Teacups and Toasters

This past Saturday we cleaned out some boxes we had stowed away in storage. Amongst the old books, college papers, and stuffed animals, were a few Disney treasures from my childhood. I use the term treasures lightly. One woman’s trash is anothers treasure, right?

Anyways, I thought you Disney fiends would enjoy seeing a few of them.

First up 1980′s Minnie wallet. No cash inside,but there were some fun schools pictures

NextAn autograph book featuring Donald. The inside held autographs from a few characters you don’t see around WDW anymore. At least I haven’t..have you?

The Sheriff of Nottingham

Prince John (The phoney king of England!)

Gadget (Rescue Rangers!)

Honest John (An actors life for me!)

Perla (We can do it!)

I also found

Button from a family dinner at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian (1990 something?)

Then I found this:

I know this is from a game I had as a child that involved shapes, but I have no idea what the name of the game was, or where the other pieces are. Anyone know?  Here’s a picture of the back of this piece,

Any ideas?

I found a few other things and tomorrow I’ll share my favorite one. It deserves a post all it’s own. Stay tuned!

Boma is a restaurant at The Animal Kingdom Lodge in Orlando, Florida.  It offers a buffet based on African cuisine, which means that it’s a great place for those that enjoy unique spices. We got the chance to eat there back in September ’08 when we ventured down to Disney for Free Dining! (Sometimes in the fall they offer this great deal and if you want more information on it, let me know!)  Boma is known for having great soups and now I know them for having my favorite soup in the world. Well, at least soups that I’ve gotten to taste. Previous, the chicken noodle at the William Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland held first place in my mind, though perhaps it still does in my heart.

My favorite soup from Boma is a coconut curried seafood soup. It was beautiful. Truly. I wrote about it when we got back from our trip. You can read a little more about it here.

I’ve dreamt about that soup so often in my food frenzied daydreams (makes me seem shark like?) So, I was pleased to come across a recipe on the DISboards that claimed to be the recipe from Boma for Coconut Curried Chicken Stew. It didn’t really seem to be exactly the same, but was close enough. I copied it down and then made my own variation from there. I stuck with chicken though because I’m the only one in the home that eats seafood.  Mine didn’t turn out much like my longed for soup from the September adventure, but it turned out well none the less.  Though, it’s a might bit spicy!

Budget Friendly Recipe for Coconut Curried Chicken Soup

You Will Need:

5 boneless, skinless, chicken tenderloins cut into small pieces

Salt and ground pepper to taste

2 1/2 tsp curry powder

3tbs canola oil

6tbs butter or butter substitute (as always, I used Smart Balance Light)

3/4 cup flour

4 cups chicken stock

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 cup canned Rotel diced tomatoes (I used the ones w/ lime juice)

1 cup canned sliced potaoes

1/4 green pepper sliced and chopped

1 cup coconut milk ( you can buy this in a can, or in a refrigerated carton. If you use fresh, you’ll need approx. 4 coconuts. I had bought one and ended up running out to the store and grabbing a carton, but I think the can is probably cheaper. I was just hoping it would be tasty enough to drink…it wasn’t, but works great for cooking!)

1/2 cup honey

Step 1. Season chicken with salt, pepper, and curry powder. Sear chicken in oil in 4 quart pot. Cook until almost done. Remove chicken and drain excess oil.

Step 2. Add butter to the same pot. Stir in flour, stock, cayenne pepper, tomatoes. Add honey, potatoes, green pepper, and coconut milk.

Step 3. Return chicken to the pot and bring to a boil to finish cooking and thicken the liquid.

Step 4. Serve it hot!

A short list of the things that made me smile most at Walt Disney World:

* The Magical Express driver actually said, “God bless.”

* Partycake meeting her friends and the way it made them so real

* The Crystal Palace experience

* Finding out that the Christmas parade, is still called the Christmas parade

* All the cast members calling Partycake, “Princess.”

* Feeling like a really big, little kid -all the time

* Finally, seeing Tinkerbell fly down from the castle

* Friendly people from all over the world giving up their seats on the bus for Partycake

My apologies for not posting in over a week, but a girl needs a vacation every now and again, as does the rest of her family and it was AMAZING! We had an incredible time on our first family trip to Walt Disney World. I know I promised lots of Disneyesque posts, so the plan is for the next week…all Disney…and then I’m going to have to stop because I already miss it so much. It’s my happy place here on Earth and having now been there with my child, it’s even more of a happy place.

My daughter is a few days away from turning two and I wasn’t really expecting her to take to the characters. She absolutely LOVED them. LOVED THEM! LOVED THEM!  Except…Baloo and King Louie freaked her out, which was a little odd because The Jungle Book is one of her favorites and we have to listen to The Bear Necessities 100 times a week. Pretty much everyone else was a hit!  Every morning for two weeks before we left, she would wake up and ask to go see Princess Cinderella’s Castle. Well, not only did she get to see the castle, but we got to meet Cinderella herself! Partycake ( my gal) went running up to her and gave her a big hug. We saw her in an area of Toon Town known as The Hall of Fame (little place at the side of a gift shop) and she was hanging out with Aurora a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty and Belle. The way the line was staged, you had to see Aurora first, Cinderella second, and Belle third. Partycake was really polite and friendly with Aurora, but after a few moments started pointing Cinderella out to her. It was pretty cute.

Aside, from the princessess, Winnie the Pooh made her uberly happy. I mean when we were having some rough two year old moments, if Winnie the Pooh passed by…life was suddenly sweeter. Of course Tigger and Piglet were a hit, as well. We even got to walk down a pathway to the staging area at Animal Kingdom with Piglet all to ourselves. For some reason though, Eeyore was not such a hit. Maybe it’s because he was doing some funky dancing while we were in line?

Being that this was Partycake’s first trip, we really wanted it to be special and spent 98% of our time doing things that we thought she would enjoy. We rode Dumbo three times, went to Ariel’s Grotto (highly recommended for the mermaid fans), had three character meals, took in the Playhouse Disney show and character greets (did I mention we did a lot of character greets?) and rode the train in the Magic Kingdom as much as we could. And you know what? We didn’t feel like we missed out on things we used to do as teens and college students. We skipped taking turns on Tower of Terror and The Rockin’ Roller Coaster. We skipped Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain. When I grabbed a fast pass to Splash Mountain, my husband and Partycake went to The Country Bear Jamboree. Actually, I thought we were doing that one together, but they tricked me! I thought they were headed to The Hall of Presidents so that she could take a nap! I went on Soarin’ at Epcot, while they ate a giant chocolate brownie in the food court (Sunshine Seasons) that the ride is attached to. My husband rode Mission Space, while Partycake and I played with toys in a giant shop at Epcot (I think it’s called Mouse Ears).

Now that we are back home, she cries at night for the train and when we promised to take her to the mall to ride the little train, she started talking about getting a map and seeing Dumbo and Princess Cinderella. It’s been hard unwinding from the constant excitement, for all of us. Perhaps it will help me a little to post a little each day this week. Obviously, this is not a little post, so I will end it here and leave you with a pic.  There’s more to come and I promise not to be so lengthy!