It’s official, rainy season is here. It’s perfect for movie nights! Instead of going to the mall on a rainy weekend to watch a movie, why not host a movie night and invite your friends, neighbors and loved ones to come over to your place and watch a DVD of your choice. Laughing out loud together to “Pitch Perfect,” screaming together to “Child’s Play” or crying together to “The Fault in Our Stars” are the perfect scenarios, don’t you think?

But before the movie screening, get the party started with some movie-themed games like charades, Pinoy Henyo, etc. You can also serve some finger food, pasta, popcorn and other dishes that we love to eat while watching our favorite movies. Let me share with you what I did with my own movie night.

Last June 27, I hosted a Movie Night Gathering at the Raya Gardens Condominium in Paranaque City and invited some friends and neighbors to come over.

Registration started at 4:30pm. We asked each guest to think of a screen name for their name tag. It can be a name of a Hollywood star or a character from their favorite movie. We also asked them to write a cooking #diskartip on a card to be posted on the “wall of fame.”

While everyone is waiting for all the guests to arrive, the food-oriented movie “The Chef” is playing on the A/V system.

At past 5:00pm, I welcomed all the guests and introduced the theme of the event, which is Movie Night, and why this kind of party is popular with families and group of friends.

As part of my introduction, I acknowledged Clara Ole for joining in as a partner for the party by providing the ingredients to make the food more exciting and delicious.

I also acknowledged the presence of our special guest, Ms. Amy Perez, who brought his son Adi to join the event. I also thanked our friend Honey Zafra for the intimate venue apt for movie night.

Then I introduced the fabulous RM Marcelo, our hilarious emcee for the night. We picked 3 cards from the “wall of fame” and gave insights about the cooking #diskartips that was written on each card.

We kicked off the Movie Marathon Party with the “Category Game” as Ice Breaker. RM will provide a category and the microphone will take rounds to let each guest to give an example of the said category. If the guest’s answer is already mentioned or if he/she is not able to answer within 5 seconds, he/she will be out of the game.

Here are the categories given: titles of superhero films, titles of horror films foreign or local, titles of romantic comedy movies, titles of novels turned movie, Filipino superheroes, titles of animated movies, titles of Sharon Cuneta movies, love teams, awards being given at the Oscars, etc.

Here are the Top 4 competing for the Masflex Pro special prize:

Then it’s “Dish Sharing” time. RM introduced the movie title-inspired food on the buffet table and called the person who prepared the food to share some #diskartips on how they made the dish.

I started the dish sharing with “Chicken Little,” an exciting take on chicken fingers made delectable with Clara Ole Dips and Dressings.

The ingredients for Chicken Little are chicken breast, two eggs, Japanese breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. It’s easy to prepare, just cut the chicken breast into finger-sized slices, dip into a bowl with beaten eggs with salt and pepper, roll onto the breadcrumbs then fry.

A video posted by Edsel Roy (@starmometer) on Jun 27, 2015 at 1:26am PDT

Chicken Little tastes awesome with Clara Ole Honey Mustard Dip. Of course, you can also serve other variants like Ranch, Caesar, Asian, and Thousand Island.

The second dish is called “Liempo & Stitch,” it’s strips of grilled liempo infused with Clara Ole Hickory Barbeque Marinade. Jeng Bauto shared how to prepare this dish. Check out the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 kg. liempo
Clara Ole Hickory Barbeque Marinade

Simply marinade the liempo strips with Clara Ole Hickory Barbeque then after 30-60mins, grill.

#DiskarTip: Why buy marinated pork in groceries? You don’t even know what they mix with it. Plus, you are not sure if the meat is fresh because it is covered with colored sauce. So, buy liempo, porkchop, or thinly sliced beef and marinade. Clara Ole’s Hickory Barbeque Marinade is made with real, flavorful spices that sticks to any meat. Just put your meat in a ziplock bag, open a marinade sauce, seal, and store. When it is time to cook the good meal, just thaw and grill. If you want some sauce, put the remaining sauce in a pan, add some water, and bring to boil.

A video posted by Jeng Bauto (@showbiznest) on Jun 26, 2015 at 10:38pm PDT

The third dish is called “Rice of the Guardians.” It’s a take on Paella Rice using Clara Ole Ora Mix Mo Paella. The ingredients are rice, chicken, squid rings and shrimps, hardboiled eggs and Clara Ole Ora Mix Mo Paella.

Here are the steps in cooking this dish as demonstrated by Lee Cundangan:

1. Heat oil in pan. Saute chicken.
2. Add 2-3cups of rice.
3. Add mix.
4. Garnish with leftover squid rings, shrimps, and hardboiled eggs.

#DiskarTip:
Want to impress your friends that you can make paella without a paellera? Use malagkit rice and garnish with big shrimps, chicken thigh, hardboiled egg, clams. Decore your serving plate well!

The next dish is called “Suddenly It’s Spaghetti.” As demonstrated by Joy Festin, it’s an easy-to-cook spaghetti using Clara Ole Filipino Style Pasta Sauce. Check out the recipe:

Ingredients:
Olive oil
1 medium chopped onion
1/2k lean ground pork
1/2k lean ground beef
1litre clara ole filipino style pasta sauce
Banana catsup
Pepper
Sugar

1. In a sauce pan, pour olive oil and saute onions until transparent.
2. Add pork and beef. Stir. Add half tsp of pepper. Cover. Wait for it to simmer then bring down heat to medium.
3. When meat is brown, add pasta sauce. Let boil.
4. Add some banana catsup, sugar, salt to adjust taste.
5. Stir in cooked pasta.
6. Top with grated cheese.

#DiskarTip:
Tired of eating pasta? Or leftover sauce? Use the sauce to make pizza! Use the sauce and place on a pita bread or pizza dough. Then add bellpeppers, onions, ham, and grated cheese. Bake it and enjoy.

“PASTAt Kasama Kita” is also simple to prepare. Just follow the steps in “Suddenly, It’s Spaghetti” and use the rotini or “screw shape” pasta instead. For this dish, we used the Clare Ole Italian Style Pasta Sauce and added some olives and slices of hotdogs.

An exciting drink was demonstrated by Honey Zafra and it’s called “Cherry Gil.” It’s a mixture of Beer or Absolut Vodka, Sprite, Water and Clara Ole Maraschino Cherry (1 tablespoon of cherry syrup and 1 piece cherry per glass).

For some snacks while watching a movie, Angelica Zafra introduced the “Cookieception.” It’s a delightful homemade cookies with Clara Ole Jam and Jelly on the center. The flavors we used are pineapple, blueberry and strawberry. Other jams perfect for cookies are the Clara Ole Orange Marmalade, Mango Pineapple, Mango, and my favorite since childhood (which is just around 5 to 8 years ago hehe), the Guava Jelly.

Ms. Johanna Juban, on the other hand, demonstrated how to make popcorns with different flavors. Simply put popcorn in a plastic container, pour some Clara Ole Syrup of your choice, cover the container and shake it with glee. The flavors/variants that you can use for your flavored popcorn are Clara Ole Truly Fruity Groovy Strawberry, Groovy Blueberry Thrill, Choco Syrup, Choco-Nut Syrup, etc.

Have you noticed how easy it is to prepare these dishes? With the help of Clara Ole products, you don’t need to spend a long time formulating the sauces, dips, dressings, syrups, and marinades. They’re perfect for those who are living inside a condominium unit like me.

Meanwhile, Jaba from Clara Ole announced the winner of the Instagram contest. The most interesting food shot goes to…RM Marcelo! Here’s his winning Instagram post:

A photo posted by RM Marcelo (@fabulousrm) on Jun 27, 2015 at 3:42am PDT

Then we played the “Shake Shake” Game. Guests are encouraged to get some popcorn and a plastic container. They are asked to mix it with any of the syrups from Clara Ole.

The best-tasting and unique shake wins.

Another fun-filled game for movie nights is of course–the staple of all games–charades. As for our Box Office Charades, Ms. Amy Perez acted out some movie titles for the participants to guess. The group with the most correct guesses wins the game.

Group 1: “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman,” “Spinning Plates,” “I Am Love,” and “Bottle Shock.”

Group 2: “Like Water for Chocolate,” “The Waitress,” “The Lunchbox,” “My Big Love,” “Ratatouille.”

Our fourth game for the night is Pinoy Henyo Movie Edition. Here are the mechanics:

1. Call three guests as participants
2. Each participant will have their turn to sit across everybody
3. He needs to guess the most number of words from the flashcards in 1 minute.
4. Everybody will just say – “hindi”, “oo”, “pwede”
5. Call in the timer and scorer. Follow strict time frame per contestant.

The words in question are: Fruit Salad, Lasagna, Pepper, Frying Pan, Gas Stove, Popcorn, Spaghetti with Meatballs, Cabbage, Steak, Plate, and Eggs.

Watch how we played this game below:

After playing Pinoy Henyo, we announced/called the winners in their respective contests/games to give away their prizes and for picture taking. Ms. Amy Perez, Ms. Johanna Juban, and myself handed the prizes for Best Screen Name (Clara Ole Gift Pack), Movie Marathon (Clara Ole Gift Pack), Shake Shake winner (Clara Ole Gift Pack), Charades (Clara Ole MIni Gift Packs – 5), Pinoy Henyo – (Masflex Knife Set), and Most Creative Photo Uploaded on IG (Masflex Induction Cookset).

You, too, can host your own Movie Night gathering on a rainy weekend by following the simple program that we did. And don’t forget to enhance your dishes by using Clara Ole products.

For more #diskartips on preparing food for any kind of gathering, follow Clara Ole on Facebook (@myclaraole) and Instagram (@claraoleph).

Now I leave you with the video “Rubbing Elbows with Amy Perez” where the TV/radio host share the favorite dishes that her husband and kids are always requesting her to cook, how she enrich her knowledge in cooking, and what is her family’s favorite bonding time. She also shared some cooking “diskarte tips” that you will find very useful in preparing dishes for your own family.