Cooking With The Mouse

I just got back from a crazy 3-day trip to Disney World.

I've written about my love of Disney before here, and not much has changed since then.

Loads of walking, lots of food.

I am avoiding the scale like the plague, but plan on starting Cycle 1 over again now that I am home and have been to the grocery store.

Before we left, I got into the mood with yet another one of my cookbooks. This time it is #23 of 99.

Calling it "gourmet" is a bit of a stretch.

It's also pretty old, so some of the restaurants that are in the book don't exist anymore.

I must have bought this one in a Disney haze. It happens sometimes.

Looking for the fastest and easiest recipe in the book, I came across one for banana bread. Sold.

Supposedly this recipe comes from the Disneyland Hotel. We have actually been there, but not to eat banana bread. We visited Trader Sam's, a very cool tiki bar that has some amazing decor and special effects. They're actually building one now at Disney World, and I can't wait to go there again!

Anyway...banana bread.

Disneyland Hotel Banana Bread Recipe
Ingredients
* 1 cup butter
* 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 cups sugar
* 3 cups flour
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 teaspoons water
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 2 cups ripe bananas (Mashed)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together Flour, Salt and Baking Soda — Set Aside.
Mix melted Butter and Sugar until well blended.
Add Eggs one at a time, mixing well after each one.
Add Water.
Add Bananas and Vanilla — Mix well.
Fold in Flour mixture until well incorporated.
Grease 2 loaf pans and divide batter equally between the 2 pans.
Bake for 1 hour or until center of loaf is firm and a toothpick inserted to the center comes out clean.

Pretty darn good!

Everyone has their own banana bread recipe, but I think this one is worth a try. I threw in some chocolate chips, because why not?

As for cookbook #24, I figured I would get Disney out of the way by having my kiddo make something from this book:

I had picked this up at a Scholastic Warehouse sale. I had big dreams of cooking with my child. When he was very young he would watch Ina Garten with me and say "MIXER! MIXER!" Unfortunately that didn't actually mean he wanted to make anything past cracking eggs.

As he got older, he showed a bit more interest and even attended a cooking class one summer and took great pride in making french toast for us. Not too bad! As for why they also taught them how to make bacon-wrapped cream cheese toast I'll never know...

So, I pulled this book out and handed it to him, telling him to choose whatever he wanted and I would pick up the ingredients at the store.

Mercifully, he chose something cheap and easy...

Essentially it was just chocolate pudding with a touch of peppermint extract, topped with Cool Whip that also had a hint of mint. He added the mini chips as a garnish because I refused to let him color the whipped cream with green dye. I had to draw the line somewhere. It was bad enough we were loading up on chocolate before bed...no one needed artificial colors as well!

I won't bother copying the recipe because if you can't figure this one out you must be my grandmother...who couldn't even make me a packet of Ramen soup when I was little. She told me to wait for my grandfather to come back from the store because she "didn't know how" to make it. Despite the fact that I told her she just had to boil 2 cups of water and then add the noodles for 3 minutes...she insisted on waiting for Poppy to return. She then gave me some Triscuits and cheese. That was as domestic as she got.

Fortunately, I did not inherit her aversion to the kitchen and have now gone through 24 of 99 cookbooks! I am not sure about keeping either one of them, honestly. I am sure one of my friends that has little kids would like the Magic Kitchen. Sadly, we've outgrown it. As for Mickey's "Gourmet" Kitchen? It gets one more chance with me, then it's a trip to Ebay if I'm not impressed!