Throwing Our Annual Oscar Party

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In the bowl of your mixer cream butter and sugar until smooth.
3. Beat in extracts and eggs.
4. In a separate bowl combine baking powder with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients. The dough will be very stiff. If it becomes too stiff for your mixer turn out the dough onto a countertop surface. Wet your hands and finish off kneading the dough by hand.
5. DO NOT CHILL THE DOUGH. Divide into workable batches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut. You want these cookies to be on the thicker side (closer to 1/4 inch rather than 1/8).
6. Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

Frosting (Also found at Katrina’s Kitchen)

• 2 Cups shortening
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract 
• 8 Cups powdered sugar
• 1/8 Cup heavy cream (more or less to desired consistency)
• food coloring, if desired

For the Frosting:

1. In the bowl of your mixer beat shortening until smooth and creamy.
2. Mix in vanilla (and almond extract if using).
3. Add powdered sugar (1 cup at a time) until combined, then add  cream & mix until smooth and spreading consistency. Adjust cream to desired frosting thickness
4. Add a few drops of color, if desired. We obviously added coloring to make gray, and used a black icing pen to make the Heptapod language.

Fences: Rose’s Ham Sandwiches

Throughout Fences, Rose (Viola Davis) is often in the kitchen and she makes a few ham sandwiches throughout the film. And no, this isn’t why Viola was SO deserving of her (overdue) Oscar. It was all the ugly crying. 😉 No recipe necessary here.

Hacksaw Ridge: Guts Fruit Salad

First, excuse the typo on the food sign. I made them very, very quickly this year. I’ll do better next time. As a war movie, Hacksaw Ridge is a bit bloody. Although it doesn’t quite look like guts, this salad is as creative as we could get.

Red Fruit Salad Recipe (found at Pip and Ebby)

Ingredients

• 2 Cups cherries
• 2 16 oz. containers strawberries
• 3 6 oz. containers raspberries
• 1 lemon
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 Tablespoon fresh chopped basil

Directions

1. Chop and combine cherries and strawberries in bowl.
2. Add raspberries.

3. In a small bowl, combine: Juice from 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons sugar, and basil

4. Mix well and drizzle over the fruit. Gently stir with a large spoon until the fruit is coated thoroughly. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

There’s a funny scene in Hell or High Water where Jeff Bridges’ character enters a diner and the waitress informs him that he can only order two things: a baked potato or steak. So we combined the two into one: steak fries. A lot easier to make for big group of people. Call us lazy.

Hidden Figures: Lemonade

Food doesn’t really play a big role in Hidden Figures. However, the bathroom does. One of the film’s most iconic lines is: “We all pee the same color.” Thus, lemonade. You get the idea. Brian even made it fresh too! Not from powder!

La La Land: Tapas

Poor La La Land. Many of the pundits were saying the film didn’t deserve to win Best Picture. They got their wish. (And if you’re asking me, Moonlight was the better movie of the two). Anyway, tapas play a pivotal role in the film and we went with a really easy recipe: bacon wrapped dates. Literally, just dates wrapped in bacon, but they were delicious. I’m not sure Sebastion (Ryan Gosling) would approve, but we’ll never know.

Lion: Jalebis

Every year, there’s always a film or two with a very obvious menu item. This year Lion was one. Jalebis mark a turning point in the film. They really were fairly easy to make too. And for all of you Americans reading this – they taste a lot like donuts.

Jalebi Recipe (Found at Food.com)

Ingredients

• 1 cup  all-purpose flour (known as ‘maida’ in Hindi)
• 2 teaspoons  gram flour (known as ‘besan’ in Hindi)
• 1⁄2cup  plain yogurt, beaten (known as ‘dahi’ in Hindi)
• 1⁄2cup  water
• 1 pinch  baking soda
• 500 ml  ghee or 500 ml oil
• 500 ml sugar syrup

Directions

1. Put flour in a mixing bowl.
2. Add gramflour.
3. Mix well.
4. Add yogurt and water.
5. Mix well, using a spoon, ensuring that no lumps remain.
6. Mix to obtain what is technically called,”ribbon consistency”.
7. (Ribbon consistency simply requires you to mix for about 5-7 minutes, really well, so that when the mixture is dropped from the mixing spoon into the mixing bowl, it should fall like a ribbon. Don’t let the term scare you, it’s pretty easy, you just got to).
8. Add a pinch of baking soda.
9. At this point, this mixture (batter) can be refrigerated if you are planning on making the jalebis later.
10. If you plan to make the jalebis instantly, put the mixture in a jalebi bottle (you get these bottles to make jalebis in the market).
11. If you dont have a jalebi bottle, you can use an empty well-washed and thoroughly clean, tomato ketchup bottle.
12. Heat oil on low-medium flame in a frying pan.
13. Meanwhile, spoon the above prepared batter in the icing bag fitted with the star nozzle/jalebi bottle/ tomato ketchup bottle.
14. Drop the batter by squeezing the bottle/icing bag, into the hot oil, in concentric circular motion to make the jalebis.
15. Lightly brown on either side.
16. Repeat until all the batter is used up.
17. On low flame heat the pre-prepared sugar-water syrup (known in Hindi as”chashni”).
18. Add few threads of saffron to the syrup- these look really pretty on the jalebis later when you dip the latter into them.
19. Now, drain the excess oil from the jalebis.
20. Drop into the sugar-water syrup.
21. Dip well, toss well, to coat the jalebis in the syrup.
22. Drain excess syrup from the jalebis.

Manchester By The Sea Salt Water Taffy

This one was a stretch, but a fun play on words, right? Plus it was so much easier than making something like lobster (since characters in the film are lobster fishermen) or sea salt caramels.

Moonlight: Arroz Con Pollo

Like Lion, Moonlight was the other obvious food connection. Arroz Con Pollo is vital to the film’s third act. It’s really good too. You should try this! Also, how great is it that Moonlight won Best Picture?!

Crockpot Arroz Con Pollo (Found at Food.com)

Ingredients

• 2(3 lb)  whole chickens, cut into pieces
• 1(14 1/2 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes
• 1(16 ounce) bag frozen peas
• 2(14 ounce) cans chicken broth
• 1(12 ounce) jar red peppers, drained and cut into strips
• 2(8 ounce) boxesof spanish-syle rice yellow rice mix
• 2 teaspoons garlic salt

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in the cooking vessel. Stir well. Cover and cook: Low-8 hrs (or) High-5 hours.

And that was our Oscar menu! Until next year, happy film going!