Category: Summer


Jan
2025

January 2005 – Beachside Dinner

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Blueberries, Calamari, Cocktail, Fish, Salad, Seafood, Sorbet, Squid, Summer

Happy New Year, time travellers!  Welcome to January 2025 and January 2005!  Today we will enjoy a quintessential Australian beachside dinner. Unlike many parts of the globe, the start of the year here is hot, making dining on or near the beach a beloved tradition.  Also very Australian is to magpie food and flavours from other cultures so today our “Aussie” meal has roots in the tropics, China, Mexico and Italy!. 

I was particularly excited for this month, as seafood and ice cream are among my favourite treats. We’ll soon see how my culinary hopes fared. Today’s menu is inspired by the January 2005 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller.  

BLT Salad

But first, let’s ease ourselves into 2005, not with Pop Culture as per our norm but a look at the news events that defined the year:

  • YouTube’s first video: “Me at the zoo” was the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube.   Can you believe YouTube is only 20 years old?  I feel like I’ve been watching it all my life!
  • Hurricane Katrina: A devastating tropical cyclone that killed 1,392 people and caused $125 billion in damages, particularly in New Orleans 
     
  • London bombings: 52 people were killed and about 700 were wounded in a terrorist attack on the London Underground 
     
  • Angela Merkel’s election: Angela Merkel became the first woman chancellor of Germany 
     
  • Kyoto Protocol: The Kyoto Protocol, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, began to take effect 
     
  • Same-sex marriage legalization: Spain and Canada legalized same-sex marriage 
     

So a mixed bag news wise!  Let’s see if the menu was also a blend of good and bad!

   The Menu

bEACHSIDE DINNER

 

Blue Hawaiian

I’ve always harboured a certain prejudice against blue drinks. They somehow screamed “college party” to me, a garish, overly sweet concoction best left to the youthful and the reckless. And creamy cocktails? Don’t even get me started. I’ve always considered them rather…gloopy.

But the Blue Hawaiian was an entirely different beast. The colour, was a glorious, cerulean blue, like a summer sky. But the flavour!  It was a symphony of the tropics, a vibrant burst of sunshine in a glass.  Honestly, I can’t imagine a more perfect aperitif for a beachside dinner. The mere thought of it now transports me – I can almost taste the salt spray on my lips, hear the gentle rustle of palm fronds overhead… pure joy!


Blue Hawaiian

 

Blue Hawaiian

Salt and Pepper Squid

Salt and Pepper Squid is a  firm favourite of mine when dining out. But I had never tried to cook it at home before.   And the result? A perfect prelude to a seaside feast, I served mine not with rice as per the recipe but with a vibrant fennel salad (though you wouldn’t know this from this photograph). You can find the recipe here.  I also had some  mayonnaise in which I swirled some chilli crisp just in case the pepperiness of the squid needed a bit more oomph!    

Salt and Pepper Squid is as ubiquitous in Australian pubs as… well, as a pot of beer. So you can imagine my surprise to discover while poring over the recipe that it has Cantonese roots. This version, however, pays homage to those origins with the addition of Szechuan peppercorns, a delightful touch of unexpected heat that sets it apart from the standard pub fare.  

Salr and Pepper Squid

Salr and Pepper Squid recipe (1)

Snapper Veracruzana

Snapper Veracruzana

 

For the main course,  we transported ourselves away from the vibrant shores of China to the sun-drenched beaches of Mexico with a delectable Snapper Veracruzana. This dish was simply exquisite! The snapper, cooked to perfection, flaked effortlessly at the touch of a fork, while the Veracruz sauce… well, words can hardly do it justice. A symphony of flavours – ripe tomatoes, briny capers, plump olives, and a tantalising hint of chilli – it was utterly irresistible.  Frankly, I could imagine this sauce gracing almost any plate. Chicken, prawns, even grilled halloumi or roasted vegetables – the possibilities are endless. It’s a testament to the magic of great ingredients, a celebration of the vibrant flavours of Mexico.

Blueberry Gelato

Gelato has a certain nostalgia for me.  Travelling around Italy with some girlfriends back in the day, “gelati” was our code word for a handsome young man.  “Shall we go for gelati at 3 o’clock?” would indicate both the presence of one of them and the direction the others should look to see him!  I wanted this blueberry gelato to transport me to the beaches of Amalfi. and the heady summer days we spent there.  Sadly, this was not to be.  I would have preferred this to be more blueberry-forward, like a sorbet.  I feel the milk dulled the blueberry flavour.  Pretty colour but for me, this was a fail.  

Blueberry SorbetBeachside - Blueberry Gelato

 

My Nigella Moment – BLT Salad

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 may not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share. 

BLT Salad2

BLT is a classic for a reason and this salad combines those familiar flavours into something new.  This was delicious and definitely something to sneak back to for a little bit more after everyone else has gone to bed!

I hope you’ve enjoyed being beside the seaside with me!  I also wish you all the very best for 2025!  Let’s hope it’s a wonderful year for all of us!  

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Jan
2023

Summer Vegetarian – January 2003

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Cocktail, Summer, Vegetarian

Hello Friends and welcome to Twenty Years Ago Today for January 2003.  It’s summertime here in Australia and living is easy. We want some no-muss, no-fuss food – and if we can slap it on the BBQ – so much the better!  The magazine I am using for this month is Super Food Ideas from December 2002.  The theme is summer vegetarian…will the magazine meet the challenge?

Pineapple Rum Crush

Here’s the menu I devised from the recipes in the magazine.  I was able to meet my challenge of relaxed summer vegetarian food quite easily – there were a few options for the opening drink, the starter, side and dessert.  There were not so many vegetarian mains but I really liked the sound of the sweetcorn and zucchini burgers!  And the fussiest eater in the world loves peanut brittle so we appeared to be onto a winner, winner vegetarian dinner!

Summer Vegetarian Menu

Summer Vegetarian Burgers2

Pineapple and Rum Crush

This was summer in a glass!  Rum and pineapple is a classic tropical flavour combination.  I also liked the refreshing scent of the mint.  This is a perfect hot-weather drink!

Pimeapple and Rum Crush Recipe

ChunkyAvocado Dip

I did not make this as I could not find a ripe avocado for love or money the day I wanted to make it!  Here’s the recipe.  This came from an advertisement for Tupperware, hence the mention of the serving vessel.  Chunky Avocado Dip

Sweetcorn and Zucchini Burgers

I was excited to make these because I love a zucchini fritter and I love a corn fritter.  Also, I picked the zucchini and the parsley from my garden! What could be better than combining the two?  Unfortunately, these were not good.  Usually, when I make zucchini fritters, I squeeze the water out of the zucchini after grating them.  This recipe did not say to do so and, when I am cooking a recipe for the blog or for Tasty Reads, I follow the recipe exactly.  Maybe because I did not squeeze my zucchini (which sounds like a euphemism if ever I heard one) the mixture was a mess!  I had to add almost double the amount of flour suggested to get something that would even hold together.  The burgers tasted too much like flour and not enough like sweetcorn or zucchini.  I would not make these again.  If you want to try them, I would try squeezing the moisture out of the grated zucchini.  Or for a really good recipe for zucchini fritters, use this one from Epicurious which is one of my faves!

Sweetcorn and Zucchini Burgers2

Tomato Salad with Creamy Dressing

This was good, nothing special but a tasty tomato salad.  We are about to have a bumper crop of tomatoes from the backyard so  I might be making it again very soon!

Tomato Salad (1)

Peanut Brittle

This was a semi-fail but entirely due to user error! The recipe says to microwave for 6-8 minutes.  I do not cook with my microwave very often and got a bit panicky when at the six-minute mark the dish I was using to cook the brittle in felt very hot.   The mixture inside it looked like something normally seen in the crater of a volcano about to explode.  I lost my nerve and stopped the cooking process!  As a result, the candy creation was not brittle but had the consistency of fudge.  It was delicious though!  Next time I will hold my nerve and cook it for the full eight minutes!

Peanut Brittle (1)

My Nigella Moment

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 in because it was really good!  This  month, my Nigella  moment came from an article on Asian food which included one of my restaurant favourites, Thai Fish Cakes.  This is my go-to starter when eating Thai but I have never even contemplated making these at home!  I loved these!  They were deliciously tasty and were very close to the ones you eat in restaurants. I will definitely make these again! Also, happy Lunar New Year Everyone!

Thai Fish Cakes (1)

I hope you have enjoyed my trip back to the vegetarian food of 2003.  It certainly had some mixed results.  The absolute highlight for me were the fishcakes, they were sensational! The cocktail was pretty good too!

Future Twenty Years Ago Today Posts

I have been thinking about these 20 Years Ago Today posts and I decided that, whilst I love doing them, the risk is that the menu themes will get a bit predictable and will be limited to the food that I like.  To give me a challenge and to hopefully really highlight what is featured in my 20-year-old magazines, I have come up with a list of menu themes and each month I will randomly select a theme and see if I can build a menu from that theme out of the magazine in question.  Some of the themes are serious, some are based on actual food preferences of people I know (for example, the Fussiest Eater In The World once told me he did not eat white food. Except for potatoes, bread, rice, cauliflower, fish, milk, yoghurt….the list goes on!) and some I made up to challenge myself!   You can find the list of themes here:

If you would like to contribute a theme, please let me know,  I’m up for any challenge you can throw at me!

Have a great week.

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