Foodie

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.)

As I’ve already mentioned, Satu’li Canteen is one of my favorite restaurants on property and the Cheeseburger Pods will always be on my plate – even if they did shift them over to the kids’ menu only. (HMPH!) This is the recipe that scared me the most, out of all of the recipes Kristine posted.

I’ve never made bao buns, and that’s what Cheeseburger Pods are. I am not a bread baker, either. I don’t own a steamer basket. This recipe was WAY out of my comfort zone, so I read a ton of recipes and blog posts about making bao buns – both in and out of the Foodie, held my breath, and then…. kept putting off making these. I truly postponed them 6 times before I couldn’t postpone it any longer and I did it.

I DID IT.

They are not beautiful like normal bao buns. I had some issues with them during the steaming process. But, I DID IT. I’m really quite proud of myself. So let me tell youuuuuu (hi Pippin) about it.

Let’s start with the filling – it’s just the cheeseburger spring roll filling that I made a few weeks ago, with some tweaks I mentioned in that post. I added 2 more ounces of velveeta and a wee bit more pickle, but otherwise it’s the same recipe.

For the buns, I used the recipe Kristine included in her FB post and I followed it exactly. Mostly.

• I had a wide range of sizes when I separated the dough into rods and pieces so it was a bit of a struggle and my buns were too small, too big, and just right. How to get them all just right is the problem. (Should I find myself on perpetual furlough, I’m going to become a bao bun expert and solve this problem… just sayin’. )
• At some point in my research, I read that you can just use cupcake wrappers instead of parchment paper so I did that because who has time to cut out 15 little squares of parchment paper for multiple sized bao buns? Not me – which was a mistake. The wrappers stuck to the buns – badly. Not good. Don’t use cupcake wrappers, ok?
• This is where I left Kristine’s instructions behind and moved to these instructions for steaming them in the Instapot. The times for the steam and the pressure cook settings were NOT right for my machine. It wasn’t until much later that TW told me that not all machines are the same size or type so cooking times vary. Hah. Nice to know, now. Times pretty much needed to be doubled for our machine – and even then it just didn’t seem to be consistent. Sometimes I’d vent and NO STEAM came out, on either setting. Other times I’d vent and TONS OF STEAM CAME OUT FOREVER AND EVER. No rhyme or reason as the water level was the same for each attempt. I’d steam for 3 minutes, vent, see that they weren’t “done,” add another cup of water, steam again for 3 minutes, vent, and they’d be done. Except when they weren’t. Same thing happened on pressure cook setting. Shrug. In the end, they all worked and the buns (except for the one I tore apart mid-cooking to see what it looked like.) It just took multiple steamings/pressure cooking rounds. The steam setting made the best dough so if I do this again in the Foodie, that’s the setting I’ll use.

I froze five buns and hope they turn out ok. I’ve eaten three for lunch for the last three days (Reheat one at a time in the microwave for 45 seconds with a damp paper towel over it.)

I LOVE these things. TW’s mom, again, not a huge fan. TW liked them but not as much as I did. She’d like it better if the filling was different. Or if I figured out a better filling to bun ratio. Oh, and she also thinks my filling needs more mustard. I don’t but since I love mustard, I’ll increase it next time. And there WILL be a next time.

One was a winner, one was not. One was really, really NOT… let’s start with the winner. O’hana Wings. Yes, please… all day long. But, I’m a wings fan. TW’s mom is not a wings fan and she said they were “OK.” I didn’t make enough, there were no leftovers. I will make them again and I will double the recipe. I will also try them in the air fryer.

Here’s the recipe. I used frozen wings and cooked from frozen. I did not alternate racks for the ribs because small double oven is small and that’s too much trouble. It was fine. I did have to drain some of the liquid off of the pan (because frozen wings = excess liquid) but that was easy and not an issue.

Here’s the photo of both – and that’s the bad Jiko mac & cheese leftovers there, too.

Now, the Sonny Eclipse, errrr I mean Cosmic Ray’s Green Beans. I’ve never had them but they seemed easy and like something I’d like… I should have gone with my gut and not used the old off brand name of frozen green beans and used canned instead. Those green beans were NOT good. Not at all. I think it was the beans and not the recipe. I’ll try it again with fresh beans or canned. It really should not have been that bad.

One of the easiest Disney food recipes I’ve tried, the Totchos from Woody’s Lunchbox were pretty authentic, from what I remember. I made no changes to the recipe, except I used the air fryer for the potato barrels. But, I wish I had cut the recipe in half because it makes a LOT of chili. I should have frozen that chili but didn’t and … food waste is a sad, sad thing. Don’t be like me. Halve the recipe or be ready to freeze the chili, ok?

It was hard to get a good picture, but here you go. My version. I’d make this again.

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.