Pandora Pinterest Fails-How NOT to make cuisine from Avatar

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Way back when in the land we do not speak of-2020- I designed a Disney Staycation for my family. Up until this point, our Disney week at home has been full of all hits, no misses….until I “took” us to Pandora in the Animal Kingdom. For starters this is what the tiny one did to my kitchen:

Recovering from that, I set out to make the food of Pandora from Satu’li Canteen and Pongu Pongu.

Originally posted Spring 2020. This post may contain affiliate links for Amazon and other sites. By clicking on a link and/or making a purchase, I may make a small commission at NO extra cost to you!

Steamed Cheeseburger Pods from Pandora

The beautiful picture above (compliments of http://Disneydishesblog.com) is what a cheeseburger pod from Satu’li Canteen looks like. It is a bun stuffed with ground beef, cheese, ketchup, mustard and pickles. I decided to make my own baked version of this park favorite.

Pandora Inspired Cheeseburger Stuffed Crescent Rolls Recipe

Makes: 8 Prep Time: 20 minutes Bake Time: 10-15 minutes @ 375 degrees

Ingredients

• 2 Packages Pillsbury Crescent Rolls OR Pillsbury Crescent Dough Sheets
• About 1 lb. ground beef ( I used 1 lb. and had a good amount leftover)
• 1/2 of one yellow onion diced
• 4 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Optional: ketchup, mustard and diced pickles

Instructions

1. Brown ground beef on stove, add diced onion when beef is about halfway done. Season with salt & pepper.
   
2. While beef is browning roll out one package of crescent rolls onto a greased sheet pan or a Silpat on a sheet pan. Separate into fourths like this picture:
   
3. Pinch together the seams of the remaining triangles to form four rectangles (if using traditional Crescent Roll dough).
4. Add your ground beef & onion mixture to the center of each rectangle. Top with cheese and pickles as wanted. (You could also add the ketchup & mustard at this point, I have picky eaters and choose not to include it.) You will need a smaller scoop of meat than you think if you want the corners to seal well.
   
   I had a VERY active and tiny sous chef at this point and things got a little messy…
5. Fold the pastry in half and use a fork to seal the edges. You can also try to pinch the edges together but this is trickier than it looks on TV!
   
6. Once you’ve made the first four and have more room on your baking sheet, repeat with the second container of Crescent Rolls.
7. Bake for 10-14 minutes at 375 degrees until dough is cooked and golden brown.
   

My version is absolutely nothing like the inspiration, but a lot easier than steaming the buns at home. We (some of us) dipped them into ketchup and mustard and they were very tasty!

Pandora Pongu Pongu Pinterest Bust

To accompany our cheeseburger pods I wanted to make the fun Pandoran drink that you see all of the time at Disney- the Night Blossom. According to http://allears.net, the Night Blossom is a “non-alcoholic mixture of limeade with layers of apple and desert pear flavors topped with passion fruit boba balls.”

I found a few recipes online and they all had about the same ingredients:

• Raspberry sherbet
• Lime Rickey sherbet
• Sprite or lemon-lime pop
• Passion fruit boba balls

Continue reading to avoid my mistakes!

Mistake # 1-

I ordered boba balls from Amazon, I did not pay attention to the quantity I was ordering… The tomato next to the container is for scale. Seven pounds of boba is a lot!!!

I don’t even know what lime rickey is…so we just bought rainbow sherbet. This entire recipe goes against our ‘no artificial dyes’ situation but I really wanted to make this drink for the kids!

Mistake # 2-

I failed to actually read the directions on the recipes I was looking at. Duh.

I was thinking this would be like a punch or a float. I put a scoop of sherbet in each cup and then poured Sprite on top. It got ugly.

I then added a spoonful of boba into each glass. They sunk to the bottom like rocks.

Ugly.

Mistake # 3-

I found the Navi River Journey on loop on You Tube:

I thought we could listen to this calming music and add to our ambiance. The baby decided this was the perfect time to refuse all food and scream for 30 minutes until we could decipher he wanted watermelon instead of apple slices. Yay Terrible Two’s.

The actual instructions:

1. Blend Sprite with sherbet until smooth and thick.
2. Add boba balls to the top.

The good news:

The kids loved it! What’s not to love for an 8 and 10 year old?
Sprite = sugar, sherbet = colorful sugar, boba balls = weird sugar.

Moral of the story:

You can’t win them all!!!

Comment: Let me know about your Pinterest fails (Read about some of my other fails here and here)

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