The Great Oscar Dinner 2018

Hi everyone! 

I think I've said this many many times already, but oh my it has been a long time since my last post! A good number of years in fact. Running has kind of taken over my life, along with long hours at work, but fear not! Some things have changed and I surely have not been sitting still :) I have many posts lined up to show you my fabulous new creations (and fabulous new failures as well LOL) so I do hope to be blogging a lot more again from now on. I've also changed the layout of the blog a bit, what do you think?

Originally, I had a different post lined up for my "I'm back" post, but it's already been a week and I have not yet shown anyone my food creations for the Oscar Party of 2018. Well, it wasn't really a party this time, both myself and the bf are currently injured so it was a nice evening on the sofa with nice food, so let's call it the Great Oscar Dinner of 2018 instead ;)

For anyone who needs a reminder of who was nominated, here are the nominees for Best Picture:

• Get Out
• The Shape of Water
• Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri
• Dunkirk
• The Darkest Hour
• The Phantom Thread
• Lady Bird
• The Post
• Call Me By Your Name

The last few years the Oscar Dinner has been happening even though I have nt blogged about it really, but the effort around it has become more practical as opposed to grand, I guess. All the nominees are still represented, but I just don't have to spend quite as much time in the kitchen. This year, for example, the prep took me a few hours which is so much better than the few days it took me in previous years! Also, we moved a little while ago and most of my decorations were given away so I didn't even have the fancy name cards for the dishes. So are you hungry yet? Let's get this dinner started!

The Apperitif:

Get Out: "iced tea", a really nice bourbon-based iced tea. After all, this movie is all about deceit and misdirection. The word I found for it while looking for recipes was "Trompe L'Oeil"

The Shape of Water: devilled eggs, how could I make anything other than eggs to represent this movie? It was the first I'd made these, and while I did add way too much pepper it was actually not bad. So less pepper next time ;)

Three Billboards: I was really stuck for this one. The only thing the internet showed me was a cheese board with three cheeses! More research then took me to specialty foods of Missouri, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that (according to the Internet anyway), sliced meats are traditional there. Lots of French charcuterie was had as a result.

The Starter:

 Dunkirk: fish cakes. This may seem like a bit of a cop out, but I couldn't make moules frites as we were having something else for the main course, so I had to think of something 'fishy'. Yes it was an easy way out, yet so delicious!

The Main Course:

 Lady Bird: spatchcock. This was the most obvious one. Not having seen the movie yet, this decision was based partially on Internet research showing a Thanksgiving dinner featuring in the movie, as well as just the word 'bird' in the title, and as there was no way I was going to cook a turkey for two people this was the best solution. Tiny bird anyone?

The Darkest Hour: roast potatoes. The breakfast scene in the movie is great, yet not exactly suitable for dinner (no, we're not having brinner! LOL). The most British thing I could think of for dinner were roast potatoes, which worked out perfectly with the rest of the dish.

The Phantom Thread: aparagus. This was a tough one. Again, not having seen the movie, I needed some inspiration. The asparagu scene stood out from everything else I read, and again that worked really well with the overal dish. I actually ended up roasting the potatoes with the asparagus in the same pan, saving even more time!

The Side Dish:

The Post: Vietnamese salad. This dish actually came up when I looked for recipes for 'Get Out', but as the back story of the movie is all about the Vietnam war, I thought it could also work for the Post. Philly Cheese Steak was just not going to happen with the list of dishes I already had. This was the worst of the recipes though, and we hardly ate it. I heated it up the next day to use in a stir fry which was not too bad, but I don't think I'll be making this again.

The Dessert:

Call Me By Your Name: bourbon-glazed peaches. I might as well use more bourbon as I had to buy some for the cocktail for 'Get Out' anyway, and the movie has one scene involving a peach (very 'American Pie), so this recipe was ideal. I served the warm peaches with ice cream instead of yogurt. There was supposed to be lots of bourbon glaze, but I think the peaches were not yet ripe enough as the result was just a bourbon soaked peach really. Need to try this one again.

All in all not a bad dinner, I think! It didn't take ages and all movies were represented quite well. I've linked all the recipes above if you want to try some of these yourself. 

Thanks for reading and take care!