Hello, retro food lovers!  Let’s take a trip back twenty years to July 2003.  While where there, why not pick up the current copy of  Delicious Magazine and try to make a meal with ingredients that we can find in our fridge.  I set a rule for myself with this one that at least 2 ingredients for each meal had to come from my fridge.  For the purposes of full disclosure, I have also listed items I have used from my freezer, pantry and those I bought for the recipes.  Before we head to the recipes, let’s set the scene for what else was happening in July 2003!

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was #1 at the box office, followed by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Bad Boys II.  Doesn’t sounds like I would have been going to the movies a lot in July 2003!  Instead, I was likely staying at home reading the best-selling Da Vinci Code by Dance Brown and listening to Beyonce’s Crazy in Love.  But enough about me, let’s get to our menu!

The Menu – July 2003

BROCCOLI, PANCETTA AND FETA PIZZA

There was a cheese fondue in the magazine which very nearly became the entree for our July 2003 menu but in the end I chose the pizza.  The recipe comes from an advertisement for Ardmona Rich and Thick Chopped Tomatoes which was absolutely brilliant and why I decided to use this recipe over the fondue.  The advertisements which ran for a number of years featured celebrities not known for their intelligence advertising pureed tomatoes!  Rich and thick tomatoes from the rich and…you get it.  The ad certainly caught my eye!   Also, this was the only recipe in the magazine where I did not have to buy any ingredients, although I substituted a few:

Fridge ingredients

• Broccolini (subbed for the broccoli in the recipe)
• Proscuitto (subbed for the pancetta in the recipe)
• Feta cheese

All of these were leftovers from other things I had made which would have otherwise likley gone to waste

Other ingredients

• Puff Pastry – from the freezer
• Tinned tomatoes – from the pantry

Broccoli and Pancetta Pizza Recipe

Beef Carpaccio with Parmesan, Horseradish and Raw Beetroot

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe that I made to use up some leftover beetroot.  I generally hate beetroot but the fussiest eater in the world likes it so we had half a beetroot in the fridge left over from a roast dinner he had made.  A lot of people, including me, give Jamie Oliver a hard time but seriously…this might be one of the best things I have eaten all year!!!  It was perfectly pitched.  Everything went together so well.  It was an absolute dream of a dish!  10/10 Mr Oliver, this one was outstanding!

Fridge ingredients

• Beetroot
• Horseradish (originally from our garden)
• Sour cream (instead of the creme fraiche in the recipe)
• Parmesan cheese

Other ingredients

• Thyme – from the garden
• Lemon – from the garden
• Olive oil, salt, pepper – from the pantry

Bought ingredients

• 1 steak  – I was not going to buy a whole fillet for two people!
• Rocket -(this cost all of 36 cents!)

Carpaccio recipe:

Chocolate Chestnut Log

On first reading, I thought this would be a cake.  Instead, imagine a melt-in-the-mouth mousse with a swirl of chestnut surrounded by a swirl of chocolate chestnut.  Delicious but very rich!!!! (Not thick though).  If the carpaccio was something I would gladly eat every day, this is a dish I would save for special occasions. 

Chocolate Chestnut Log Recipe:

Fridge ingredients

• Butter
• Egg

Other ingredients

• Sugar – from the pantry
• Brandy from the drinks cabinet
• A can of chestnut puree which had been in the pantry for far too long!
• Cocoa powder – from the pantry

Bought ingredients

• Dark Chocolate 

My Nigella Moment  – Fillet of Beef Bourguignonne

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!

I feel a bit sorry for the cheese fondue recipe in the July 2003 issue of Delicious Magazine.  It got pipped at the post for the starter and again for the Nigella moment.  Those of you who know me, and whose jaws are dropping that I didn’t pick the fondue (twice), take a look at this picture:

The perfectly cooked beef, the glossy sauce, the wine-soaked onions – this dish looks so beautiful and luxurious to me and something that I would definitely cook if I was having a group of people for dinner.  Something this size though would feed us both for a week.  I’m holding on to this recipe though!  Next time we do magazines in my Foodies club, this is exactly where I am heading!!!! 

Well, the July 2003 issue of Delicious proved to be an absolute treasure trove of recipes and definitely filled the brief of being able to base a meal, largely on ingredients that were in my fridge!