post, I am cooking from the November 2002 issue  of Super Food Ideas. Let’s see if the mag lives up to it’s name! Today’s theme is picnic food.  These orange and poppyseed cupcakes would be perfect for a spring picnic and were delicious to boot!  Sadly our weather has not been kind.   It has been very cold and rainy so my picnic ended being on my dining room table!

Orange and Poppyseed Cupcakes

My Picnic Menu

Picnic Menu

 

Chicken Club Sandwich

I love a club sandwich but for some reason, I only ever eat them when ordering  from a hotel room service menu.  This one was ok.  No bacon which was disappointing but the addition of avocado was nice.  There was a weird instruction to add tomato sauce (ketchup) into the avocado mix.  I ignored it. because….ewww.  You can do beter November 2002!

Chicken Club Sandwich

Here’s the recipe.

Chicken Club Sandwich recipe 3

 

I am not going to talk about the Mac and Cheese  bites here because, I ended up changing the recipe so much that I am going to do them as a separate post! But we came here for Orange and Poppyseed Cupcakes so here they are!

Orange and Poppyseed Cupcakes2jpg

I don’t think I have tasted orange and poppyseed anything before.  There was a time when I was absolutely addicted to the lemon and poppyseed muffins at Muffin Break.   It got so all the people I worked with  knew how much I loved them so even if I had not gone past the Muffin Break that morning, my colleagues would let me know if the lemon and poppysed muffins were on the menu.  These cupcakes were very reminiscent of those muffins.   In fact though, I did not have enough orange zest  to top all the cupcakes (possibly because I spilt so much of it all over the recipe) so there is a mix of lemon and orange zest on all of them making them even more nostalgic for me.

Orange and Poppyseed Cupcakes3jpg

Orange and Poppyseed Cupcakes – The Recipe

The original recipe was for one large cake.  For  cupcakes, just drop the cooking time,  Mine were ready in 25 minutes.

 

Orange and Poppyseed Cupcakes Recipe2jpg

 

My Nigella Moment

What is a Nigella moment?  You know how at the end of each episode of a Nigella tv show, you see her popping back to the fridge for just one more bite of something?  My Nigella moment this month is a recipe I cooked from the mag that did not fit with the picnic theme.  It was a salmon fillet with wasabi mayo.  I served mine with some edamame sprinkled with furikake, pickled ginger and some not very Japanese but very delicious oven fries!  In the interest of brevity, I have not included the recipe but, if you like the sound of it and want to do your own trip back in time, hit me up in the comments!

Salmon with Wasabi Mayo

I hope you’ve enjoyed time travelling back to November 2002 with me.

Have a great week!

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