Hello, retro food lovers and Season’s Greetings from 2003!  This month I am using Delicious Magazine from December 2003 to prepare a menu where…well let’s see if you can guess…Hint..there’s a big clue in the title. 

The whole time I was cooking this month I also kept thinking back to my early twenties when we used to play a drinking game called “I’m going to the moon”.  The person who starts says “I’m going to the moon and I’m taking (for example) an apple”.  Then the next person says “I’m going to the moon and I’m taking a pear”.  The first person who is the game controller tells them if they can come to the moon or not.  If they can’t go, they need to stay on earth and have a drink.   There are many variations on this game but my personal favourite was based on the same theme as this month.  Let’s move away from my sozzled past to see what was happening in December 2003.  Although come to think about it, that was probably the same time as I was playing the game!

The Lord of The Rings:  Return of the King was the big movie of December 2003.  The Last Samurai was the next biggest.  And, quelle surprise, The Da Vinci Code was still the best-selling book.  Which all kind of explains why I was playing drinking games instead of partaking in pop culture.  Although the soundtrack to those drinking games would have been good with Here Without You and Hey Ya! being the number one songs that month!  

The Menu – December 2003

Moorish Champagne Cocktail

I am always very happy to be able to start these menus with a cocktail.  The Moorish Champagne Cocktail was both easy to make and also very more-ish!  

Moorish Champagne Tart Recipe

Salad of Dried Pears, Proscuitto, Blue Cheese and Walnuts

AKA a salad of a few of my favourite things!  If this hadn’t fit the theme, it would have surely been my Nigella item for this month!  And it was divine!

Salad of Dried Pears, Proscuitto, Blue Cheese and Walnuts Recipe

Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto

I apologise for the photo of this which is not great.  Having said this, the photo from the mag (which follows the recipe) is also not great.  Neither photo does this dish, which was amazing any justice!  But, trust me, it is worth taking a punt on as it was delicious! 

Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto Recipe

Mulled Wine Sorbet With Clove Biscuits

This was so nice and refreshing.  It is summer in Australia so this is a nice nod to wintry flavours but adapted for summer.  The sorbet mixture was very soft, for me it was more like a slushie than a sorbet so my recommendation is either not to serve it on a very hot day or to eat it quickly as it melts in moments.  Speaking of melting, the clove biscuits just melt in your mouth!  I am usually a bit wary of cloves – I’ve bit into them accidentally when eating things like curries and find the flavour a bit too much!  So, for the first few biscuits, I ate, I picked the cloves off. Since then, I have eaten them with the clove in and the flavour of them seems to be less powerful in the biscuits than in say a curry.  So, even if you don’t love cloves, give these a try with them!

Mulled Wine Sorbet with Clove Biscuits Recipe

My Nigella Moment  – Crispy Herbed Potatoes

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.  

You had me at crispy potatoes!  And then when I saw how pretty these were, I knew they would be my Nigella item for this month.  If I hadn’t already bought what I needed to make Katrina Meynink’s Roasted Taters with Horseradish and Tapenade for Christmas Day, the Crispy Herbed Potatoes would have been on the menu.  (As an aside, I have just bought the aforementioned book From Salt to Jam and am absolutely loving it).  

Crispy Seared Potatoes Recipe

Overall a great month from Delicious December 2003.  If you have not yet guessed the theme, no going to the moon for you!  But in the interest of your liver, it was to find recipes with double letters.  Until I did this, I had never really thought about how many food items had these.  I was absolutely spoiled for choice with options:

(Update 6/1/24 – I had originally included links to items below that are still on the Delicious.com.au website.  Those links have been blocked but anything I have asterisked is available should you want to check them out.)

Starters

• Baked eggs
• Bruschetta with grilled artichokes and roasted garlic
• B’stilla*
• Cheese Crock
• Chilled pea soup with lobster and risoni salad*
• Goat’s curd in grappa*
• Prawn and fattoush salad
• Schiacciata*
• Spanner crab chowder
• Peppered Beef Salad
• Smoked Salmon with clementines and cress
• Terrine with microwave cranberry chutney

Mains and Sides

• Beef fillet with spicy potatoes and horseradish
• Butternut pumpkin with tasty stuffing
• Cheeky Christmas turkey with braised leeks and the best wine gravy
• Chicken noodle salad
• Chicken with pepperoncini
• Cinnamon and sultana couscous
• Cold turkey salad with mango and honey dressing
• Country chicken and mushroom pies
• Chicken coconut curry pie
• Crispy skin coral trout with roasted pineapple, coconut salad and rosti potato
• Fillets of John Dory with olives, capers and rosemary
• Flame grilled tuna with wasbi cake, bok choy and lime ponzu
• Fricassee of chicken with mustard and grapes
• Grilled coral trout with asparagus, red capsicum and sugar snap peas
• Rice paper rolls with turkey
• Seared barramundi with garlic skordalia, asparagus and creole salsa
• Traditional Barossa ham in verjuice jelly
• Turkey with saffron butter and preserved lemon and olive stuffing
• Baked zucchini tarts with stuffed vegetables
• Frisee, watercress and witlof salad
• Goat’s cheese tarts with roast peaches and vincotto
• Moroccan carrot salad
• Open lasagne of asparagus with rocket tortellini
• Roasted eggplant and tomato salad
• Savoury Summer puddings
• Sweet potato briks
• Truffled potato mash

Sweets

• Baked lime cheesecake
• Boozy puddings with cheat’s custard*
• Cherry clafoutis*
• Choc-mint raspberry sundae
• Chocolate and strawberry tartines*
• Chocolate and brandied prune terrine*
• Christmas morning muffins*
• Christmas pudding ice cream with sweet cranberry sauce
• Cinnamon ice cream with red wine poached figs*
• Chocolate cake with plum pudding vodka*
• Coconut and passionfruit slice
• Eggnog custards*
• Flourless Hazelnut roulade
• Free-form berry trifles
• Middle Eastern fruit cake*
• Pannettone with berries and brandy sauce
• Passionfruit panna cotta*
• Raspberry ice cream sundae
• Snowballs*
• Starry night tarts*
• Star-topped mince pies
• Strawberry sundae*
• Tutti Frutti ice cream*
• Vanilla sponge with raspberries
• White Chocolate and chilli ice cream with tropical fruit

Other

• Hettie Potter’s suet-free mince meat
• Easy cranberry sauce
• Peanut Butter sauce
• Raspberry sauce
• Strawberry sauce
• Irish coffee with orange rind and vanilla

Sorry for the massive laundry list but I really wanted to show how many items had double letters!  I was honestly astounded! 

So, my question to you lovely readers is – if you were making your own double-letter dinner, what would you choose? Either from the extensive list above or things that have not been mentioned – baguettes, beetroot, jelly, waffles, green beans, toffee, frittata, dill, mayonnaise, cabbage, spaghetti, mozzarella…the list goes on!

Couscous which is in the list above is the only thing I could think of with the same series of letters twice.  Can you think of any others?

And one last thing.  Thank you all for reading and commenting through the year!  Best wishes for an amazing 2024!