2018 Oscar Party Recipes

And the Best Oscar Entree goes to...YOU! Come and accept your award-winning chow and pass it around to your Oscar party guests.

And click on any Oscar Entree nominee name to be directed to the original blog post for all the award-winning recipe prose and cinematic culinary imagery.

Let's start things off with a bang, it's the Oscar Entree nominated "Dunkirk" Beanie Weenies!

Dunkirk - Movie Trailer

This rousing flick, directed by genre-hopping Christoper Nolan, is about WWII British soldiers stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk as the Nazis close in for the kill.

But don't worry. The British love their whistle-berries, so it's Baked Beans with Wieners to the rescue!

"Dunkirk" Beanie Weenies - Recipe

Rising from the murky depths, my next Oscar Entree Nominee, "The Shape of Water"Alligator Po'boy Sandwich, may give you the creeps.  

 After one crunchy bite, your head will swim with pungent Cajun spices and exotic reptile tastes. Alligator is very similar in texture and flavor to a pork chop, but with an extra seafood tang. An Alligator Po'boy Sandwich is typically dressed in lettuce and tomato on a slice of French bread slathered with mayo.

The Shape of Water - Movie Trailer

Is the main creature character, in this imaginative movie creation by Director Guillermo del Toro, a fish or reptile, or maybe a combination of both? 

While the alligator flavor may leave you scratching your head, this recipe is ready for its close-up taste test. So after viewing the recipe below, go ahead and give my Best Oscar Entree a big webbed green thumbs up!

"The Shape of Water"Alligator Po'boy Sandwich - VIDEO

My next Oscar-Nominated Entree is "Phantom Thread" Shepherd's Pie. Film director Paul Thomas Anderson weaves a quixotic yarn of a story, which is a part art-house movie and British costume drama.

And the director teams with actor Daniel Day-Lewis once again, who plays a proper gown couturier, set in 1950's London, England. His character falls for a young waitress, and soon enough, the sequins fly. 

The most English of entrees is a Shepherd's Pie, which commoners and royalty enjoy. It's simple pub food composed of ground beef or lamb, peas, and carrots cooked in a beef and tomato sauce, finally crowned with mashed potatoes. Click here to see how this Scrooge Yoeman does it.

Phantom Thread - Movie Trailer

My Oscar Entree, "Lady Bird" Curried White Chicken Deli Salad, is based on a Trader Joe's deli favorite that struggling students, like the movie's main character Lady Bird, would surely dine on. 

This chick flick is one that guys can get into. I saw it and totally got it. The mom and daughter dynamic starring Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, directed by Greta Gerwig, is indeed Oscar-worthy.

Lady Bird - Movie Trailer

If you don't know about our local Trader Joe's markets, they stock food that is cheap but high-quality. They carry specialized frozen and fresh packaged foods, locally baked bread, organic veggies and fruit, hormone-free meat, chicken, and fish, along with a huge selection of exotic beer, wine, and spirits.

My cheapSkate version of Curried White Chicken Deli Salad is so yummy, even Academy voters used to glitzy dining would cast their vote for this Best Oscar Entree. 

Twilight Zone influenced, Oscar-nominated Get Out is a black man's paranoiac nightmare come true when he visits his white girlfriend's family. This is not your "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" kinda movie, where everyone becomes enlightened about race relations.

Get Out - Movie Trailer

I can't give away too much about this flick - no spoilers here. But I can give you all the details for my Oscar Entrée: "Get Out" Black Beans with White Rice. 

My recipe's combination of the sweet and sour Cuban-style  Black Beans, with boring White Rice, is a miscegenation of flavors. 

So let's all get along and agree that this Best Oscar Entree is horrifically delicious.

"Get Out" Black Beans with White Rice - VIDEO

To misquote Sir  Winston Churchill: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, sweat, and cheap$kate ingredients."

And the Oscar-Nominated Entree, "Darkest Hour" Fish and Chips," delivers on all the above.

This stirring biopic of Sir Winston Churchill's leadership as Hitler swept through Europe is a rousing viewing experience. And lead actor Gary Oldman is the Best Actor to beat.

Darkest Hour - Movie Trailer

For the fish, I use cheap pollack fish that is beer-batter-coated and deep-fried. For proper chips or fries, I use a double-frying method on russet potatoes to get extra-crunchy fries.

So belly up to the bar and order Churchill's favorite drink, Scotch whiskey, along with the pub grub favorite Fish and Chips. Watch my recipe video below to see how this Cheap$kate Corker does it. My entrée will lighten any dark day.

"Darkest Hour" Fish & Chips - Video

Do try out any of my Oscar Party Entrees - you're sure to get a Standing O. So have your acceptance speech ready because the golden statuette for Best Entree at an Oscar Party belongs to you, the host with the most.

And I'll leave you with a video I made a while ago, where the Academy of Motion Pictures had an Oscar exhibit, along with a podium with a real Oscar. All you had to do was stand in line and take a picture with it -- well, you can be sure I showed up for that! Just check out the video below:

Beanie Weenies! - VIDEO

Don't tell my wife about this blog post; she would not like anyone to know of her guiltiest culinary pleasure! It was she who turned me on to this delectable dish. I'm really scraping the bottom of the can here -- so, let's keep this Beanie Weenie recipe between you and me.

I can imagine Amy in her bachelorette days, with another magazine article deadline looming, and no time to hit the market to select fresh veggies for a nutritious salad -- and as a last resort, rummaging through the cupboard for a can of baked beans. Then, sighing in relief, she finds a few wieners left in a package of hot dogs in the back of the refrigerator. Deadlines call for desperate measures.

Don't look down your noses, now -- hey, I've tried it, and it's freaking good! This is cupboard cuisine at its cheapest and quickest. A similar recipe brought from England (beans with bacon) kept the early Colonialists fed through bitterly cold winters. New Englanders soon started adding maple sugar, or molasses, to create the classic Boston Baked Beans used in this recipe (read all about the origins here.) So, you will be honoring our Colonial ancestors by trying The Chintzy Chef's last budget entree!

Back when my wife introduced me to her secret cravings, hot dogs were a traditional mix of pork and beef.  Now you can get "natural," kosher, or nitrate and hormone-free wieners. You can kick this recipe up a notch by substituting fresh-ground, encased sausages from your local deli or specialty market.

As for canned baked beans, your selection is somewhat limited. I've found Bush's Baked Beans a good brand, while the British swear by Heinz (funny video of two English blokes fixing them on toast for breakfast here). If you have a favorite, use it. For this recipe, in keeping with my blog theme, I used an off-brand product bought cheaply at my local 99c Only Store. Homemade Boston Baked Beans are on my to-do list; I'm just waiting until it gets cold enough for this slow-baking oven recipe, so do check back for that.

Just watch the video below to see how fast a plate of sweetened legumes with frankfurters can disappear. The video takes you through the making and consuming of my Beanie Weenie recipe, using an animation technique called "stop motion."

You've seen it before, popularized through the Gumby and Pokey TV show for children, or my favorite claymation movies featuring Wallace and Gromit. In the original 1933 King Kong movie, the giant ape was really just a foot-high model.

Click on the following animators to view visually baroque uses of stop motion from international film festival favorites, the Quay Brothers and Jan Svankmajer. And, the most outrageous use of stop motion is in my "Chasing Sea Urchin" video, where I duke it out with a live sea urchin on an air hockey table! Click here to see it -- stop motion starts at 2 minutes and 20 seconds.

So, if you are under the gun and need a quick protein and carb-loaded boost, you could do worse than my wife's Beanie Weenies recipe.  Do you have a quick and cheap guilty pleasure? Leave a comment describing it, so I don't feel so bad divulging a culinary couple's dark secret!

  Beanie Weenies! - Video

Play it here. The video runs 58 seconds. 

To view or embed from YouTube, click here.

Ingredients (2 servings)

• 2 - 4 hotdog wieners - or your favorite sausages.
• 1 can of Baked Beans or Pork n' Beans - I used a 27-ounce can, but you can use a smaller one.
• A teaspoon of oil for frying wieners
• Beans & Wienies have plenty of salt to my taste, but add a bit of black pepper to taste.

Directions
Pour beans into a pot to heat through. 

Add oil to medium heated saute pan. Split hot dogs and cook in a pan until browned on each side, about 3 - 5 minutes.

Serve beans on a plate and top with sauteed hot dog. The drink of choice with this entree is a mug of beer!