Kindergarten Grub (#114)

 

Our May movie this year was Kindergarten Cop. This film was one of Arnold's first comedies and is considered a classic. For dinner, I had a lot of options. I thought of building our theme around the kid who was eating other people's lunches. The thought there is that I could have asked everyone to make a packed school lunch and then done a meal swap. The risk there is that I was bound to have a few guests that would forget. I also considered making premade school lunches for this, like I had done for The Breakfast Club. That theme was a pretty big hit, so it probably would have worked well,but ultimately I decided to go in a different direction.

Though there wasn't really any major food scenes in this film, there were a ton of food references. There is a character in the film who plays Arnold's partner and she is constantly snacking or talking about food. 

This left me with a lot of options. Though she did talk about a lot of food, there was only a few scenes of her eating. In one scene, she's eating a sandwich from a vending machine. In another scene, she is eating a pasta dish made by her chef fiancee. Then, there is the restaurant scene where she eats blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream.

Ultimately the pasta scene seemed significant enough to be the base of my dinner meal. I wanted the dinner theme to fit the movie more closely though. So I decided to reimagine the dish as something that a kindergarten student would eat. The dish she ate was pasta aglio e olio, which is basically spaghetti cooked in olive oil and garlic. I decided to alter the recipe to a buttered noodle dish, as that seems more kindergarten friendly.

Buttered Noodles W/ Garlic

The pasta dish in the movie was pasta aglio e olio, which is pasta with garlic and olive oil. To make my dish more child friendly, I decided to reinvent this dish as pasta aglio e burro, or pasta with garlic and butter. For extra fun, I decided to make this pasta dish something that we would eat with our hands.

This was a pretty simple dish to make. To start, I used boxed spaghetti noodles. To make the dish more child friendly, I was planning to break my noodles in half to shorten them. I ended up not needing to though, because my grocery store sells "pot size" spaghetti noodles which are half the length of standard spaghetti noodles.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs of half sized spaghetti noodles
• 1 1/2 sticks butter
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• pasta water
• 1 cup finely grated parmesan
• Optional toppings: parsley and red pepper flakes

Directions:

1. Boil pasta following box instructions.
2. While cooking pasta, melt butter at a low heat in a pan or wok. I prefer to use a wok when tossing ingredients, but if that is not available, a large pan will work.
3. Stir garlic and salt into butter and raise temp to where the butter just starts to lightly sizzle.
4. Once pasta has reached al dente, use tongs to move the spaghetti to the wok or pan and begin tossing in garlic butter. Don't overcook pasta in the pot since it will cook a little more while being tossed the hot butter. Also, don't pour the pasta water down the sink.
5. While tossing the noodles, occasionally ladle some pasta water into the dish. The starch in the water will help turn the butter into more of a sauce. It will also help make the pasta sticky, which will be helpful since this will be served as finger food. It doesn't take much water for this. One or two ladle fulls will probably be enough.
6. Once the pasta seems evenly coated, remove from heat, and toss in parmesan cheese. Alternatively, you can let guests add parmesan to their own dishes.

I served this dish with optional toppings of parley and red pepper flakes, which are both common ingredients in the original pasta aglio e olio.

With the pasta, I served dinosaur chicken nuggets and fruit to make it feel like a complete balanced school lunch. The dinosaur nuggets I cooked with my oven's air fryer setting. For fruit, I had fresh strawberries, but also made fruit snacks available. 

I decided not to have utensils available and to serve dinner as finger foods. This added to the platfulness of the dish and making it feel like it was made for small children.

I served the dishes in cardboard trays to feel more like a cafeteria lunch. I meant to buy trays that had separate compartments, but that didn't work out. Along with the food, I had juice boxes available as drinks.

Blueberry Crumble

In the film, Arnold's partner orders a blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. Because I had decided to go with cafeteria style food, I decided to make a blueberry pie-like dish that I could bake in a baking pan. This would fit the cafeteria look and would also make it easier for me to cook a larger batch than a pie would allow.

Filling Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 6 tbsp cornstarch
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 8 cups frozen blueberries
• 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 sticks room temperature butter

Directions:

1. Mix white sugar, brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and salt for the filling in a large bowl until evenly combined. 
2. Stir in blueberries, lemon juice, and vanilla extract until evenly mixed. Look out for any clumps of sugar or cornstarch and break them apart if they appear.
   
3. Cover bowl and move to fridge overnight.
4. The next day, grease a 9x13 baking pan with some butter.
5. Mix the flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the topping in a large bowl until evenly combined.
6. Dice butter into small cubes and mash into the dry mix with clean dry hands. The result will be lumpy and crumbly.
   
7. Pour blueberries into pan and spread evenly. Top with crumble until completely covered. You may not need to use all of your crumble to get full coverage.
   
8. Bake at 375°F until the dish is bubbling not only on the edge, but also in the center. This could take an hour or more.
   
9. Remove and let cool for at least 45 minutes to an hour before serving.

If you want, you can make this dish ahead of time, and reheat it by putting it in the oven at 300°F for 10 to 15 minutes. This dish would be best served warm with vanilla ice cream. If that's not available, you can serve it with whipped cream. I served mine in paper cups and with wooden spoons to fit with the cafeteria feel of the night.

Overall, movie night was a hit. The movie was great and the food fit the theme well.