Retro Food For Modern Times - Yesterdays Recipes, Cooked Today

08
Nov
2023

Midweek Quickie – Oeufs Caroline (2)

categories: Eggs

Welcome to another midweek quickie! I was delighted last week when the lovely Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers sent me this gorgeous photo of her dinner…or should that be supper…of Oeufs Caroline.

Jenny agreed that the eggs were yummy and they certainly look very pretty on her vintage plate! If you have cooked any of my recipes and would like your creation to feature on a midweek quickie, please get in touch! I would love to see your versions!

If you feel like even more cooking, why not hit up Jenny over at Silver Screen Suppers. She is looking for recipe testers for the second volume of her Murder She Cooked book. I will be doing some testing very shortly! If you don’t want to test but want to cook up some recipes by characters from Murder She Wrote, you can pick up the first volume here.

I have a copy of this and am looking forward to cooking from it!!! As a childhood fan of Gilligan’s Island, Alan Hale’s Skipper’s Dream Sandwich is high on my list of things to make. As is Claude Akin’s recipe for Barbecued Honey Orange Chicken and Samantha Eggar’s Tostada Salad. And who could resist Jerry Orbach’s Tough Guys Desert…ok..I want to cook the whole book! 😂

But enough from me, these posts are meant to be short and sweet! I hope the week is being kind to you!

06
Nov
2023

White Ladies Part Two

categories: Australian Gourmet Traveller, Baking, Biscuits / Cookies, Posh Food

Hello Friends, today we are indulging in a sweet treat called a White Lady. Hold up, I hear you say, haven’t we already done this recipe back in March? Well, apparently recipes for White Ladies are like busses. You wait for ages for one to come along and then, all of a sudden three come at once. Because, spoiler alert, there will be another White Lady recipe appearing soon! Last time, our white lady was a very yummy ice cream with chocolate sauce, this white lady is a delicious shortbread-style cookie.

But not just any shortbread cookie because these have white chocolate and rose water icing and then a dusting of icing sugar on top of that. Delicious. But sweet.

These need to be balanced out with a nice strong coffee. The recipe for these White Ladies comes from that bastion of posh food, Australian Gourmet Traveller, the May 1993 issue to be exact. This is the same mag that brought us a lovely Warm Chestnut Salad a while back. The recipe for White Ladies recipe comes from an article on chocolate and the powerful memories it can evoke in people.

“What is it about chocolate that makes us cherish the memory of certain occasions with such ecstacy?

And if you think that quote possibly goes a little bit too over the top, what about this one?

One friend’s most potent memory is of eating dark Arabian chocolate on a sultry night while being serenaded by eunuchs

I feel that night might have been memorable even without the chocolate….

My own favourite chocolate memory is of a bright cold day in winter a few years aog. My best friend and I were in the country celebrating my birthday on a girl’s weekend. After a morning spent at the Hepburn Spa we drove to nearby Daylesford for some afternoon tea. I had an Italian hot chocolate which I’m pretty sure was pure melted chocolate. It was warm and sweet and rich and made for the perfect end to the perfect weekend!

Happily, or possibly sadly for some of you, you don’t need a hot night in Arabia or a chorus of eunuchs to enjoy these white ladies. A cup of coffee and a few moments of peace are enough!

The Recipe – White Ladies

For those of you who like to gift cookies as part of the holiday season, White Ladies could become a perfect addition to your gifting regime If they last long enough for you to give any away that is!

Have a great week!

01
Nov
2023

Midweek Quickie – Lilac Sweetpeas and Lillies

categories: Non Food Related Posts

Hello flower lovers! I was walking past the florist the other day and these lilac sweetpeas reminded me so much of the Grazier’s wife that I had to buy them. They are the most gorgeous colour and they smell divine!

When dinner is ready I light the candles and limit the lights in the dining room to a corner lamp. The stereo set continues playing soft mood music all evening. My large dining table will be set with a plain lilac linen tablecloth and moss green linen table napkins. The main decoration will be a small bowl of lilac sweet peas with deeper mauve candles inserted into the centre of the float bowl. On each woman’s napkin there will be a freshly picked pink rosebud tied with a narrow lilac velvet bow

I don’t have the moss green linen or the mauve candles but the Lilac sweetpeas were a gorgeous addition to my dining room table at our latest Tasty Reads Cookbook Club meeting. My friend Leesa brought me this equally gorgeous bouquet of Calla Lillies, Rosemary and Seaside Daisies all from her garden as a hostess gift! 😍

I very rarely buy flowers because I get a little bit sad when they start to wilt but the scented simplicity of my sweetpeas and the creative combo of Leesa’s bouquet brought me so much joy that maybe I will rethink my stance!

I hope your week is blooming great!

28
Oct
2023

October 2003 – The White Menu

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Cheese, Cheesecake, Delicious, Desserts, Fish, Meat, Mozzarella

Hello retro food lovers and welcome to October 2003 where today I am using Delicious magazine to create a white menu. White food has the double reputation of being 1) boring and 2) overly processed so my aim with this menu was to try to combat both of those. But first, let’s take a look at what was happening in pop-culture in October 2003.

School of Rock was #1 at the box office and The Five People You Meet In Heaven was the best-selling book. Number 1 on the pop charts was Where Is The Love by The Black Eyed Peas. Two weeks earlier it was White Flag by Dido which would have fit in perfectly with this menu! Let’s hope I won’t have to wave a white flag with my menu!

Now I also realise that this view of my cheesecake is not white, however it just looked so good, I couldn’t resist sharing it!

The Menu – October 2003

I found this menu template on Etsy. Isn’t it gorgeous? We’ll be seeing it a lot more from now on!

Mozzarella and Grilled Chilli Salad

This was AMAZING! So tasty and the perfect way to kick off a meal! I loved the simplicity/minimalism of this Jamie Oliver recipe. It also not only looked beautiful on the plate but tasted divine! Another recipe from this same article, a squid and cannellini bean salad nearly made the cut for the main dish in the menu and is something I am still very keen to try!

Mozzarella and Grilled Chilli Salad Recipe

Fish Stew With Lemongrass and Lime

This is an Ainsley Harriott recipe and was also divine! It was light and refreshing and, as he says in his intro, very different from the usual tomato-based fish stews. Like the mozzarella starter, this would be a perfect summer meal.

Lemongrass and Lime Fish Stew Recipe

Low Fat Cheesecake

I felt bad that I could not deliver a cheesecake for the Birthday Party, Cheesecake, Jelly Bean, Boom! menu. Because I LOVE cheesecake! So I was delighted to find one in this issue of Delicious. And this was a beauty too. It’s a pretty classic baked cheesecake. Even though it is low fat, it feels rich, The rest of this menu is light though so this seemingly decadent dessert won’t weigh you down too much!

Low Fat Cheesecake Recipe

My Nigella Moment – Beef with Lavender Mustard

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 the context of 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 either because I made it and it was really good, or I just didn’t have time to make it but it was one of the most appetising things in the mag!

OMG, this beef just melted in my mouth! And if you’re thinking you don’t have any Lavender Mustard, come back next week. I’ll have a little treat for you. I added a spoonful of honey to my Lavender Mustard to give the required sweetness to this. Also, I misread the ingredients and I bought a rump roast and not rump steak for my version. I seared the meat as per the recipe and then roasted it until it reached 72C / 165F on my meat thermometer.

Well, Delicious Magazine from October 2003 really came through with a delicious white-themed menu for me! Certainly no Didoesque white flag moments for me!

22
Oct
2023

Sunday Night Ham Slaw Supper

categories: 1970's recipes, Salad, Salads For All Season

Hello retro food lovers! Today we are taking a step back into one of my favourite vintage cookbooks, Salads for All Seasons by Rosemary Mayne Wilson. I last cooked from this book way back in 2014. I chose a Sunday Night Ham Slaw Supper as I will be posting this on a Sunday. Also, because I love the word supper. It seems much cozier than the word dinner.

The Sunday night ham slaw is such a good idea! You know that feeling after a big Sunday roast when you feel you might never need to eat again? Except a good few hours later you start to think that maybe a little something-something might be nice? Well this is that something. A little salad, some cold meat, a bread roll and butter. Enough to stave off the pangs, not enough to fill you up too much.

I used ham as my meat of choice but this would be equally nice with leftover roast chicken or beef. It would also be perfect with leftover grilled salmon, or for the vegetarians amongst us, some slices of avocado or as a filling for a baked potato. I also did not mix my ham into the slaw as per the recipe but had it on the side. I thought the ham mixed in with the slaw might not look great. It tasted great though and, with the bread on the plate was just crying out to be made into a sandwich!

Sunday Night Ham Slaw Supper – The Recipe

This is a quick, easy and very tasty meal and a nice way to round off the weekend!

Have a great week!