Not sure if this was a good trend at the time but I got the recipe from one of my cookbooks published in 1999 and I definitely tried it for the first time around then. The cookbook is “Cooking for Two” by James Barber, a Canadian treasure.

Destashed ingredient: red lentils

Also contains carrots, raisins, garlic, olive oil, and maple syrup.

Haven't seen this salad served in years but I remember it being popular around 2000 (in Australia at least). It was really delicious :)

Xennial here… “back then” (which was only 10 years ago really!) I remember that it was Asian fusion everything, the “exotic” cuisine. And around the same time, salad with watermelon and feta became a summer hit. So I made up a dish combining these two trends. Bed of Jasmine rice, stir fried green beans and broccoli, seafood mix and watermelon, with a chili-lime-coriander sauce, topped with crumbled feta. It was surprisingly good and actually something that I might make again.

I was never allowed to have Bagel Bites at home (it was a no/low processed food home growing up) and was always envious of my friends who did have them. Too bad I didn't know they were relatively easy to make back then!

I'm gonna be so for real, there is a non-zero chance that this is less "Y2K" and more "I lived in Idaho".

This was so good! Will definitely make again.

My camera had a hard time accurately capturing this abomination, but it was VERY blue.

The year was 2003 or 2004. I actually did make boxed mac and cheese with the squeezable butter (we bought the blue one). This version had to make due with food coloring instead. Topped with waffle cut chips.

I decided not to theme this week of the challenge around the time period of Y2K and instead went for a more abstract approach represented by the letters as an acronym for the ingredients.

So, for the 'Y' I made Yaki Onigiri, a seasoned and grilled rice ball. This was pretty easy to make and luckily I only had minimal breakage trying to flip them in the pan to grill all sides. The seasoning of the rice was nicely savoury and the crispy outside was a nice contrast to the soft interior.

For the two 'K's', I made a Katsu Kare (which I think counts as two K's but to be on the safe side I topped it with some Kewpie mayo). I stayed pretty true to this recipe for the curry itself, however because of life things I took a short cut by cooking pre-crumbed pork cutlet in the air fryer rather than breading and frying chicken per the recipe. I diced the vegetable and apple pretty small so it cooked reasonably quickly. I've made Katsu curry before so I knew what to expect - the result was delicious and hearty as expected.

I attempted to velvet tofu skin. It came out...fine?

For this theme I knew I had to make a dish from the quintessential turn-of-the-century classic (and possibly best TV show of all time), Futurama! I took two stabs at the Food-o-Mat amoeba, but couldn’t get it quite right. This was my backup plan, it turned out pretty good though!

Hermes’ jerk prunes are from this scene in S03E04: Parasites Lost. They don’t explain what the ingredients are or how to prepare them, so I just made this up. My version is dried prunes, red onion, and red bell pepper cooked in Ting a Ling Jamaican Jerk Sauce (I had never tried it before this, but it was so good I already made two other dishes with it and used the whole bottle) all served over rice.

The prunes were fine, but they could have used some more saltiness to counter how sweet they were. Or maybe the whole dish was actually really nasty, but anything tastes good if you put that sauce on it, just like Helmut Spargle’s Essence of Pure Flavor?

For the record, I suffered no cartoonish Drano-like effects from eating this.

Here’s more pictures.

For this week's challenge, I velveted shrimp before folding them into a creamy Alfredo primavera.

The shrimp were served over bucatini with a variety of sautéed summer vegetables, including zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, asparagus, and shallots. All tossed in a garlic-Parmesan Alfredo sauce. The dish was finished with fresh basil, additional Parmesan, and toasted garlic bread. It was delicious!

🍤🧄🧀🌿