Kitchen Kabaret: Cooking in a DVC Villa – Part Three

Hi DVC Fans, and welcome to part three of our DVC cooking series. If you missed the first two parts of this series you can find them here:

• Kitchen Kabaret: Cooking in a DVC Villa – Part One (Breakfast)
• Kitchen Kabaret: Cooking in a DVC Villa – Part Two (Lunch)

This time we’re talking dinner. This is the meal where I feel you can save the most money when you’re eating at Disney. If you’ve ever stifled a gasp when you’ve received your bill at the end of a lovely table service meal…you know what I’m talking about. While eating dinner at Disney restaurants is one of the best parts of my vacation, it’s also nice to save a couple hundred dollars by making dinner in my DVC villa. The more money I save on dinner, the more I have to spend on Dooney bags, right? Joking…sort of. Have you seen the new DVC ones?

Anyway, let’s get some housekeeping out of the way first. The recipes in this article will all be easy to prepare, with minimal ingredients, and won’t need any kitchen equipment not readily available in your DVC villa. I have decided to do an additional article featuring slow cooker dinners, because I know a lot of people like to use those while staying in their villas (myself included). The recipes in this article will all be stovetop or oven foods. The ingredients for the dinner recipes will all need to be supplemented with a food item or two that aren’t available for purchase in your resort store. We use Prime Now for our grocery orders in Disney, but there are many others available.

Time to get cooking!!

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Barbecue Chicken Nachos

This first recipe is one of my kids’ favorites, and is so easy to prepare. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like it.

Ingredients

½ bunch of cilantro, chopped (optional)
15oz. can of pinto beans (or black beans, whichever you prefer), drained
1 deli rotisserie chicken, shredded
1 cup barbecue sauce
2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar, Colby jack, fiesta blend…your choice)
1 cup frozen corn
1 (18 oz.) bag of tortilla chips
Sour cream, avocado, and additional barbecue sauce for garnish, if you’d like.

Assembly

• Add all ingredients together in a medium bowl, and mix well.
• At this point, you can store the bowl (covered) in the fridge until you want to make the nachos.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Spread chips onto a baking sheet and top evenly with chicken mixture. Go ahead and top with more cheese, if you’d like. There’s no such thing as too much.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until heated through and cheese is melted.
• Top individual servings with extra barbecue sauce, sour cream, and avocado.

DVC Adjustments

If you have a bigger family or want leftovers, you might need to include a couple of aluminum foil cookie sheets with your grocery order, so you can make a larger quantity of nachos.

This recipe is very adjustable. If you mix everything together, and feel you want more of any particular ingredient, just add it. The measurements aren’t definitive.

Although the recipe calls for a rotisserie chicken (just to make things easier on the cook), I usually just order a bag of frozen chicken breasts or tenders from Prime Now, and poach them in a frying pan on the stovetop, then cool and shred them.

Baked Ziti

This is another recipe that can be prepared ahead of time, and baked whenever you want to eat it.

Ingredients

16 oz. box of dried ziti pasta
28 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce
1 tsp. of Italian seasoning (I toss this in my luggage to bring with us.)
2 tsp. minced garlic (powdered works great…adjust the amount to your taste, or skip it altogether if you don’t want to mess with packing it.)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Assembly

• Spray a 9 x 13 baking pan with non-stick spray.
• Cook ziti to al dente (time is listed on the box), and drain.
• In a large bowl, mix cooked ziti with sauce and seasonings.
• Spread half the ziti mixture into the 9 x 13 pan.
• Sprinkle 1 cup of cheese over the ziti mixture.
• Spread remaining ziti over the cheese.
• Top with remaining cheese and cover the pan with aluminum foil.
• Bake at 375 degrees for 35 – 45 minutes, or until heated through.

DVC Adjustments

I usually make this the night before, then store it in the refrigerator. When we get home from the parks, it’s ready to be baked. Add ten or fifteen minutes to the cooking time, if it’s been refrigerated.

This dish goes great with just a simple green salad and some Italian bread. We order those from Prime Now, along with some salad dressing.

The ziti is super easy to reheat in the microwave, so you should be able to get a couple of meals out of it, if your family is smaller.

White Chicken Chili

This soup is a staple in my kitchen. It’s easy to make, and all ages enjoy it. I serve it with a green salad and cornbread.

Ingredients

1 pound, boneless, skinless chicken tenders cooked and shredded
1 TBSP vegetable oil
½ small onion, diced
4 small cloves of garlic, minced
1 (7 oz.) can of diced green chiles, drained
2 (15 oz.) cans of white beans, undrained
4 cups of chicken broth
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup sour cream
3 cups shredded Colby Jack cheese
Chopped tomatoes and cilantro for garnish, if desired

Assembly

• Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute for a couple of minutes, until translucent.
• Add shredded chicken, green chiles, white beans, chicken broth, bouillon, and spices.
• Simmer for 30 minutes.
• Add the sour cream and shredded cheese, and heat until cheese is melted, stirring occasionally.
• Top individual servings with additional sour cream, cheese, diced tomato, and cilantro if desired.

DVC Adjustments

As with the ziti, I don’t bother to order fresh onion and garlic for this recipe. Dried onion pieces and garlic powder work just as well, and they’re much easier to transport.

This recipe also reheats well in individual servings in the microwave for another lunch or dinner. Feel free to double it if you have a large family.

I chose this recipe to go with the barbecued chicken nachos and ziti, because you’re using some of the same ingredients in all three dishes, and that makes it easier if you’re bringing the groceries with you, or ordering them online. One 2.5 or 3-pound bag of frozen chicken breasts or tenders will be enough for both the nachos and chili.

I toss a container of oregano, as well as the dried onions, powdered garlic, cumin, and the bouillon cube in my suitcase for the ziti and the chili.

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So that’s it for my first batch of DVC dinner recipes. You should be able to make all of these with a minimum of fuss, and with lots of time leftover for the parks and your resort.

Let me know what you enjoy making for dinner in your DVC villa in the comments, and stay tuned for some slow cooker meals in my next article. Until then, happy cooking!