Camp-tastic Weekend!

First off...Yay for camping and taking long weekends!!!!

There. Now that that's out of my system I can get on with my post!



Suki bored on the Ferry



Our first campsite



We went camping last weekend at Fort Flagler State Park...Now for a little back story, literally every year, we go out camping in April and have TERRIBLE weather, and a pretty miserable, cold, wet, sometimes even snowy time. And EVERY year we say, "Man! That sucked! Lets never camping that early in the season again!" and every year we make plans for our first camping trip at exactly the same time of year. I think now its just tradition to go out and be miserable in April...But this time was different! This time we didn't get snowed on, or rained out, or any of the usual things! (Well, I should note that last year at our worst adventure yet at Cape Disappointment State Park we got camp all completely set up to be told that no, we couldn't use that site...And this time THAT same thing happened to us! Apparently the upper loop was closed -even though it said it was open on the website and the gate was open and the water was running- so we camped our first night and had to break everything back down again and move... but that's not a usual occurrence...yet) We had great weather for the coast, overcast with rain only one morning. It was beautiful.



Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum



For those of you unfamiliar with Fort Flaggler, it is located on the WA peninsula  and is part of a triangle of WWI forts/batteries to protect the inlet including Fort Warden, Fort Casey and Fort Flagler. So far we have stayed (and explored) at Fort Warden and Fort Flagler, next up is Fort Casey! Fort Flagler is truly a beautiful State Park with a good sized beach, light house, barracks, and batteries to explore on a roughly 3 mile round trip "hike"..its very easy, just a long walk. The beach combing there is wonderful also. We saved a poor flounder! It had washed ashore, Suki our dog went up and sniffed it and we had thought oh no, she's gonna roll in the dead fish, but at closer inspection is was alive! So we tossed it back into the ocean, and after several minutes where we were left wondering if it had just been out of the water too long it swam away. Which was exciting! I also found a big old shark's tooth! That's right! A big shark tooth on the WA coast! I don't know how rare they are to come by in our area, but I felt like it was quite a find! I am quite proud! lol. There was also a lot of beach glass and other good finds along the beach as well.

For anyone interested in our food this trip, we had a little different menu than normal. As always our first night was my famous corn chowder. This stuff is good...however not so good for your waistband. My "recipe" is as follows:

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Stazia's Corn Chowder

1lb (ish) good thick bacon

2(ish) Tb unsalted butter

2 cans creamed corn

2 cans no salt added whole kernel corn (or frozen would be fine)

Half and Half

Cream

Milk

4 (maybe 5) cloves of garlic

1 medium onion

5 (or so) potatoes (anything will do, reds are nice) diced

green onions/chives for garnish

salt/pepper to taste 

Put a large stainless steel pot (I use an 8qt) over medium heat.

Cut the bacon into squares (I make them decently sized because I like them that way, but small pieces might suit you better. only preference dictates size) and put in the pot to sizzle away, its best to let this crisp up just a little so that it will retain some texture in the chowder. Do NOT drain the fat! I repeat! Do NOT drain!

 To the almost done bacon in the pot add your onion (chopped) and your garlic (I smash the crap out of it and then mince it. lol) and saute until heated through and the onions start to become translucent. To this add your diced potatoes (again, personal preference dictates size and type. But keep in mind that large chunks of potato take longer to cook). Once that has a chance to simmer for say, 10 minutes, add the butter and once that has melted add the cans of corn and give it a good stir.

To this add your milk/cream/half&half. I usually use mostly cream, a small carton of half and half and a splash or two of fat free milk to get the consistency and texture right. The amounts in which you want to use these things is again up to you, but I definitely insist on at least a small carton of cream and a small carton of half and half if you're really that concerned about calories. lol. You wanna get the consistency a little thinner than you think you'd like and reduce the heat to low and let simmer for about 45 minutes.

Store in a large Tupperware over night and serve the next day.

-it is also an informal requirement to serve this with buttered (we do use smart balance) buttermilk bread. I think it's called San Juan's or something. In any case, its one of the breads named after a place in the PNW. lol

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We do NOT EVER eat this unless we are camping or out on a road trip, so I don't skimp on the fat/calories here. And I definitely recommend this for camping. Its filling and hearty enough for cold weather, but doesn't have the heaviness of something like chili. This is my husbands favorite dish. Ever. I highly recommend it on your next outing.

We also had hot dogs, and kebabs (we got a little crazy and started sticking just bacon on our skewers. lol).

And a new addition to our camping menu, Batter Blasters! Let me start off by saying I was very, VERY, skeptical about this product (you know, that suspicious looking whipped cream can filled with pancake batter by the eggs in the grocery store). But I saw it was organic ( I was a little skeptical of that too) and Ryan wanted it so I thought, what the heck, might as well try it. And I am SO glad we did! there is NO mess and the pancakes taste amazing! They are a little sour (that's a good thing) not quite sour dough pancake status but a little more sour than buttermilk pancakes. Great. Try 'em.

I wish I had taken more pictures with my iPhone, but alas, I did not. I may make a post with just some pictures from the trip.

**In other news**

A bright blue "Budgie" flew straight into our window last Thursday and surprisingly did not die! So we now have added a bird to our family. No one has been looking for it as far as we can tell and it also doesn't seem like it was handled very much. So we'll see how that goes! He sure is a pretty boy!

Burger Bonanza!

 

So, yes, I'm trying to eat better. And yes. I had big awesome burgers last night. Oh well. My brother-in-law came over for dinner and I learned a shocking fact about him....he doesn't like bacon on things. Burgers, BLT's, in chowder, soup, bacon maple bars, nothing. Just plain...at least he liked it plain or I might have kicked him out of my house. lol

I'm sure I've said how much I love taco night, but I am also finding that I love burger nights...I will love it even more when we have a BBQ and I can send my husband away to go tend to the burgers and I can do what needs to be done inside!

 

Onion Goggles provide protection AND entertainment! lol

In any case, I made up some burgers with all natural hamburger (not organic, so who knows what that means.) crushed garlic, salt, pepper, and of course an egg (actually 2). I wished I had not been out of Worcestershire sauce...because that is obviously great in there! I sauteed up some mushrooms, sliced an heirloom tomato, a sweet onion, and fried up a couple strips of bacon. Delish.

 I also made an herbed horseradish mayo! You guys should know that I don't measure...anything...ever. lol. I took maybe a 1/4C mayo and maybe 1-2tsp horseradish and 1-2 tsp of chopped fresh rosemary, mixed it together and viola! delicious, and easy flavorful mayo great for burgers or roast beef sandwiches!

For the side my husband made his AMAZING sweet potato fries. I know I've posted about them in the past, but really people...once you try these you never go back. I will NEVER let another frozen potato product enter my house again...What a waste. These however are so good, moist, flavorful, crisp on the outside...just wonderful.

Preheat your oven to 450F.

 

Sweet potato fries in the oven



While the oven is preheating (mine takes awhile.lol) peel and cut your sweet potatoes into whatever shapes/sizes you deem acceptable, keeping in mind that the thinner/smaller the pieces are the quicker they will cook and the the thicker they are the longer they will take to cook. Put those in a medium size mixing bowl (we generally use 2-3 moderately sized sweet potatoes). In that mixing bowl, drizzle the potatoes with a decent amount of olive oil, (again, I don't measure but if I had to guess I'd say 2-3 Tb). Crush and mince 2 cloves of garlic (we use big ones) and add it to the bowl with salt and pepper to fit your tastes. (I use freshly ground pepper and Trader Joe's sea salt, both because the have great flavor, and I don't have to use as much salt when it has a lot of flavor). Toss all the ingredients with your hands until all fries are coated with the oil/garlic/salt/pepper.

To prepare your cookie sheet, cover the bottom with foil and then place wire cooling racks on top of the foil. This ensures proper air flow and helps get those puppies crispy.

Place the fries (and any extra garlic) on a prepared cookie sheet, making sure they do not touch each other.

Mildly Creepy Spongebob

Bake for roughly 30 minutes, taking into account the size fry you made =)

Before I even started dinner, I bolted outside at the sound of the FIRST ice cream truck of the season! They were out of Spidermans so I had to settle for Spongebobs. So we enjoyed our slightly creepy ice cream treats with an episode of The Office. A good time was had by all.





Cake Update!

So, in my previous post I had said I was over all satisfied with the cake I made, but disappointed in the frosting. WELL! That next morning (Sunday am) I couldnt resist a piece for breakfast (I know I know) and was very pleasantly surprised to find that the frosting, after having rested for a bit, was perfect! It still obviously wasn't real raspberry, but it definitely acquired a more classic buttercream flavor (NOT ridiculously sweet) as well as a bit better/more of a raspberry flavor. That entire cake was gone in under two days...With only two pieces being eatin by someone other than myself and my husband...yikes! LOL.

So for anyone who is not familiar with making buttercream or would like to try, if its too sweet, try giving it a few hours to rest and then see how you like it. You may be pleasantly surprised!

This week

So, it has been awhile, again...But I am determined to keep at this! I have been thinking about the blog all week, but have not really had much to blog about. So today I decided I needed to bake something. I had a recipe I wanted to use, but being out of buttermilk, and not wanting to run to the store, I did a quick google search for an easy one bowl chocolate cake recipe! I kept coming across the Hershey Chocolate Cake recipe (on their web site using their cocoa). It seemed simple enough, the proportions of ingredients seemed a little strange to me but the strangest addition was 1C of boiling water! I have seen a lot of cake recipes, but none involving adding boiling water to the batter.

I am not the type of person to tempt fate. Since I really enjoy using really good quality ingredients, I rarely embark on a project that I don't know will work...Maybe I was tempting fate, but I decided to go with it. A new (and quite foreign) recipe, Dutch processed cocoa and black cocoa instead of natural...and the last kicker...not enough milk...I don't know HOW I got this to work, but it made an amazing cake! I compensated for the lack in milk (like a 1/2C) with more boiling water....and surprisingly the change from natural to dutch process cocoa did not mess with the leavening too much...It produced a VERY moist, fudge-y, black cake....let me stress to you how black this cake was....not dark chocolate, not rich chocolate, but BLACK...Which I for one happened to REALLY enjoy...and my husband and two guests seemed to enjoy it also.

I always make my own butter cream frosting, since I dislike the cloyingly sweet (and horribly unnatural) cans at the supermarket. I thought for such a dark cake surely, as tempting as it was, a chocolate fudge frosting would have been over-kill. I thought that a nice raspberry would cut the richness of the cake and be quite good. BUT instead of doing the right thing and making a fresh raspberry frosting, I broke down and got raspberry flavoring...it was a huge FAIL. First off, raspberries are tart, and strong. This flavoring certainly didn't taste or smell like any raspberry I've ever met before. So I did my best to cover it up using a good vanilla bean crush ( think vanilla bean seeds in a thick vanilla extract) to no avail. For my tastes the frosting was overly sweet, and while it did taste like something other than vanilla, it certainly did not taste like raspberry. A big bummer. But the cake was good enough that it made the frosting sort of an after thought anyway. I should note that my husband didn't think that it was too sweet at all...but he could drink that DaVinci syrup straight. So he may just be on a different level.

In other news, I am in the midst of a cup and saucer bird feeder project. More to come on that later. And I figured I should mention that our starts for our garden are doing very well! However some of my flower starts have taken a turn for the worse, and I'm not sure why :(. Hopefully they will perk back up.

Any way, I think that's about it for me tonight! More to come later! Keep those eyes peeled!

Sorry I'm late!



Brushing the biscuits with buttermilk



So its been a few days, but I have been meaning to blog! lol.

So lets go back. So that Sunday night that (same Sunday I made Rice Krispies on!) was taco night! I happen to LOVE taco night! We bought these new(er) tortillas that we found at Safeway that are the smaller size, and are a corn/whole wheat blend. I find them delicious! I normally hate mass produced tortillas, but I've found that these have a great taste and texture and are definitely more healthy than the hard shells, which makes me quite happy! In any case, I chop up all the ingredients (onions, tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, lime, and radishes) and put them in my tiny little Fiestaware bowls that make taco night a little more fun! Ryan loves the little bowls. lol. I should have taken a photo, but alas, I did not.



Pan-frying the Cheerio Chicken



Monday! I DID take some pictures Monday! I tried something a little new. I made for the first time some sage biscuits from Blackbird Grain Farms. Its an organic heirloom grain biscuit mix. Now, these had a great taste, they were a little crumbly vs flaky, and for those of us that think KFC has the best biscuit ever, they are a little dry and not what you immediately expect out of a biscuit. HOWEVER, after that initial (and ridiculous) shock that your home-made, all natural, heirloom grain biscuit is not a KFC or Pillsbury biscuit...they are delicious! I constantly have to remind myself when I'm baking or cooking to be in the moment and not compare my food to things that aren't even real. Like KFC/canned biscuits. You just can not possibly make that in your kitchen, and I doubt that you would even want whatever they put in those in your home. lol. Anyway, on to the side dish. We have a ton of sweet potatoes right now, so I decided to dice some up (in decent sized bits) drizzle them with olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, and a little extra garlic powder for good measure. Obviously if you've got fresh thyme use it! It is SO much better than the ground up powder you get in the spice isle. I gave it a little toss and put it in a casserole dish in a 400 degree oven for, lets say...30-45 minutes?? obviously the bigger you make the pieces the longer they'll need to cook.. I make a great healthy baked chicken dish that uses Wheatabix for the coating, but since I did not have Wheatabix I had to improvise with Cheerios. I first pounded out one chicken breast (ensuring that we get only one serving size of meat each) and then pounded and pulverized those poor little O's..To the bag that I beat the O's in I added some whole grain flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder and sage (seasoning heavily) and shook it about until it was well blended. Then I made an egg wash, but what I did this time was beat one egg with a tsp of "Better Than Bouillon" that gave it some good flavor there as well. Dip the chicken in the egg, then in the cereal mix and bake it or pan "fry" it until nice and crispy! Its always tender and delicious. However if you're going to try this I definitely recommend Wheatabix. The Cheerio's weren't bad, but Wheatabix is definitely better in this application.



Steaming some veggies for the pasta



Tuesday Night was a little simpler. I boiled up some organic, whole grain pasta (ziti) and sauteed up some chicken breast in olive oil with garlic and basil, shitake mushrooms, and carrot. Steamed up some broccoli and asparagus spears, and tossed it all together with some pesto and sunflower seeds. My first choice of mushroom would definitely be crimini for this, but Tuesday was a, "my fridge is full of stuff that is about to or is going bad" type of a night, so I scrounged and made a healthy pasta dish! Woo! And for dessert, because I've had a terrible sweet tooth lately, I baked some sweet potatoes (just like you would a regular potato) and split em, put a little smart balance on em and sprinkled a little brown sugar and cinnamon on them. Delicious! Even the husband liked them.

And Wednesday night was even more simple. I took a can of Amy's fat-free vegetable soup and added the left over taco meat from Sunday and Viola! Easy, if not a little too spicy for my tastes, dinner. I also had a left over biscuit. They are quite good but best eaten straight out of the oven.


Pasta in the back and chicken for sauce in front!

 Now that we are caught up, hopefully I will not fall so far behind again! While I'm not putting a strict goal of blogging every night, when I have good dinners to blog about, I should just stop being lazy and do it that night! TTFN!

Sunday morning!

Well...now it's Sunday afternoon, but that doesn't quite fit the No Doubt song thats been running through my head! In any case, Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I can laze around, and do whatever I feel like.

Usually I do everything I can to stay in my pajamas. Today however I had to get dressed for an appointment later so I used that opportunity to stop by the grocery store and get some rice crispy treat supplies! A simple, sticky, and rewarding treat....Made me think to the future and the possibility of making them with little ones. Probably my friends' little ones but hey. lol. Making rice crispies with kids is something everyone should do.

As you can see I decided to make a little sheep today! He's got some swirled chocolate frosting for wool and while his face doesn't look so good, I am SURE he will taste just fine!

Does anybody have any good childhood Rice Krispy memories to share??

Signing off! Rest up the rest of the day before we start the work week all over.

W-is for Wine

I promised some crafts! So tonight I am posting a real quick wine bottle decoration I did for a little wine and chocolate party. It is pretty simple, shabby chic... But for $8 with lots of extra materials who could complain?! I just took a base paper and wrapped the bottle, then added to contrasting stripes around the bottle. Made a little tag and tied a couple ribbons! The other nice touch and a good tip in general, is to use little rhinestones or buttons to cover up any seams.

 I think that considering this involved zero planning, an inexpensive trip to my favorite paper store, and only 10 minutes of my time, that it was a success! You could certainly do the same craft with fancier papers and nicely edged scissors! But for this particular edge I decided to tear the paper. I just enjoy the texture for an informal event like this. This would be a great Christmas present, hostess gift, or in this case a pretty way to cover up where the wine is from for a tasting game! Cant wait to have some and see what other wines we'll get to taste! Have a nice evening!