Tag Archives: oscar themed food
Oscars 2013: Zero Dark Thirty
Well, here it is! The final Best Picture nominee of the Oscar themed food posts, Zero Dark Thirty. I have been putting it out there what a hard time I’ve had coming up with fun food for this movie. I’ve loved all the ideas many of you have emailed me! Zero Dark Thirsty, Zero Dark Thirtini, Gyro Dark Thirty, Zero Dark Chocolate Cake and what I think is my favorite, Hot on the Trail Mix! I promised a $10 coffee gift card to any reader who sent in an idea which would inspire a post on Food It Forward. So, Cara, I am sending a Starbucks card your way!
Thank you all for such great ideas! The hot on the trail mix helped me think outside the box of the movie title. Ready for it?
Osama Bin Hidin’ (In Yo’ Dessert)
I’m kind of hoping I have some readers who read the title with the word desert, instead of dessert. Anyhow, here’s how it goes.
Step One: Gather your ingredients. I have chosen a dark chocolate brownie mix, dark chocolate ice cream and a dark salted flavor caramel sauce and chocolate covered cherries. Remember, think dark. You know I am usually not a fan of boxed stuff, but Ghiradelli brownies are always an exception in my world.
Step Two: Hide Osama at the bottom of your dessert dish. Please don’t think I mean anything by Osama being a chocolate covered cherry. The cherry inside is more about blood than a sweet heart. Do you feel sad for OBL, all alone in that dark dish? Me neither.
I didn’t do this the first go around, but I’d suggest melting your chocolate covered cherry for 10-15 seconds in the microwave. He’ll be easier to kill that way. I over did it at about 25 seconds.
Step Three: Hide Bin Laden in a cave of ice cream. Cover that ice cream with rocky mounds of brownie. Drizzle your dark topping of choice.
It’s hunting time! You and your crew can each go searching for the Target. No torture involved.
Now, you and your guests go in for the kill!
Like I said before, Osama will be easier to kill and a bit bloodier if you melt him in the hot Middle Eastern microwave first.
DISCLAIMER:
This is all in the name of the Oscars and the movie, Zero Dark Thirty. I have not seen the movie. I don’t condone killing anyone. Hey, Al Qaeda, I’m sure Osama was nice to some of you. In other words, although I am 35, I’m still to young to die. Please don’t come find me and kill me.
This fear has probably come from the old neighbors I just ran into at Target. They told me a story of how Homeland Security now uses their old phone number to catch a Terrorist, who….GET THIS….still lives about 50 yards from me. Huh?! They had to flee the country, but came back for the daughter’s medical needs. These ladies either have a serious exaggeration problem, or I need to buy an attack dog. Not sure which one. They would always bring Dallas cute gifts and love on him when he was a baby. So, I kind of believe them out of guilt. How’s that for movie-style drama?
Oscars 2013: Les Miserables
Someday, someday I say, I will learn how to type an accent with my keyboard and it won’t look like this: Les Mise’rables. That’s an apostrophe not an accent. Am I right? Am I blind? Am I hungry? Nope, I just ate a bowl of Les wonderful soup.
This is the second to last Best Picture nominee post and it has been a tough one! There were too many options for this movie and I couldn’t narrow it down to something easy and yummy without some contemplation.
On the way home from our weekend getaway, Jy (Mr. Movie Fuel) gave me plenty of fun ideas. My favorite? Les Fisherables. Really? Les Fisherables? After discussing the possibility of injecting a baguette with wine and brie, Jy stumbled onto the fact that French Onion Soup was too, a meal of the poor. Bingo! I’m poor, so it sounded like a match made in heaven.
As we all know, plenty of chefs have had their hands on French Onion Soup and have classed up the beefy pot quite a bit. I’m doubting the French who rose up against the aristocracy were preparing their soups with organic croutons, Gruyère and sherry. I’m thinking more along the lines of rotten onions and hopefully some bone broth!
Luckily, I found a recipe that is light on the wallet, good for the body and easy on the cook. I’ve added a slice of french bread into my soup, which is not done in the, as it is meant to be a “clean recipe”. The Gracious Pantry is an awesome site to read about clean eating and find almost any recipe to replace your old, dirty, fat food. Did I just make you drool there? Mmm, old, dirty fat food!
- 4 cups beef broth (I used the organic “Pacific” brand)
- 2 onions
- 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- Parmesan Cheese
- Clean and slice your onions. (Slice them thin!)
- In a soup pot, sauté your onions in the olive oil until they are soft.
- Add beef broth and vinegar to the pot and boil until the liquid has cooked down by approximately half.
- Serve sprinkled with approximately 2 tbsp. parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.
Again, bread makes the world better, so I’ve added a slice to my soup. Yeah, I’ll suffer the gluten consequences, but who am I to talk of suffering? I never had to diet the way Anne Hathaway did for her role in Les Mis. That, my friends, is suffering. Although her millions of dollars may have soothed her hunger pains. Wait, does cash have carbs?
Oscars 2013: Amour
Have you seen Amour? Most of us haven’t, right?
It looks like a beautiful, sad, sad, movie. I just read the plot, complete with spoilers (I won’t add any here) and yep, beautiful and sad are right! This isn’t on my must see list, as is Beast of The Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook. However, if you are a sucker for a movie that jumps, no…pounds on your heart-strings, get your booty out there and see this movie.
I am more than happy to drink about this movie though! Take a look at the Catatonic, a drink especially made for this year’s Oscars.
The tribute to Amour is in the name, but honey, you best believe Mama when I say this mug of love will work with ANY movie you wanna see! If you are a lazy dater (like my husband and me), you can set up a night at home with a Catatonic, a Netflix disc, some pajamas and mismatching socks. Perfect.
You are going to need some Adult Chocolate Milk, which was waiting for me on the top shelf in the spirit aisle at my grocery store. Can we get a new name for spirits, yet? That word just means way too many things. I had a lot of spirit in high school. My friend Jody knows well of my jealousy over her “Most Spirited” yearbook win. She loves to remind me that it was SHE who owned the orange Guess! jeans, not me. That was back between 1991-1995, the years of grunge and clunky shoes. Skinny, bold colored pants were not as hot then as they are now.
Oh yeah, spirits.
Spirit is also used to describe ghosts, it’s a name for Jesus’ energy left on earth, it’s the way uneducated folks spell Sprite. Can’t we just agree to call it liqueur? Better yet, let’s call it booze. I don’t have to use spell check when I call it booze. Go get some Adult Chocolate Milk where you find the rest of your booze.
There are ENDLESS options for this bottle of creamy chocolate infused with vodka! Think of the adult chocolate shakes, the frappuccinos, the puddings, the popsicles, the mochas. ACK! I’m jealous! I’ll be saving one of my weekly DAMY treat times for an Adult Chocolate Milk drink, fo’ shiz.
I left the Creme De Menthe that is called for out of this drink. Mostly because Safeway didn’t have any, but also because I don’t love it and new I could make some mint-infused simple syrup instead. Six minutes were stolen from my day to make homemade whipped cream, which is so easy. Grab a little carton of whipping cream, dump as much sugar as you’d like and turn your mixer on high for a few minutes. Homemade whipped cream tastes a million times better than the canned stuff and doesn’t have corn syrup or other crazy ingredients.
I took a few sips from my mug and Jy guzzled his whole 8 oz. down. This drink is creamy, dreamylicious. The Starbucks hot chocolate packets we used really pushed our Catatonics over the top.
- 2 T Adult Chocolate Milk™
- 2 T creme de menthe
- 6 oz. hot chocolate
- 1 oz. whipped cream
- Pour the Adult Chocolate Milk™ and creme de menthe into a large coffee mug and stir. Add hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream. Sprinkle with chocolate shavings and top with a cherry if desired!
A big thank you to Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits for this recipe, it’s a keeper!
*Do you guys think they will change their name to Deutsch Family Wine & Booze? Yeah, probably not. Let’s keep it classy, kids.
Oscars 2013: Life of Pi
Next movie up, Life of Pi! After dropping $15 for a matinee in 3DXD, I was a little worried that I had fallen prey to a cinema gimmick. Half way through the film, I realized I had never experienced something as visually stunning as what I was witnessing. My next thought? I’m totally gonna make Life of Pi Fish Pie!
Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, is a magical adventure story centering on Pi Patel, the precocious son of a zoo keeper. Dwellers in Pondicherry, India, the family decides to move to Canada, hitching a ride on a huge freighter. After a shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a 26-foot lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, all fighting for survival. - IMDB
Fish pie is not a dish we hear a lot about. I had vaguely remembered seeing a recipe for a fishy casserole in Jamie Oliver’s book, Jamie’s Food Revolution. Many posts mention my love for Jamie and his recipes. I’ve yet to make one of his dishes that didn’t turn out. Was that a double negative, or only one and a half? I still need to buy Jamie’s Food Revolution, I’ve checked it out from the library many times over, yet haven’t dropped the cash for the actual book. (Birthday, Jy?)
You can find near anything through Google, yet I could NOT find this recipe online, written for an American cook. I had to ask the fishmonger at Sprouts what 1 kilogram of fish means pound-wise. I had a list of fish that I hadn’t heard of before either. Lacking in both math and fish knowledge, I wound up purchasing enough cod and tilapia to equal somewhere close to two pounds.
- 5 large potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 eggs
- 2 handfuls spinach or kale
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 carrot, halved and diced
- olive oil
- 1¼ cup heavy cream
- 2 cups grated cheddar
- juice of 1 lemon
- 2 pounds white and boneless fish
- salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees
- Put the potatoes into a pot of salted, boiling water and boil for 10 minutes
- At the same time, hard boil the 2 eggs and quarter when cooked and cooled
- Steam the spinach in a colander over the pan that has the potatoes for 1-2 minutes
- When the spinach is done, remove from colander and squeeze out excess water
- Drain the potatoes in the colander
- In a separate pan, sautee the onions and carrots in a little olive oil for about 8-10 minutes
- Add the cream and bring just to a boil
- Remove from the heat and add the Cheddar cheese and lemon juice
- Put the spinach, fish and eggs in an large casserole dish
- Pour the creamy sauce over the fish
- Mash the cooked potatoes – adding a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper
- Spread the potatoes on top of the fish
- Place in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes
The original recipe has a few changes and additions. For the fish, Jamie uses a mix of smoked Haddock, salmon and raw King Prawns. He also adds some tomatoes, fresh chili and celery. For the original British version of this dish, visit Jamie’s site. The version I recreated was found at Grouprecipes.com and written by the elusive, Debra47.
I wasn’t sure what would end up coming out of the oven, but I am happy to say this was a seriously comforting casserole. Perfect for a cold winter night, paired with a Hefeweizen (or diet coke) and two fuzzy socks on your feet. Enjoy!
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