Visiting the Polynesian from Home

We were supposed to be at Tokyo Disneyland right now, but unfortunately everyone around the globe has been asked to stay at home, to avoid spreading COVID-19. Like everyone, we were sad to have to change our plans but we know that it is all for a very good reason. We will visit Tokyo, one day. In the meantime, we are seeking fun ways to entertain ourselves during this open ended stay-cation. A while back, Ella discovered a cookbook at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet called, “Cooking with Mickey Around Our World: Walt Disney World’s Most Requested Recipes”. As we are also missing WDW, we decided to recall our previous stays at the Polynesian Village Resort. So we selected recipes that originated at the Poly AND included ingredients that we already had at home. It was a challenging and delicious adventure!

Published originally in 1986

From what we can tell, this book is still for sale via used book outlets or Amazon. We will not be posting any recipes as we do not want to get into any copyright disputes. But we can tell you what we made!

To Drink…

Chi Chi (page 8)

Lapu Lapu (page 10)

To Eat…

Honey Coconut Loaf (page 52)

Polynesian Revue Vegetables

Luau Fried Rice

Heading to the pool

Looking toward the Grand Floridian from the Poly (a great place to watch fireworks)

The hotel’s lobby

The restaurants at the Poly are well known and can be hard to get into. ‘Ohana is our favorite. The best part about staying at this resort is that if you cannot get a dinner reservation at ‘Ohana, you can order from their menu for room service.

They also have a Trader Sam’s, similar to the one at Disneyland (our favorite) with festive cocktails and light menu offerings.

The things that we made did not relate to anything we have actually eaten at the resort but instead, were similar in theme. And all of the recipes were from the 1980’s so that added an extra layer of adventure.

The Chi Chi (virgin)

The Chi Chi is a delicious concoction very similar to a Pina Colada with coconut cream and pineapple juice. We didn’t have Maraschino cherries on hand but we did have some Luxardo cherries, to use as a garnish. It was really refreshing and not too sweet.

The Lapu Lapu (virgin)

The Lapu Lapu was a little more of an adventure, as we did not have all of the ingredients on hand. The recipe calls for orange and pineapple juices, apricot nectar, sweet and sour mix and simple syrup. We didn’t have the apricot nectar so I made my own using this recipe.

In our opinion, this drink was WAY too sweet. It definitely could be made without the simple syrup.

Honey Coconut Loaf

The Honey Coconut was similar to a honey loaf with tropical flavors. The one ingredient that it called for that we didn’t have on hand was candied citron so we made our own. This is the recipe we used.

Citron from lemon, tangerine and blood orange

The loaf was really good and the citron was an essential component. If you feel inspired to make this, I would suggest cooking it for 50 minutes, rather than the 60 minutes that the recipe called for. It was too dry and it would have been perfect with less time.

Polynesian Revue Vegetables with Luau Fried Rice and Grilled Pineapple

The Polynesian Revue Vegetables were wonderful. The recipe reminded me a lot of things that I would eat at Chinese restaurants in the 70’s and 80’s. It had a brown sauce made from bouillon (vegetarian), garlic powder, cornstarch and wine. The vegetables in the recipe were onions, bamboo shoots, celery, carrots, pea pods and lettuce. We decided to omit the lettuce because it felt weird and added mushrooms and broccoli.

The Luau Rice was simple and the perfect side dish. The recipe called for garlic olive oil and we were happy to use some that we picked up in Sedona over winter break.

We finished off the plate with grilled canned pineapple and Milo and I also added bacon wrapped hot dogs, prepared in the Air Fryer.

And here it is with the added bacon wrapped hot dog!

We really had a lot of fun creating this meal and we hope to do something similar in the future. Thanks for coming along with us on this culinary journey!