Dinner & A Movie: Recipes Inspired by Our Oscar Picks

The 2014 Oscar Nominations were released yesterday, and we’ve all been sucked into the awards show excitement ever since the People’s Choice Awards happened. The nominees for Best Picture, if you haven’t already heard, are American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Personally, I have a feeling that American Hustle might take the award based on it’s successful run in awards show thus far, but there are some serious contenders, especially Gravity. Since we already covered American Hustle as a Dinner & a Movie post back in December when it premiered in theaters and we covered Gravity in the fall, I decided to round up recipes based on some of my other top picks to win Best Picture.

12 Years a Slave + Buttermilk Pie with Blackberry Sauce (via Joy The Baker)

(image via NY Post)

The New York Post describes this Oscar nom as “a brutally powerful and emotionally devastating film that takes great pains to rip any lingering vestiges of romanticism from America’s most shameful institution.” In the film, Solomon Northup uses the juice from blackberries to write a letter.  Since this was a powerful scene in the film, it only seemed natural to feature blackberries in a recipe. This buttermilk pie with blackberry sauce is the perfect fit.

Dallas Buyers Club + Drunken Steak (via The Helpful Husband)

(image via London Film Review)

The New York Times sums up Dallas Buyers Club, saying “The film, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée from a script by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack, tells the story of Ron Woodroof, a Texas electrician and rodeo rider who, after receiving a diagnosis of H.I.V. in 1985, took his treatment into his own hands and helped others with the disease obtain medication not legally available in the United States at the time. ” I based this one on the steakhouse scene between Dr. Saks and Ron Woodroof, but also on Ron’s character (played by Matthew McConaughey). Ron is the kind of man that likes to drink and engage in risky behavior, so a drunken version of the usual steakhouse fare seemed to be a good fit.

Philomena + Western Omelette Potato Skins (via Skinny Taste)

(image via)

Philomena is a fantastic film, starring Judi Dench (who is pretty much always amazing.) According to the Washington Post, “Dench plays the title character, a woman who, as a pregnant teenager in 1950s Ireland, was forced to give her son up for adoption after giving birth to him in a Catholic abbey. ” Dench’s character finds herself at an omelette bar in an American hotel at one point in the film, so these Western omelette potato skins seemed like the perfect way to fuse fun food and this great movie.

Which film is your pick for Best Picture?