Celebrating in 1970

Our flat is in the first Barbican block to be completed in 1969, so when we moved in we danced to a 1969 soundtrack whilst sitting on the floor eating pizza... One year on, we didn't just update the playlist but added a 1970 menu to complement proceedings. Fortunately our friends are lovely enough to eat pizza sitting on the floor and eat random homemade 1970s experiments...

The menu

(in photos from top to bottom)

- Devilled eggs: providing huge amusement to Dr Hill with piping bag "egg farts"; note sprinkling paprika over them hides terrible piping technique

- Ham & mushroom vol-au-vents and Salmon & cream cheese vol-au-vents: incredibly easy with shop bought puff pastry

- Crunchy crisp chicken: photographed twice as so amazing, from Zena Skinner

- Stuffed celery: one of the surprise favourites of the evening

- Cheese and pineapple hedgehog underpinned by half a grapefruit as instructed by Auntie Katherine

- Porn star martinis which sound so 70s they count

- Garlic potatoes (from the familiar Delia's evening standard cookbook; basically baked potatoes stuffed with Boursin, no photo as I was making them during the party and forgot)

- and of course Prawn cocktail (detailed below)

You'll be relieved to know that I'm not going to do the recipes for all the dishes, and Zena Skinner's crunchy crisp chicken will get its own post as it rightly deserves (yes, it is chicken coated with actual crisps!).

Prawn cocktail recipe

Marie Rose sauce:

Tomato ketchup

Mayonnaise

Worcestershire sauce

Tabasco

I wasn't in a measuring mood, so the sauce is roughly half and half tomato ketchup mixed with mayonnaise, with a couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce and a few drops of Tabasco. Build the cocktail with some crispy lettuce, plump peeled pink prawns and the sauce either on the side or over the prawns. Or a combo of the two as below (dropped some prawns in the dip). Top tip: buy a small packet of fancy looking prawns and add them last and everyone will assume all the prawns are posh and you are an incredibly generous hostess.

Enjoy with a dollop of nostalgia and sprinkling of closest friends.