frugal food

This week to mark the last of Turn Back Time I cooked a 70s meal for 20 of our closest friends and family to share.  So I dug deep in my Mum’s cupboard and found the infamous Delia Smith classic Frugal Food and the Readers Digest the Cookery year. I decided no 70s meal was complete without a selection of dips to start all labelled with flags made by our seven year old daughter. I made a smoked mackerel pate with both fish and recipe from David Felce and daughters at the farmers market, tasting great with a roasted beetroot purée. Tom had swapped some bread for crab which I devilled, this was a clear winner. There was also a cheese and chutney dip, I couldn't find cream cheese anywhere locally and I wasn't convinced that the tofu alternative really worked. Then their was an avocado and nut salad looking like the finest 70s bathroom suite. These were all served with baguettes, cucumber and the obligatory celery. I then followed this with a vegetarian goulash, perfect for a freezing cold evening,  particularly with the edition of the tiniest bit of smokin’ chilli sauce to give it a warming kick.  For pudding I used up some leftover frozen chocolate cake to make Nigella’s chocolate trifle. In true Nigella style this used volumes of cream, which I did get in bulk from the bakery so as to not go for broke, and 8 egg yolks. This meant I was left with whites to make little meringues of my childhood partnered together with cream. Baked apples of course were on the menu too, like my Mother when I was a child I continue to work my way through the bumper crop, but full of butter, sugar, cherries and brandy they were a whole lot better than I remembered.

It was such fun to take this nostalgic walk through the food of my childhood and see it wasn't just about cream and curry powder. We have also been left with two more meals worth, goulash with leftover meat, goulash with rice and goulash for the dog. As for the puddings we are eating our way through the baked apples and the meringues will go into an eton mess with the first of the seasons rhubarb I spotted this week.