Apologies in advance as this will be long without that many links (I do ramble a bit and most things were totally winged or were on instinct, I also adapted the recipes I did use so I've added my descriptions to those).
I do a theme every time I'm cooking (we visit my parents so me, my mum and SIL take turns to cook, I used to cook every year but it became too much for me so I like the balance we have now).
Anyway, this year I decided on a 1970s theme, partly inspired by MN because I was previously on a thread about black forest gateau and it made me realise I really wanted one this year and we often do a prawn cocktail starter because it's one thing my autistic 17yo will actually eat in abundance so the theme made sense.
Starter was prawn cocktail, then for snacks for everyone while I made the main course, I served devilled eggs and vol-au-vents (various fillings of mushroom in sauce, chicken & mushroom, chicken mayo, egg mayo and seafood dip (inspired by the Slimming World "crab" stick dip I rather liked when I went years ago, but with full fat yogurt and a bit of mayo instead of the quark that SW always seems to use and it made it a million times nicer, was a huge hit with everyone).
Main course was this take on duck a l'orange: https://www.seriouseats.com/pan-seared-duck-breast
Everyone raved about it although I didn't follow it to the letter, I was cooking for 9 so I doubled the recipe then added splashes of extra to taste (and I just used the jelly stock pot things instead of homemade stock).
Sides were goose-fat roast potatoes, honey-roasted carrots and parsnips, tenderstem broccoli, and a sort of champ/colcannon idea with chopped brussels sprouts sauteed in butter mixed through the mashed potato.
Desserts were the biggest hit of the day.
I went with this black forest gateau recipe, but instead of the cake used here, I made the Nigella Guinness chocolate cake instead.
Original gateau recipe: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/black-forest-gateau
Cake: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/chocolate-guinness-cake
My adaptations were that I didn't use kirsch and I had a 400g bag of defrosted frozen cherries instead of the ones in the recipe. I used a few tablespoons of the juice from the cherries to soak into the cake as it mentioned and I just used the Bonne Maman black cherry conserve for the jam as it was the only cherry jam I could find. I made the cake in one tin and could only really cut it into two as it is such a moist cake I think 3 layers would have just fallen to pieces. (SIL has actually already asked for the recipes, she has a chocolate cake recipe she absolutely loves and apparently this is now her favourite chocolate cake ever).
My other dessert was a trifle as DH told me he didn't like black forest gateau (although he ended up absolutely loving this one). I normally despise trifle, I have texture issues with it, but I became obsessed with this one.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/retro-trifle
I left out the whole custard cream thing as I thought that sounded weird. The only clotted cream I could get for the custard was a brandy clotted cream but it added a nice flavour since it's a non-sherry based trifle. My custard wasn't quite as thick as it should have been though and my bowl wasn't quite large enough (you definitely want one bigger than you think I would say!) so we had some custard overflow once I put the cream on it. Certainly didn't affect the flavour though and the jelly especially was a huge hit in it. I did make a joke about the beef and pea layer being missing but my DC didn't get it so I'll have to educate them in the new year.