I’m a bit overdue in posting this, but it’s well worth it, so make sure you read on.
While I rarely watch all (or any, for that matter) of the Academy Award-nominated films, I have friends over each year to watch the Oscars.
The menu is different every year– we’ve gone from elegant appetizers to a panini bar and this year everyone brought a dish, potluck-style. The potluck is definitely the way to go. It was so easy!
We made a couple of dishes and both were total keepers!
First, these mushroom polenta bites. I basically followed my friend Kelsey’s recipe on her blog, A touch of lovely. I opted for the tomato sauce as the spread and the chubby polenta loaf from Trader Joe’s. I threw the polenta in the freezer while I cooked the mushrooms and after a few minutes of chilling it cut very easily into perfect rounds. I followed the instructions on the package for the polenta. Our “bites” were larger than bites and they were delicious!
For dessert I made the Smitten Kitchen’s buttered popcorn chocolate chip cookies. I really had no idea what to expect with these — I love both buttered popcorn and chocolate chip cookies independently — and was pleasantly surprised. These cookies were delicious! I substituted Trader Joe’s gluten-free all-purpose flour and couldn’t even tell there wasn’t gluten in the cookies. Next time I would have made less popcorn and would’ve added more melted butter to the popcorn. Try out the recipe and let me know what you think!
Each year I have guests fill out their ballots, and just like every other year, my friend Kimmy won the award for the most-properly-guessed winners. There are some great ballot designs out there and we chose this ballot design.
I basically have a party-in-a-box for the Oscars that lives in my storage room. It includes a banner, set of silver chargers, a gilded vase, a silver and gold ice bucket, and several movie-themed party plates and decor. This year I found some great ideas on Pinterest and acted on a couple of them: my own Oscar statue and gilded, glittered champagne flutes.
I’m calling my Oscar statue “Oskar” and he started off as a very unfortunate Ken doll from the Goodwill.
Oskar cost $1.99 (he came with a Barbie that looked like she had leprosy; she went in the garbage) and I super-glued his hip joints standing straight and then his feet to a wood base from Michael’s. After he was dried, I spray painted him gold. After several coats, here he is!
I bought the champagne flutes at Target for $1 each and the Krylon gold glitter spray paint (which I wouldn’t recommend) for ~$7 from Michael’s. I had the gold spray paint on hand. On any given day I have at least 3 cannisters of this stuff in my basement!
I started by thoroughly washing the glasses with soap and water, taped the bottom at the stem with painters tape and sprayed, sprayed, and sprayed some more.
I tried using just the glitter spray paint and it didn’t cover well, so I started with the solid gold. I added the glitter spray paint on the second coat. All in all I am very happy with how these turned out!
It’s never too early to start planning for next year’s Academy Awards! Visit my Pinterest “parties” board for about a million ideas.
Yay, so glad you loved the polenta bites!!! Thank you for sharing, what a great Friday surprise…and love those champagne glasses. Xoxo!
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