denise

Oops. This working thing has caused me to fall way behind on the blogging of chickens and the blogging of Disney food at home. Also, I’ve had a lot of naps. Naps will always win over blogging, I guess.

First, go back to Monday when I made the Monorail Pink drink. I have never had a monorail drink at WDW but I have heard of them. I’ve heard the Highway in the Sky tour people might be served some of these. I’ve also heard that the DVC Top of the World lounge in Bay Lake Tower serves them. TW said something about The Outer Rim having it. I’ve also heard that you can ask bartenders at random WDW bars and some know how to make these, and some do not. Whatever. This one has gin in it and I have a ton of heavy cream that I really need to use so I made it.

I had a lot of problems with this one.

I didn’t put the lid on the Vitamix properly and pink drink shot out all over my cabinets and countertops. It also shot out all over Buster. He approved of this. In fact he approved of it so much that from that moment on, any Monorail Pink that was left too close to the edge of the counter or left unattended on a coffee table was HIS. He actually tried to climb up into my lap to drink from a glass I was holding. The dog LOVES Monorail Pink. The rest of us enjoyed it as well. It sure did have a lot of heavy cream in it. I might reduce that just a WEE bit next time. I would like a little less cream and a little more… lemony flavor.

Not a great photo as I was also making Woody’s Lunchbox Totchos and dealing with Buster and his Monorail Pink issues.

Fast forward to the end of the same week and I decided to try a Night Blossom with Rum – to celebrate the re-opening of Walt Disney World and also celebrate Slurpee Day, since 7-11 cancelled Slurpee Day due to the pandemic.

I laughed all the way through the mess that was the home version of Night Blossom with Rum.

I should have known it would be a mess since I didn’t actually have all of the right ingredients. Do you know how hard it is to buy sherbet when you do not go into grocery stores? Hitchcocks only had Blue Bunny Lime sherbet and Walmart only had Talenti Raspberry sorbet. Walmart also had the single serving cups of rainbow sherbet so I went with the Walmart option… Oh, and I also didn’t have frozen raspberries, I had frozen raspberry/blueberry combo.

I just kind of threw things into the Vitamix, kind of following a recipe but not really. I also didn’t write down exactly what I did but just go with it. It will be fine. It might not look like a true Night Blossom (you can see that in the recipe I started with – see the kid holding the drink, wearing Minnie Ears? That’s a real Night Blossom – likely without rum, hahaha) or even taste exactly like one. But it will be good. Very good. (Oh yea, I did end up buying proper popping bobas – I found a slightly better price for six containers of them. I’ll take three to the grandkids later this month. They’ll like that!)

So yea, I started with that recipe:

• 1 Cup Raspberry Sherbet
• 1 Cup Frozen Raspberries
• 2 Cups Ice Cubes or Ice Chips
• 1 Can Sprite
• Lime Sherbet
• Bobas

In the blender, I tossed in about a 1 cup of Talenti Raspberry Sorbet, a cup of Schwans frozen raspberry/blueberry combo, 2 cups of ice, about a 1/2 can of (fake) Sprite, 6 oz – ish of Bacardi. I blended. And blended. And blended. It was pretty thick, even using the Vitamix tamper tool thingy, things seemed like they didn’t want to mix very well. It also tasted really raspberry. So I tossed in a couple more ounces of rum and another shot of (fake) Sprite.

I poured some (TOO MUCH) of the mixture into a tall glass, spooned out some of the GREEN sherbet from the little single serve cups and it promptly sunk to the bottom of the drink where it was mostly forever unseen. I used 8 of the little cups, trying to stick with only using the green sherbet in an attempt to have it looks SOMETHING like a Night Blossom. It was HYSTERICAL, which is why I said I laughed all through it. Skeeter particularly enjoyed this one since there was sherbet and sorbet EVERYWHERE and I used like 16 spoons trying to keep the different color sherbets out of the glass and trying to convince the green to NOT SINK.

Skeeter is very good at grabbing spoons, single-serve sherbet lids, and half-empty sherbet cups from the counter while one is trying to convince green sherbet to float and not sink.

In the end, I said to heck with it and spooned extra sherbet of other colors into the glass because IT DID NOT MATTER and I wasn’t going to waste all of that sherbet even if it only costs like $2 for 12 cups. Whatever. Skeeter was sad by this development as that reduced her grab-n-go options.

And…yes, bobas went on top. TW and her mother are not big fans of bobas. I don’t think they ate their boba since I found the sink strainer full of boba after their glasses were rinsed. They did both enjoy the drink, though. I also enjoyed it and I made sure to eat every single one of those bobas before I rinsed my glass. I enjoyed it enough that I’m thinking about making it again – this time using all of the sherbet in the cups right off the bat. Our freezer is overflowing and using up the frozen berries, sorbet, and sherbet would help with that. A lot. Yea, I’m going to do that right now – don’t tell Skeeter.

Here is a really bad photo of my home version of a Night Blossom with Rum. (Night Blossom can be found in Pandora at the same shop that you buy the Pongu Lumpia – right next to Satu’li Canteen.) I thought for sure I could get one decent drink made and get one decent photo. Nope. Note the raspberry colored wet paper towel under the drink. Classy, right? Look! A little green sherbet…also some orange but shhhhh.

Once again, I was feeling all superior and stuff what with the people eating seconds of the Disney foods I was making. And once again, it was the dishes I thought would surely be the easiest that ended up being not so easy – and in some cases, not so good.

Let’s start with foods from Jiko. Jiko is a signature restaurant that we have not been to because it seems to be a fancy place you go if you wanna get dressed up and drink good wine. I do not ever want to get dressed up or drink wine but I especially don’t want to do those things while at Disney World. That’s the exact opposite of what I want to do. Sure, I wouldn’t mind trying some of the foods but not enough to spend a zillion dollars and get dressed up. Maybe some day when we’ve been to all of the other places?

In the meantime, I thought we could try the Jiko mac & cheese that EVERYONE apparently loves so much that you can still order it even if it is not on the menu. It seemed really easy, particularly compared to that French mac & cheese I made weeks ago. It’s just a simple roux and some shredded Italian cheese. What could go wrong? Welp, it had no taste or maybe tasted a bit of flour even though my roux looked pretty darn good. We all salted and peppered the heck out of it and I dumped some of the sauce from the next recipe onto it and nope. It just wasn’t very good.

I was so confident about that mac & cheese that I decided to make the Jiko Savannah Rolls at the same time. (That’s them in the photo above.) Seemed like a pretty decent idea to go with the heavier mac & cheese. I made a couple of changes to these and those changes were fine. If I did it again, I’d try to NOT make those changes and do it as called for. The changes were:

• I didn’t get to the produce stand so I had no fresh corn. Instead, I used plain old canned corn that I drained and rinsed the heck out of and then let drain again. Because I used canned corn, I sauteed a little less than called for – which I think was correct.
• I didn’t have the size wrappers called for in the recipe so instead of halving them and rolling, I just rolled. I think that was the right call for that sized wrapper. If I had the 8×8 instead of the 4×6, I’d probably halve them as called for in the recipe.

I was most worried about the dipping sauce but it turned out to be pretty much just right for those rolls (and it helped the bad mac & cheese out, too.)

This is the meal where I also made the Pandora Pongu Pongu aka pineapple lumpia. Because see above and me being all overly confident and superior. Haha.

These were fairly easy to roll up – I used the last of the lumpia wrappers from my cheese lumpia last week. The hardest part was trying to spread cream cheese evenly across the wrappers. That was a gooey mess and I hate gooey messes.

Next, the recipe calls for you to pre-roll and freeze – it doesn’t suggest you take them out of the freezer and let them come back to room temp or anything so I assumed you fry from frozen. That was apparently the wrong call since the ends were nice and warm and melty and the middle was frozen.

Also, why did I deep fry TWO things in one night? So much greasy mess.

The Pongu Pongu WAS tasty but deep frying from frozen was not the answer. I will make them again when I have lumpia wrappers and I will not fry them from frozen.

Last but not least, TW requested Mickey Rice Krispies Treats so i made them for 4th of July dessert. I even tracked down a big Mickey head cookie cutter and added vanilla (2 tsp), a handful more marshmallows, and a wee bit more butter (1/2 tbsp) because the WDW versions ARE extra marshmallowy and extra buttery. I forgot I gave my candy melts to Jenn so I just melted a Hershey bar and drizzled or spread chocolate on them.

TW said they were good but they needed more butter. I think she’s nuts and they were pretty darn close to perfect.

One of the best restaurants on Disney World property is the Satu’li Canteen – and it’s a quick service restaurant. We talk a lot about how amazing the food options are at WDW but focus most often on the more deluxe dining establishments that need a reservation or the food kiosks during the Epcot festivals. This little quick service restaurant in Pandora (you’ve seen Avatar, right?) takes theme park eating to another world (lol, I’m funny.) Want a burger or a hot dog? Satu’li has them but they won’t look anything like what you’re expecting and they’ll taste better than any cheeseburger or hot dog you’ve had.

Can you tell I love the Satu’li Canteen?

One of the things that makes this restaurant different from any other quick service restaurant on property is their bowls. You choose a base, a protein, and a sauce – they add slaw and some bobas – and the results are amazing.

Because it’s just the three of us here and I’m not insane, I decided to choose the base and protein(s) and the sauce and folks would have to just take what I made. It’s funny, TW has been anti-meat lately but when I told her I was making the bowls, she immediately assumed I was making the steak version. I wasn’t. I made the tofu version for us and since I had some pre-cooked chicken from the Portillo’s salad earlier in the week, I made chicken for Momal (she does not like tofu.)

I also chose the potato hash as the base and TW seemed to expect I would choose the noodles. Or make both (lol, she’s funnyyyy.) I did choose the creamy herb sauce, which was her preference, too.

I started with this set of recipes. Again, note that I made the potato hash, the slaw, and the tofu. I did not make any changes to these recipes at all. (Note: I tossed the pre-cooked chicken I had in the fridge with this same tofu seasoning and it worked just fine.) If I make this again, I will definitely make these light changes:

• I’ll buy bagged slaw.
• I’ll do the potato hash in the air fryer instead of the oven.
• I’ll fry the tofu on the stove instead of using the air fryer.

This was all super easy to make, it was just time consuming to dice all of the potatoes and slice all of the cabbage and I’m not a huge fan of spending an hour prepping food. Ultimately worth it but I didn’t really enjoy it lol.

The Creamy Herb Sauce was a different story. I planned this poorly, probably because I originally planned to use the Charred Onion Vinaigrette and changed my mind because Creamy Herb is better.

I had planned to use this recipe but ran into problems. First, our basil is pretty much dried up and gone and I didn’t expect that and didn’t order any basil from the last grocery pick up. I had parsley from the last grocery order but apparently forgot to ask for cilantro or they just gave me parsley twice. I’m not sure what happened but since I didn’t have either the basil or the cilantro – this seemed like it wasn’t going to work. Not to mention they suggested making it the day ahead and dinner was only five hours away…. It also seemed a lot more green than I remembered. So off I went for a new recipe.

I landed here and thought this looked promising – except we apparently didn’t have cardamom. And, it was clearly not green at all. Which was not right. So, I tweaked. I made this recipe but used garam masala instead of the cardamom and I left out the extra salt, just in case. I also chopped up about 1/4 cup of the parsley and added that. I let it all hang out in the fridge for a few hours and …. it was good. Very good. TW told me to save the leftover for other salads we might eat over the next few days.

The only other issue is the popping bobas. I couldn’t bring myself to pay a whole lot of dollars for them via Amazon and you’ll be shocked to know that a) Walmart doesn’t have them. b) Hitchcocks doesn’t have them. c) Sam’s and BJ’s don’t have them. So… I used my Cocktail Caviar bobas and that was a mistake. lol. TOO much boozy flavor. I’m going to have to buy some popping bobas because I like the bobas on the bowls. It’s part of what makes the Satu’li Canteen theming so amazing.

I had planned to make the pineapple lumpia from Pongu Pongu for dessert but forgot all about it and … for reasons I’ll explain later, it didn’t happen. Stay tuned. (And plan to make your own Satu’li bowls. You won’t regret it Just go track down some popping boba. You probably don’t live in a tiny town and maybe have a better grocery store or a frozen yogurt shop or a tea shop that has them.)

First, one of TW’s favorite cocktails at Disney World is a Smoked Turkey. She most often orders this at Sanaa but they have it at many restaurants and resort lounges on property. If in doubt, she’ll order this drink.

So after the Tempting Tigress, I told her I was going to figure out the Smoked Turkey. She told me not to because she thinks it’s been giving her a headache since her surgery last fall. I… did not believe this drink was causing that issue. So, I ignored her and picked up all of the things various recipes indicated one needed for this drink.

During the first attempt, TW wondered about why it was SO red. She was sure this wasn’t even close to correct because it’s not red at Disney World. Turns out, according to photos of people’s drinks – it is that red. It’s just not that noticeable in the bars and restaurants where she drinks it. Or something. Here’s that recipe.

Next problem was that the smokey flavor was WAY too SMOKEY. So I looked for a new recipe and I think it’s closer. TW says it’s still too smokey so I keep reducing the amount of smoke syrup so now I’m using a small bar spoon for a double Smoked Turkey. Since I don’t really drink this cocktail, I’m having a very hard time figuring out what’s wrong but something still is.

Regardless, she’s drinking it. Quite a bit. Tonight, for instance.

Also tonight, I told TW I would make dinner again but the thing I had planned to make didn’t seem like a good idea, based on what we’ve had for dinner in the last couple of nights and the leftovers I wanted to try to use up as side dishes. So… I went looking for Disney recipes and stumbled across a Goat Cheese and Tomato Tart from France, in Epcot. We’ve never eaten this. We’re not even 100% sure where one would find this in France, in Epcot. Chefs de France has a flatbread that might be similar to this but … I dunno. Regardless, it sounded easy and quick and I had all the ingredients. Here’s the recipe.

Because I have not had this and I could not find anyone talking about it or any photos, I did some more research and pondered making a flatbread vs a tart. And pre-baking the puff pastry or not. I mostly followed the recipe and hoped for the best. Except I made it flatbread shaped instead of round. It’s also not really clear in this recipe or maybe that’s not what the recipe intended but I used both packages from the box. I stacked them on top of each other. and rolled them out to flatten them into each other. I pinched the edges a little to make sure the two sections of flatbread kind of stuck together.

I had planned to use a huge tomato from our garden and then supplement with different color cherry tomatoes but that tomato was not a happy tomato so I had to use all cherry tomatoes. (I had a big package of the Wild Wonders Medley cherry tomatoes.) I just quartered them rather than slicing, because I’m lazy. We also had some very old and tired basil from the garden and I used some of that. I wish I’d had more, it needed just another couple of leaves, I think.

The recipe says bake for 15 minutes. LOL. Not so much. It was a lot closer to 30 minutes and I ended up switching to the Pizza setting on my oven because TW suggested it after 17 minutes and it still looking not done in the middle but close to done on the edges.

In the end, it was really good. TW and her mom both had seconds. We’d definitely make it again but I’d pre-bake the puff pastry for a bit before adding the tomatoes, cheese, basil, and olive oil.

I was inspired by Kristine Fraser and decided I would also try making Disney World foods at home. Which is awesome because Disney foods but even more awesome because I rarely cook anymore…(I’m skipping the Dole Whip from her list, because that’s not an official recipe, I don’t care what anyone says. Dole Whip is vegan and that recipe isn’t vegan. Also, we have the official Dole Pineapple Frozen Yogurt mix which DOES make more realistic Dole Whip anyway.)

The timing on this one was poor. Very poor. Oops!

But, I’d been saying I was going to make The Grey Stuff for weeks and we had a ton of milk that I really needed to use before it went bad so… I made it, it’s delicious. Don’t believe me, ask the dishes!

Here’s a link to photos of the original, Kristine’s, and the recipe. Here are photos of mine.

TW made fun of me for not knowing how to use a pastry bag. LOL HMPH. This tastes a lot like the real thing, if not exactly the same. I thought it had too much Oreo flavor yesterday and this morning when I had it for breakfast (don’t judge!) I thought it was a wee bit too Cool Whip tasting. Still delicious if you like Oreo/Cool Whip pudding dishes. It’s also SUPER quick and easy to make.