Bendy & Her Friendies V2 ... This Bar Never Closes! New Thread Started!

[blissventure]

Brenda, What a delicious looking feast!!! From the salsa through to the steaks and sorbet that dinner must have been such a treat.

 

[TigerKat]

Awesome looking feast Bendy!

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

Who wants food porn???

Some pictures from our dinner yesterday ...

First up ... Jay's homemade salsa. We have a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers and cilantro so he whipped up a salsa recipe Saturday night. I misspoke earlier because I thought he was using an actual recipe (we have a book of salas recipes and I thought that's what he used) but he just made it up as he went along.

OMG, it was fabulous!!!


Salsa: it's a food and a verb!

A small cheese plate (for us); left to right you'll see Malvarosa, drunken goat, and Jasper Hills cheddar. You'll note that none of these cheeses are the soft, french, smeary kind that I love so much ... we really are trying to cut back and two of these cheese purchases were spur of the moment and relatively inexpensive. While they were all tasty on their own, Jay and I thought they were wonderful drizzled with some balsamic.

Cheesey does it!

Homemade Rye (wry???) Bread ... courtesy of a store-bought bread mix and one of my all-time favorite wedding gifts: The Williams Sonoma bread machine!!!

A loaf of bread ... all that's missing is a jug of wine and thou!

Wow! Sliced bread is pretty impressive!!

Fabulous strip steaks from the Smokehouse Market ...

Tartare?

They're so thick!

Hot off the grill!

Jay and I each dropped a generous plop of boursin on top of our steaks and it was really a wonderful addition ... creamy and melty and slightly garlicky ... I wish we had some leftovers!

We also had a spinach salad and some corn, but you guys don't really want to see that, do you? Wouldn't you rather see dessert?

The usual bowl of fresh fruit

We had cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries, and champagne grapes. And to go along with that, my champagne sorbet:

I'm melllllting!

I was stupid and forgot all about actually putting the sorbet mix in the ice cream maker until about 3PM yesterday. DOH! So it was a little more soft than it should have been. It was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be.

Brenda this looks delicious! I ESPECIALLY appreciate the beef photos. I have severe beef fetish issues (nothing perverse I assure you). In our travels through Western Virginia today we saw many cows and all I could say each time we passed yet another herd grazing was, "that's my filet mignon" "oh look at that cute chateaubriand" "in two years that little one will make some fine steaks" It bordered on sick. Of course the three of us were all laughing our butts off because we all share a hardcore love for beef.

The salsa, cheeses, lemonade, bread and sorbet were great to drool over too. Drew has been bucking for a good ice cream machine. Hmmm...maybe I'll have to get him one (you know, so I could help him out...)

 

[Shenanigoat]

Brenda, that food looks wonderful. Those steaks look delicious! I really like your cheese plate too- mickey shaped lol.

Why oh why is there no drooling/foodie emoticon?

 

[jeminni]

Ok I know you said there was no actual salsa recipe but ask Jay to help me out and tell me what all he put in it. My garden has lots of tomatoes, onions, garlic and peppers ( bell, banana and jalapeno ). Herb garden has oregano , basil, parsley and cilantro. Any type of recipe please?

 

[oybolshoi]

Brenda, What a delicious looking feast!!! From the salsa through to the steaks and sorbet that dinner must have been such a treat.

Awesome looking feast Bendy!

Thanks, ladies! I thought it turned out pretty well considering that we just decided on Friday night that my parental unit was coming out for dinner on Sunday. Jay is really a very good cook, so when he's in charge you know things are gonna be good. I vouch for nothing but a good dessert ... the rest is crap-shoot when I'm manning the kitchen. Or is that womaning the kitchen?

Brenda this looks delicious! I ESPECIALLY appreciate the beef photos. I have severe beef fetish issues (nothing perverse I assure you). In our travels through Western Virginia today we saw many cows and all I could say each time we passed yet another herd grazing was, "that's my filet mignon" "oh look at that cute chateaubriand" "in two years that little one will make some fine steaks" It bordered on sick. Of course the three of us were all laughing our butts off because we all share a hardcore love for beef.

We're going to get along just fine. Jay and I usually make those kinds of comments at places like The Living Seas or the Animal Kingdom. It's good to be at the top of the food chain, isn't it?

The salsa, cheeses, lemonade, bread and sorbet were great to drool over too. Drew has been bucking for a good ice cream machine. Hmmm...maybe I'll have to get him one (you know, so I could help him out...)

Our ice cream maker is a cuisinart ... Jay gave it to me for Christmas several years ago. It's small, compact, and really easy to use. I think it makes up to two quarts. It cost about $70 way back when, but I bet it's still pretty reasonable, all things considered. Check Williams Sonoma - that's where we got ours.

Brenda, that food looks wonderful. Those steaks look delicious! I really like your cheese plate too- mickey shaped lol.

Why oh why is there no drooling/foodie emoticon?

Hi Laura! Isn't that plate terrific? Guest X and Guest Y gave that to Jay and me last year for Christmas ... one of the most useful, fun gifts ever. I don't want Disney all over my kitchen but something like that plate is perfect ... fun but unobtrusive.

And I've been asking myself for years why there isn't a drooly emoticon.

Ok I know you said there was no actual salsa recipe but ask Jay to help me out and tell me what all he put in it. My garden has lots of tomatoes, onions, garlic and peppers ( bell, banana and jalapeno ). Herb garden has oregano , basil, parsley and cilantro. Any type of recipe please?

I promise to ask him ... it may be a couple of days before I have anything because we're going to be out tomorrow night and he works late on Wednesdays ... but I won't forget!

 

[robinm1215]

Wow, I went away for a long weekend and now we're up to almost 20 pages on the new thread! I really have to go back and catch up. Hope everyone had a nice weekend

I would love to see Rent. I never got to see it on Broadway, and when it was in Philly I was in Disney.

Rent is a great show -- if it ever comes back to the area you should definitely check it out. One of the nice things about being in NJ is that I can take advantage of seeing Broadway shows. I saw Hair in April (which was fabulous!) and I'm going to see Billy Elliot at the end of August.

Hello friendies and Bendy
Hope everyone had a great weekend. My weekend consisted of picking out wedding cookies for the table ( my dad is italian and likes the tradition of a cookie plate on all the tables for desert...between that and the cake AND the candy buffet/favor station i think my guests will be all high on sugar!!), AND i got to go to a great French/American Bistro on Saturday night with some friends. I had the BEST salmon ever. I took a picture and will have to upload it..it was a grilled salmon with a dill creme fraische served over steamed broccoli rabe and a big potato and chive latke! AMAZING! After that we walked around "Waterfire"..which is a really cool thing they do in downtown providence RI, they light bon fires up the canal that goes through the city and they play all sorts of cool music, there are street performers and vendors..its really fun!
I also made our ADRs online Saturday morning!!! Very successful, although I could not get Tony's Town Sq. for the night we wanted, so i chose Kona instead, here is what we got:

Friday 10/23--getting in late, did not request anything
Saturday 10/24--1900 park faire breakfast 10:45
Kona 6:40 (i think)

Sunday 10/25--Teppan edo dinner 7:00 ish
Monday 10/26--SCi fi lunch
Tuesday 10/27--- Rose n crown lunch
Wednesday 10/28--Dinner at Citricos.

Aside from Kona they are all new to us places Pretty excited!! We didn't go overboard with actual ressies since we will be staying concierge AND want to snack around the world!!
We are going to try to fit in a Keys to the Kingdom tour too...it looks liek someone bought that for us on our disneyhoneymoon registry!! Anyone know when you can reserve that?? Isn't it 30 days before?

Your ADR line up looks great.

About the Keys to the Kingdom tour, I am doing it 2 weeks from Friday and we booked it 90 days out. Not sure how quickly it books but it certainly doesn't hurt to book as early as you can. If you have a Disney Visa they offer a discount, I think 10 or 15%. There are probably other discounts offered too I just can't remember what they are.

Check this out ...

all this talk about getting the hubba to a baseball game in the new (for him) stadium and us being so far away and tickets being so pricey ...

today a friend of mine at work comes up to me just before she's leaving for the day and tells me that her husband (a doctor) just was given his hospital's luxury box for tomorrow night's baseball game against the Dodgers. She invited us to come along so now Jason gets to see the new stadium and a baseball game in style!

I'm so excited!!!

Sounds like fun!

And great food porn from your dinner yesterday! Everything looked delicious. I love homemade salsa!

Made it to Asheville around 5pm. Had an uneventful but satisfying dinner at Outback and am now relaxing behind the keyboard at our hotel. Gotta save my strength for tomorrow.

Hope you're having a great trip!

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Jay and I each dropped a generous plop of boursin on top of our steaks and it was really a wonderful addition ... creamy and melty and slightly garlicky ... I wish we had some leftovers!

How have I never thought to top steaks with boursin? I usually top mine with gorgonzola, but I want to run to the store right now to buy some boursin and grill up a steak. And I almost grabbed boursin at the store earlier today too, until I remembered I was going to Reading Terminal Market soon, and told myself to save all my money for that.

ETA - And all of your photos are definatly drool worthy. We really do need a drool smiley.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Rent is a great show -- if it ever comes back to the area you should definitely check it out. One of the nice things about being in NJ is that I can take advantage of seeing Broadway shows. I saw Hair in April (which was fabulous!) and I'm going to see Billy Elliot at the end of August.

I'm in PA, so get to see Broadway shows once in awhile too, though when they do showings of stuff in Philly it's usually more convienant. Though I have seen Les Miserables, Beauty and the Beast, and the Lion King on Broadway.

I'm so sorry I never got a chance to see Rent on Broadway though, I have the OBC recording, as well as the live action movie's soundtrack, as well as the movie and the final Broadway performance on DVD.

I was so jealous of my one friend who got to see it in Philly, not once, but twice.

 

[D&R love Disney]

Those cookies are so pretty.

Thanks.

The cookies were really pretty!

Thanks.

Deb ... your cookies looked way too pretty to eat. Did they taste as good as they looked?

Yes they were delicious and home made. Mom makes thousands of cookies for Christmas each year and we decided to do ones for our home wedding party. Of course everyone that gets the Christmas cookies were so excited since they are usually a once a year treat.

Check this out ...

all this talk about getting the hubba to a baseball game in the new (for him) stadium and us being so far away and tickets being so pricey ...

today a friend of mine at work comes up to me just before she's leaving for the day and tells me that her husband (a doctor) just was given his hospital's luxury box for tomorrow night's baseball game against the Dodgers. She invited us to come along so now Jason gets to see the new stadium and a baseball game in style!

I'm so excited!!!

Thats so cool, I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time!!!

OMG-these are gorgeous! Love the idea of wedding cookies.

They were a big hit!

SO pretty! Were they as good as they look!!?? We are not doing wedding themed ones persay, but traditional italian types I guess..a variety of macaroons, prune slices, butterballs, biscotti and a few other ones i can't remember..those crazy colored sugar cookie type ones i think??


Thanks! I am pretty excited to try all the new places!


Thanks! I am still hoping i will see a Bendy Fly by on Friday night..My eyes will be PEELED..well if I can keep them open after the flight from hawaii!!



OH I am planning on doing a whopping review when i get back, don't you worry! I really want to do a report of the first two destinations ( vegas/hawaii) on the community board..THEN do the disneymoon one..but i might be biting off more than i can chew with that..but nonetheless..there will be a lot of food porn/reviews to share anyway
Isn't waterfire cool? Its so unique. I am pretty excited because they actually have one scheduled on the night of my wedding, and the hotel we are having our reception at is RIGHT there!!

Gina I'm sure your cookies will be a big hit and I can't wait for your honeymoon report!

 

[ChelleinNC]

Check this out ...

all this talk about getting the hubba to a baseball game in the new (for him) stadium and us being so far away and tickets being so pricey ...

today a friend of mine at work comes up to me just before she's leaving for the day and tells me that her husband (a doctor) just was given his hospital's luxury box for tomorrow night's baseball game against the Dodgers. She invited us to come along so now Jason gets to see the new stadium and a baseball game in style!

I'm so excited!!!

Very cool!

And a wee little bit of alcohol porn ... we just made this recipe up based on a strawberry lemonade recipe that we found and were going to make for our niece last weekend when she stayed with us. And then of course she decided that wasn't what she wanted.

So we were left with 12 ounces of frozen lemonade ... what to do, oh what to do?

As if we even had to agonize over it.

What you see before you is frozen strawberry-lemonade with a generous pour of white rum and vodka.

Here's the recipe:

2 cups of ice
1 cup of water
6 ounces frozen lemonade
5 large, fresh strawberries (hulled)

Place ice cubes, water, and lemonade in a blender and then blend until the ice is pulverized. Add strawberries and puree until well blended.

If you want booze just throw it in with the strawberries. We poured vodka and rum freehand until we got the taste we wanted.

Delicious and refreshing!

Dinner also looked really good (and I'm suddenly craving steak) but the lemonade sounds great and really simple


Ok, so I spent most of yesterday trying to book dining for my client (who is also my next door neighbor). 1st,I just have to say Disney I.T. is awful and while online dining is better than nothing, it's a pita. Anyways.... I just booked their trip this week, for the 1st week of October, so I'm fighting free dining; F&W & under 90 days Some if it was just weird though. Couldn't get Chef Mickey's the entire week, but I was able to snag LeCellier for dinner. Princess dinner at Norway was available but couldn't get anything at DHS except for lunch at Hollywood & Vine or Mama Melrose. With F&W going on, I would have thought it would be harder to get Epcot ressies but DHS was the killer

 

[D&R love Disney]

Who wants food porn???

Some pictures from our dinner yesterday ...

First up ... Jay's homemade salsa. We have a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers and cilantro so he whipped up a salsa recipe Saturday night. I misspoke earlier because I thought he was using an actual recipe (we have a book of salas recipes and I thought that's what he used) but he just made it up as he went along.

OMG, it was fabulous!!!


Salsa: it's a food and a verb!

A small cheese plate (for us); left to right you'll see Malvarosa, drunken goat, and Jasper Hills cheddar. You'll note that none of these cheeses are the soft, french, smeary kind that I love so much ... we really are trying to cut back and two of these cheese purchases were spur of the moment and relatively inexpensive. While they were all tasty on their own, Jay and I thought they were wonderful drizzled with some balsamic.

Cheesey does it!

Homemade Rye (wry???) Bread ... courtesy of a store-bought bread mix and one of my all-time favorite wedding gifts: The Williams Sonoma bread machine!!!

A loaf of bread ... all that's missing is a jug of wine and thou!

Wow! Sliced bread is pretty impressive!!

Fabulous strip steaks from the Smokehouse Market ...

Tartare?

They're so thick!

Hot off the grill!

Jay and I each dropped a generous plop of boursin on top of our steaks and it was really a wonderful addition ... creamy and melty and slightly garlicky ... I wish we had some leftovers!

We also had a spinach salad and some corn, but you guys don't really want to see that, do you? Wouldn't you rather see dessert?

The usual bowl of fresh fruit

We had cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries, and champagne grapes. And to go along with that, my champagne sorbet:

I'm melllllting!

I was stupid and forgot all about actually putting the sorbet mix in the ice cream maker until about 3PM yesterday. DOH! So it was a little more soft than it should have been. It was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be.

And a wee little bit of alcohol porn ... we just made this recipe up based on a strawberry lemonade recipe that we found and were going to make for our niece last weekend when she stayed with us. And then of course she decided that wasn't what she wanted.

So we were left with 12 ounces of frozen lemonade ... what to do, oh what to do?

As if we even had to agonize over it.

What you see before you is frozen strawberry-lemonade with a generous pour of white rum and vodka.

Here's the recipe:

2 cups of ice
1 cup of water
6 ounces frozen lemonade
5 large, fresh strawberries (hulled)

Place ice cubes, water, and lemonade in a blender and then blend until the ice is pulverized. Add strawberries and puree until well blended.

If you want booze just throw it in with the strawberries. We poured vodka and rum freehand until we got the taste we wanted.

Delicious and refreshing!

OMG everything looks so good and those steaks are perfect! My kind of meal for sure

 

[PNO4TE]

Why oh why is there no drooling/foodie emoticon?

There is one... just not here on the DIS. And the sites I usually use seem to have page-loading issues this morning.

Brenda - the food porn was porn-licious!

Allison - I think the ice cream machine is something Drew needs for his education. Do you think it could be written off?

 

[oybolshoi]

Ok, so I spent most of yesterday trying to book dining for my client (who is also my next door neighbor). 1st,I just have to say Disney I.T. is awful and while online dining is better than nothing, it's a pita. Anyways.... I just booked their trip this week, for the 1st week of October, so I'm fighting free dining; F&W & under 90 days Some if it was just weird though. Couldn't get Chef Mickey's the entire week, but I was able to snag LeCellier for dinner. Princess dinner at Norway was available but couldn't get anything at DHS except for lunch at Hollywood & Vine or Mama Melrose. With F&W going on, I would have thought it would be harder to get Epcot ressies but DHS was the killer

Sorry to hear that. I had hoped that Disney IT might be better for travel agents than it is for the rest of us poor schmoes, but it sounds like it sucks at all levels across the board. What dates are you trying to book for your client?

I know there is some kind of golf tournament that takes place at WDW near the end of October and there are a lot of companies / groups that hold conferences at the Swolphin in October, too. That could be factoring in depending on the dates you're trying to book.

Good luck!!!

No offense to anyone using free dining, but I'd really hoped they weren't going to extend it this year through October ... it made things so crowded last Fall and honestly, one of the reasons we like visiting in the Fall (apart from the festival) is that the parks aren't nearly as crowded as they are during the summer and the holidays. Oh well ... at least we have our ADRs, but I fear for Guest X and Guest Y who disdain our well-meaning, non-starvation WDW advice.

 

[PNO4TE]

The Holiday Free Dining offer has me a tad worried too, Brenda. It is always difficult to get ADRs at that time of year anyway. Now, the pickins are probably going to be even slimmer. I need to plan very carefully so that on my 90+10 day I know exactly what I need to get first! I am hoping that I can get everything done in 45 minutes or so and then can start to call Dining to book V&A's right at 7:00. Luckily September 20th is a Sunday!

 

[oybolshoi]

I totally forgot about the holiday rush ... DOH! I will keep my fingers crossed for you, Elin - I hope you get everything you're shooting for. At least you still have some time to plan - you can map it out like a general planning for battle!

The Holiday Free Dining offer has me a tad worried too, Brenda. It is always difficult to get ADRs at that time of year anyway. Now, the pickins are probably going to be even slimmer. I need to plan very carefully so that on my 90+10 day I know exactly what I need to get first! I am hoping that I can get everything done in 45 minutes or so and then can start to call Dining to book V&A's right at 7:00. Luckily September 20th is a Sunday!

 

[ChelleinNC]

Sorry to hear that. I had hoped that Disney IT might be better for travel agents than it is for the rest of us poor schmoes, but it sounds like it sucks at all levels across the board. What dates are you trying to book for your client?

I know there is some kind of golf tournament that takes place at WDW near the end of October and there are a lot of companies / groups that hold conferences at the Swolphin in October, too. That could be factoring in depending on the dates you're trying to book.

Good luck!!!

No offense to anyone using free dining, but I'd really hoped they weren't going to extend it this year through October ... it made things so crowded last Fall and honestly, one of the reasons we like visiting in the Fall (apart from the festival) is that the parks aren't nearly as crowded as they are during the summer and the holidays. Oh well ... at least we have our ADRs, but I fear for Guest X and Guest Y who disdain our well-meaning, non-starvation WDW advice.

They are going 10/1-10/5. At least I have meals booked for them, just not necessarily my 1st choices.

Jon & I haven't set our trip dates yet --gotta deal with holding points and rules and waiting for the varsity tennis schedule. I'd hate to miss anything important. It's greatbeing to have the free dining deal to offer, but I'm worried about being there for it and not being able to get my own adr's.

The Holiday Free Dining offer has me a tad worried too, Brenda. It is always difficult to get ADRs at that time of year anyway. Now, the pickins are probably going to be even slimmer. I need to plan very carefully so that on my 90+10 day I know exactly what I need to get first! I am hoping that I can get everything done in 45 minutes or so and then can start to call Dining to book V&A's right at 7:00. Luckily September 20th is a Sunday!

the new dates end 12/17 so hopefully they won't affect you I'm already looking forward to your V&A food porn

 

[disneyfav4ever]

No offense to anyone using free dining, but I'd really hoped they weren't going to extend it this year through October ... it made things so crowded last Fall and honestly, one of the reasons we like visiting in the Fall (apart from the festival) is that the parks aren't nearly as crowded as they are during the summer and the holidays. Oh well ... at least we have our ADRs, but I fear for Guest X and Guest Y who disdain our well-meaning, non-starvation WDW advice.

The good news though, for non-DDP users, is that the value resort guests are only getting the CS plan for free with the extension, so that should help make the restaurants a bit less crowded. Though for a $10 upgrade a day, I imagine some will be upgrading to the basic plan.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Ok, so I spent most of yesterday trying to book dining for my client (who is also my next door neighbor). 1st,I just have to say Disney I.T. is awful and while online dining is better than nothing, it's a pita. Anyways.... I just booked their trip this week, for the 1st week of October, so I'm fighting free dining; F&W & under 90 days Some if it was just weird though. Couldn't get Chef Mickey's the entire week, but I was able to snag LeCellier for dinner. Princess dinner at Norway was available but couldn't get anything at DHS except for lunch at Hollywood & Vine or Mama Melrose. With F&W going on, I would have thought it would be harder to get Epcot ressies but DHS was the killer

I think the online reservation thing makes it too easy for people to double book, and there are probably a lot more people then usual making double bookings, making it harder for everyone else to get ADR's.

I really think Disney should have started a CC guarantee for all restaurants when they started the online reservations.

I know I for one had the hardest time ever getting ADRs for this trip. Only one of my first choices was available, and it was only available late for dinner on the day I wanted.

It took me a couple weeks of playing around with the online system and calling Disney dining several times to have a lineup I was satisfied with. At this point I'm just glad I'm not using the deluxe plan, because I couldn't even find availability at almost any of the signature restaurants during my dates.

 

[blissventure]

The Holiday Free Dining offer has me a tad worried too, Brenda. It is always difficult to get ADRs at that time of year anyway. Now, the pickins are probably going to be even slimmer. I need to plan very carefully so that on my 90+10 day I know exactly what I need to get first! I am hoping that I can get everything done in 45 minutes or so and then can start to call Dining to book V&A's right at 7:00. Luckily September 20th is a Sunday!

That's great that it worked out your 90+10 is on a Sunday. Here's hoping you get everything you want without a lot of hassle.