So, confession time: this isn’t the menu I’d originally planned.
After scouring the web for 80′ characteristic dishes, I’d settled on making ’80 party foods: Devilled eggs, cheese & veg toothpick hedgehog, vol-au-vents, Viennetta ice-cream cake.
But then came Lianne’s Disco dinner – an all-in 70′ party food bonanza – and guess what she served??
Turns out all these dishes I’d chosen were hangovers from the 70’… So back to Aunty Google, for more research.
After finding this very helpful blog, I settled on a more homely menu, still full of cheeky 80′ shop-bought shortcuts, and an emphasis on presentation & look:
Pińa-colada cocktails, Spinach cob loaf, Chicken pot pie, American 7-layer salad, and Upside-down Pineapple cake.
Assembled friends: Idit, Dorottya, Bernhard, and my venerable mother, whom I’d promised to invite ages ago.
I wish my mom had kept one of the flashy polyester suits she wore in the 80’… but she was never one to hold on to things. Everyone else did come in full 80′ regalia: Idit rocked up in double-denim, a big, pink scrunchy, and rainbow eyeshadow (completed with a Rubik’s Cube!), Dorottya brazenly changed into full-on Jane Fonda spandex, and Bernhard and I toted 80′ Metal-head gear (Mosher-wigs included):
Even the table got a pimp-up with a gaudy burgundy polyester tablecloth and silly crab napkins.
Bernhard and I welcomed our guests with the most 80′ cocktail I could think of: Pińa-colada! I also bought the most 80′ liquor I could remember, Malibu, before realising it doesn’t go in there 🙂
(With all the excitement of checking out each other’s get-ups and welcoming our guests, we forgot to take pics of the frothy cocktails)
Now, why the 80′? Well, mostly because I’m a child of that decade and happy to indulge in a bit of nostalgia.
But also because I love 80′ cooking for the same reason I look down upon it: the ‘lazy’ shop-bought shortcuts and ready-mixes. Today I appreciated these for precisely the same reason our moms went all-in on them way back then: It offers showy hosting for less time and faff in the kitchen.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being in the kitchen and cooking for my friends, but on a workday I want to get some yummy, good-looking dishes out on the table and still have time & energy to enjoy my guests’ company. So these dished suited me to a T:
Spinach Cob Loaf (made brilliantly by Bernhard): The name Cob comes from the bread this thick, herby-creamy dip is made in: a rustic, round, white loaf. You remove the top and the hollow-out the inside to make room for the dip. The sour cream, mayo, garlic and leeks mix, all baked in the loaf in the oven and served warm with raw vegetable sticks, was delicious. I’m not sure why it’s called a spinach dip, though: it’s the least noticeable ingredient in there – what you could taste was the sour cream, leek and garlic.
For the main dish I made a hearty Chicken Pot Pie.
The only Chicken Pot Pie I had before was made by Amy, the mom of Sarah, my best friend from high school (and an excellent home cook, all the way from California). It’s a hearty, comforting dish, which could really be a meal all on its own – with veg, cheese, chicken and potato all finding a loving home in the shop-bought leaf pastry.
Ridiculously, I don’t have a photo of the baked pie – but it looked and smelled great. Just don’t forget to brush the top pastry with raw egg before baking, to get that golden crust. I didn’t have Monterey-jack cheese so used cheddar, and only frozen peas instead of a veg mix, which worked very well. Who would have thought tinned mushroom soup would go well in a pie?!
Everybody loved it, and my teenage son devoured any leftovers the next day.
As a side, we had American 7-layer-salad – which with grated cheese, cooked pasta, and ham hardly qualifies as a vegetable salad in my book… but it’s a classic 80′ dish, so in it goes! and it was fun to put together:
Again, I used cheddar instead of Monterey jack cheese, and no spring onions – as they got used up in the pie. Also – as the dressing (mayo, sour cream, mustard, salt, & pepper) was thick enough to stand a spoon in, I added olive oil and lemon juice, which made the whole affair a bit lighter and fresher (and better, to my taste).
For dessert we had an Upside-down Piñacolada (pineapple) Cake, which turned out beautifully in Bernhard’s capable hands: This recipe calls for a shop-bought cake mix, and the only vanilla one I could get was with sprinkles – so it was even more colourful than intended 🙂 With a thick layer of whipped cream in the middle, it was brilliant.
To conclude, I’ll say that this dinner was great fun, though not one of our culinary heights – everything was very tasty, but on the heavy side. Even the musical accompaniment, which consisted of a Heavy Rock anthology – on Vinyl, of course!
(As you can see, the food was waiting for the guests wrapped in tin foil – as per 80′ hospitality decorum)
Foodwise I think the best dish was the cob-loaf dip, with the raw veg sticks – and eating the toasted dip-soaked bread when the dip was gone.
Next will be Dorottya, who promises a Floral, Foraged and Fabulous F dinner! I can’t wait.
