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Well, hello there.

Life kinda got in the way of a post yesterday. (Imagine that! Real life has some nerve.)

We squeezed in a camping trip early in the weekend, which was lovely but which means I now feel about two days behind on things.

A view of a lake through tree branches.

Thus, the lack of a blog post. Hey, recognize the tent in the background?

A boy in front of an REI tent.

It’s the one we got as part of the REI program, which is what made us get off our rears and go camping in the first place, two years ago.

An REI pop up tent in the woods.

I don’t think we’re ever going to be diehard campers, but since the kids really enjoy it, we’re settling into occasional-camper status.

A roaring campfire

And we received a campstove for Christmas, so now we’re not limited to things that can be cooked over the fire. Which means bacon! For breakfast!

Bacon cooking on a campstove.

What else do I want to say? Hmm.

Well, I started on an overhaul of my dresser contents yesterday. More on that later this week.

Clothes folded on a bed.

Oh, and on our way home from camping, we picked strawberries. We’ve been eating them like they’re going out of style, but I’m hoping to find some time to turn at least a few into freezer jam.

Strawberries piled into a pan in the fridge.

And that’s it!

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EngineerMom

Thursday 6th of June 2013

On cooking over a fire - cast iron works GREAT. My extended family used to go camping a lot, and my uncle would only cook over a giant bonfire that had burned down to coals. He had this swinging grate thing (piece of rebar with a joint supporting a grill grate that would allow him to swing it on and off the fire), and he would bring a couple of cast iron skillets in which to cook.

His method for cooking bacon: Put it all in the pan, then pour in enough water to come about half way up the bacon. Cover and let it boil until the bacon is cooked, 15 minutes or so. It won't be crisp at all, that comes next. Remove the lid and allow the water to evaporate, then continue cooking the bacon. This method cooks the bacon without burning it and renders out some of the fat while the water is boiling so that when the water evaporates, there's already some fat in the pan to help the bacon crisp up. Over a camp fire or camp stove when the heat is less reliable than an indoor kitchen, cooking bacon this way seems to help avoid burning!

On our camping trips, which involved "primitive" camping to the point of digging your own hole, we'd have meals like fondue (cheese and wine don't have to be refrigerated!), fajitas (Uncle Tom would prep and freeze the meat so by the time we got to using it, it was thawed and had been kept cold), bacon and "donuts" fried in the bacon fat, hot dogs and brats on skewers over the fire, etc.

The donuts were fun to make - refrigerated biscuit dough shaped into a donut shape, then fried in the bacon fat. There were usually about 20 people on these trips, so when we made bacon, it was like 5 lb of bacon - lots of fat! Tom would bring a bag of cinnamon sugar to shake the donuts in.

This all sounds like a lot of calories, but our trips were canoeing trips. After waking up with the sun, which in Minnesota in July is around 6am, we'd eat breakfast, pack up, and then canoe from about 8am to 3pm, with a break for lunch. After a day like that, pretty much anything with a calorie in it looked good. :-)

Kristen

Thursday 6th of June 2013

My family did the primitive canoe camping thing in the wilderness of Canada when I was a kid. One of my least favorite parts? Having to boil all the water over a fire made it taste like smoke. My mom would mix it with Tang or with powdered milk and then you had smoky Tang or smoky milk!

Mary Ann

Wednesday 5th of June 2013

I think it's great that you take your kids camping, even though it's not your thing. Every summer while I was growing up, my parents took us to Buggs Island Lake in southern Virginia. So many memories were made and we still talk about those camping trips. But I can't even imagine what my mother went through to prepare for these trips (my dad was working, so it fell on her). With nine of her children going on these trips, she had a lot of stuff to get together. And while camping, she even slept on the boat to make more room in the tents. She was such a trooper!

The Norwegian Girl

Tuesday 4th of June 2013

I love making freezer jam. Though often I get tons of it from my BF´s grandmother before I´ve gotten the chance to make it myself. Poor me:-P

Beka

Tuesday 4th of June 2013

Bacon!!!! We cook bacon over the fire on a regular basis while camping. We use our cast iron to do it though, as I'm pretty sure it would ruin any other pans. We do pancakes the same way :) Our strawberries are going to be ripe next week, and I'm so looking forward to it! I'm hoping to get enough to make at least two batches of jam, and LOTS to freeze for smoothies in the morning :)

Pamela @ Brooklyn Farm Girl

Tuesday 4th of June 2013

Strawberries are great, nothing better than on a heated day then some fresh berries! I freeze all my extras to make with smoothies for months to come, works great!

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