What Do You Cook in Your Villa?

[momoflizandains]

For me, usually nothing. In July, however, we will really be trying to cut costs. There will be five of us including 3 kids, DD11, DD8, and DD11's friend. We are looking for easy meals. We will be driving, so a trip to the grocery store will not be difficult.

What kinds of meals do you make/eat in your villa??

 

[hakepb]

Most recently, we did a lot of basic breakfast and lunch but would usually eat a QS dinner
Best thing we had was fruit salad (watermellon, cantalope and grapes) that we cut-up and placed in several ziploc type plastic containers (fruit cups always seem like such a great idea in the parks but way too much $$$$$)
Breakfast was mostly cereal, pop-tarts and english muffins. Lunch was hotdogs, PB&J or mac-n-cheeze..

 

[disneynutz]

For me, usually nothing. In July, however, we will really be trying to cut costs. There will be five of us including 3 kids, DD11, DD8, and DD11's friend. We are looking for easy meals. We will be driving, so a trip to the grocery store will not be difficult.

What kinds of meals do you make/eat in your villa??

The same menu that we eat at home. Just pick the easier meals so your not cooking all day. Since you have a car you can also eat off-site and save about half off the cost of a comparable meal in WDW.

 

[dvcdisney]

We don't cook anything in the villas. But my children usually have cereal (we bring from home - Cheerios since Disney doesn't sell it) in the morning. One of us also goes down and gets some breakfast from the CS restaurant in the resort and eat those in the room. We do use the fridge for milk, juices and water. Other than that, all the other kitchen appliances goes unused during our vacation.

 

[BEASLYBOO]

If you are driving in, and own/use a crock pot, it's a time saver/cost saver. Frozen meatballs and sauce for spaghetti/meatball or meatball subs. Mexican seasoning w/ a roast you can shred or ground beef for tacos, burritos or taco salads. Go to your nearest grocery store and buy steaks, chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers and grill out, most DVC's have grill areas. Grill extra chicken to add to a ceasar salad for lunch or dinner. Publix/Winn Dixie have excellent rotiserrie chickens that you can pair with salads and fresh vegies. Shrimp fried in a pan with butter and garlic, add pasta or rice.

We eat out a few times on vacation but in truth my kids prefer to eat at the villa to get more pool time!

P.S. since you are driving, bring along a few of your home seasonings rather than having to buy all new, like Montreal Steak seasoning, Taco/Italian seasoning, salt/pepper, garlic salt, lemmon pepper etc. Don't forget coffe filters, if you drink coffee.

 

[daisyduck123]

I'm on vacation. We don't cook anything. I mean anything. Cooking would require cleaning up as well. And I don't clean on vacation either.

We eat every meal counter-service or table-service. We are BIG fans of the dining plan.

The only thing stocked in our fridge is DH's beer.

 

[fabricmage]

I usually rent a 1-bedroom and for breakfast, cook eggs and bacon in the microwave (I bring one of those microwave bacon pans). Plus one morning, I made muffins using a mix that only requires water. I baked them in foil muffin cups. So good! Another morning, we baked those biscuits that come in a can. We eat those with butter and honey (honey packets were available down in the Mara so didn't have to buy any).

Then for dinner, I broiled some chicken breasts after marinating them in italian dressing. Those with a salad made a full meal. Then the next day, I reheated the chicken breasts with spaghetti sauce and mozzerella and served with spaghetti. Cleanup was easy (for me!) - just load all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. It cleaned while I enjoyed evening hours in the parks!

 

[Disney Hot Mama]

I am in my planning stages right now. This is the first time we will not have a car at WDW - using Magical Express for a change. I will have the groceries delivered and am planning simple meals that don't take lots of time.

Chicken breasts for dinner one night, served with steamed veggies and a salad and a rice side dish.

Ground beef - browned and added to spaghetti sauce served with pasts for one night. Add a salad and garlic bread

Ground beef - browned and served as tacos another night. Lettuce from salad items is used along with cheese and tomatoes.

Same ground beef - not browned and made into hamburger patties.. served as a patty melt another night.

Salmon - basted with teraiki sauce and baked. Served with steamed veggies and a salad.

Breakfast is usually cereal, bagels and cream cheese, coffee and juice.

Lunch is always in the park.
Snacks at the villa and/or in the park. Fresh fruit, granola bars....

Simple and quick...

 

[SunnieRN]

We have only done breakfast and snacks in the villa, but if I were going to fix dinner I would probably grill Great flavor and minimal clean up if you add green salad and french bread or garlic bread heated on the grill!!

 

[buzz5985]

We tend to cook more when we have people with us. If we drive I will make a sauce and meatballs, I have a FoodSaver vacum sealer. I will seal it and freeze it. It is put into the cooler and used as ice on the trip down. It's stiill 50% frozen when we arrive. We buy bread, wine, salad, boil pasta and have a great sit down meal the first night we are there. We have fed 12 people doing this. Leftover meatballs we make subs for lunch.

Fahita's are another quick meal you can make - bring your spices from home, a couple of peppers and an onion, already cut up fahita meat, make some nachos for an appetizer - Margaritta anyone??

Like to BBQ?? When we are HH we love to BBQ - we will play horse shoes while the food is cooking - reminds me of our summers at Hampton Beach with my Grandparents and all the men playing horse shoes. My DF hasn't lost his touch - wins every game. One BBQ we will cook some chicken, steak, hamburgers, enough for several meals.

We also like to have breakfast for dinner - bacon and eggs, home fries and english muffins.

Now we are going for a quick 5 day trip in November and I don't plan on cooking at all. But we will have breakfast things, sandwich fixings, and snacks in the villa.

Now before anyone thinks I'm wacky because I don't mind cooking on vacation - it's because I don't do a lot of cooking at home, that duty falls on DH most nights. I work nights - have for the last 22 years - so it's a nice change of pace for me to have that "family time" preparing meals together.

Janis

 

[DVC Mike]

We make coffee and tea; that's about it.

Sometimes we heat up left overs from last night's TS meal.

 

[jpolak]

Does coffee and cereal count?

 

[Anal Annie]

We stay in studios and usually only do breakfast in the villa and that would be either cereal, pastries or doughnuts of some sort and / or bagels & cream cheese (love having the toaster available).

I have a short list of things I could do quickly in a studio w/o any complications if I wanted to. Now that they make that pre-cooked bacon, BLT's or Club sandwiches are easy... You can also get a pkg. of those pre-cooked Purdue chicken strips and a bagged Caesar salad mix to make big Chicken Caesar Salads. Some of those salads even include the dressing. You could also make nachos pretty easily in the microwave or a Taco Salad. Tostitos, salsa, sour cream, SW flavored Purdue chicken strips, bagged salad again, shredded cheese. If you go to a grocery store with a salad bar you could even pick up some other items like chopped tomatos, jalapenos, diced onion & olives to throw in w/o any prep work involved!!! We also like tuna salad sandwiches on toast...those flavored pouches of tuna are SO easy to prepare...we like mayo, onion & relish in ours & I will often just use a bit of the dried minced onion real quick rather than dicing an onion - I just put a little bit in a sm. measuring cup or in a tablespoon with a little water for about 10 min. before I add it. EASY.

If you have a full kitchen you could do quick things like Sloppy Joes and corn on the cob or grilled cheese sandwiches with soup. Personally, I would be too tired from all the walking etc. to mess with anything too complicated and I would not be looking to make 4 course meals.

 

[domiii]

I love to cook and don't usually have a lot of time in the real world to do much cooking. So on vacation I end up cooking for the masses! We usually make a large breakfast two or three times, depending how long we stay. Then we snack in the parks. We've made pasta a few times too. We get cold cuts and munchie food for those late night snacks. And of course water, wine and beer!

This time we are having a 4 course dinner for 16 in our villa. I know who goes to Disney to cook. But in the Villas it's rather nice.

 

[Ms. WDW]

As little as possible!! I use the coffee pot and that's about it!

But this year maybe I'll do a couple of breakfast's in the room; maybe.

 

[pennst8r]

I'm with Daisyduck123! It's my only chance to escape the reality of cooking and cleaning. But we do make breakfast only because the kids normally don't eat a huge breakfast. Poptarts, cereal, frozen waffles, toast, yogurt, fruit. I bought eggs one year, but never used them. Late night snacks--microwave popcorn, PBJ.

But they do seem to be well stocked, so making just about anything I do at home would probably be easy. Bring the bags for the crockpot for an easy clean up!

 

[dopeygirl76]

domiii - I'm with you - vacation is one of the few times our family gets to eat EVERY meal together - usually it is only breakfast at home.

We rented a car this trip but still used garden grocer because I didn't want to go shopping in a strange grocery store.

The menu - roast (in crockpot) corn on the cob, and tater tots
pasta with meatballs, garlic bread
meatloaf, mac and cheese and peas

breakfast was bagels, cereal, pop tarts or toast

We mix things up and eat in the park usually for lunch.

In the past I have also made = pork roast, baked chicken breasts, burgers, tacos and the noodle sides make life VERY easy, buttered noodles and mashed potatoes.

I ship a box down with condiments and boxed items from home (I am a coupon shopper and can get things REALLY cheap) I also pack snacks in there.

This trip I made the meatloaf and meatballs at home and packed a soft side cooler in a checked bag with a freezer pack and after 7 hours of travel - they were still frozen!!! I will definately do this again!!! We use the grocery service for milk and juice, yogurt and other perishables and some meat.

 

[JACKie SPARROW]

We are headed for BWV this summer and have started planning our meals to cook in our villa to help cut costs.

I bring my pancake griddle and can whip out 6-8 pancakes/french toast in no time. I also make eggs, bacon & sausage. I like the Bisquick, ready to pour mix. Just add water, shake and there is no mess.

For lunch I make deli sandwiches, hot dogs and chicken salad. I usually cook and shread my chicken at home and take it down frozen in a cooler.

We usually don't do too many dinners because we like to eat out. I have made my own spaghetti sauce and meatballs from scratch and taken it down frozen in a ziploc.

I try and do as much prep at home and take things down frozen in a cooler. This way I am not really cooking; I am defrosting and reheating

We have a 23 hr drive to WDW. We fill the cooler with ice the morning we leave and add more ice when we stop for the night. Everything makes it to WDW FROZEN SOLID

I hope this helps

 

[domiii]

We have a 23 hr drive to WDW. We fill the cooler with ice the morning we leave and add more ice when we stop for the night. Everything makes it to WDW FROZEN SOLID

I hope this helps

Great we have a 17 hour drive, so this is good info!! I wondered if it would still be ok!

 

[jodifla]

We ALWAYS cook in our villas. We normally have friends with us, so we do at least a couple of dinners and all the breakfasts at our "home away from home."

My favorite new trick: I buy a party platter of cutup veggies with the ranch dip. Then, not only do we have an appetizer (that's not chips) I also have a selection of veggies for our dinners, or to use in omelets.

Favorite easy meals--

--Steaks on the grill, with corn on the cob, garlic bread and grilled veggies.
-- Salad (prebagged) dressed up with the party platter veggies, and spaghetti
--Tortilla-crusted frozen fish, with sauteed veggies and rice.

And we add martinis, manhattans and/or wine to each meal out on or OKW balcony!