🔥Around the Campfire (week 46)

 Dear Campers ~

Here's a quick recap of what happened at camp in case you missed anything:

Posts ~

11/8: 🔥week 45

11/9: troll costume

11/10: tip-sy tuesday: storage wrap tip

11/11: chessman banana pudding

11/12: pine nut pilaf

11/13: Brooke's coin jar

11/14: picked red onions

What's Cooking ~

rigatoni with homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs, sausage, boiled eggs (thanks Al and Cathy!)

marinated pork tenderloin, rice pilaf, roasted carrots 

stuffed salmon, roasted broccoli

grilled thin cut chicken breast, low carb noodles ("carba-nada"), caesar salad

bbq ribs, coleslaw

chicken enchilada suizas

Very short recap today - been busy working in the basement so didn't have much extra time for any miscellaneous stuff. Hope you had a great week, stop back often to see more fun projects, recipes, and whatever else I can think of (or get other people to do for me) to make! Bye!

Sincerely,

Jill

camp counselor

Pickled Red Onions

While on my pickling kick (along with cucumbers and green beans) I decided I'd like to try pickled red onions - very easy to do and I love them! You can add to sandwiches, chop up in chicken or tuna salad, put on salads or tacos, or just eat straight out of the jar hahahaha. Since I've never done it, and because Dave will not eat them, I didn't want to make too many jars for my first time - I found a small batch recipe and just made 2 small 8 ounce jars of them and I'm wishing I would have made more! Who cares if I have to eat them all by myself - I'm up for that challenge ;)

I changed the recipe a bit so am just going to tell you what I did:

• 1 large red onion, thinly sliced 
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 T. pickling salt
• 1 T. pickling spices (you can omit this, or add peppercorns or other spices)

                           

Follow standard canning methods, there is tons of info online for how to can - here's a couple basic things to know: 

*you want the jars sterilized and hot, either by running them in the dishwasher before starting to can (leave them in the hot dishwasher after the load has stopped so they stay warm) or immerse them in a large pot of boiling water for 5 minutes. I do this right in my big canning pot since you'll also need a hot water bath for processing the jars. 

*put the canning lids into a small saucepan with water and bring up to almost a boil. Turn off and leave covered so they are hot when time to seal the filled jars. 

*have a funnel, ladle, and a wet paper towel handy for filling the jars. 

1. Dissolve the vinegar, sugar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a simmer.

2. Add the onions and pickling spices or other spices if you're using to the saucepan and simmer on low for 5 minutes uncovered. Remove from heat. 

3. Using clean tongs, pack the onions into each jar. Add the spices from the pan if you're using.

4. Using a ladle, fill the space around the onions with the pickling brine, leaving about 1/2 inch head space.

5. Wipe the rim with a wet paper towel so it's clean, then add a lid from the hot water in the small saucepan. Screw in place with a ring.

6. Process for 10 minutes submerged in the large pot of hot water, make sure there's about an inch of water over top of the jars. Remove carefully with long tongs and set on the counter or a rack to cool - you'll know the jars have sealed when you hear my favorite canning sound, it's sort of a 'ping' or a popping sound. Cool completely.

Store for up to 1 year, once opened store in the fridge for up to a month. 

Coin Jar by Brooke

Hey guys! Today I was counting my coins in my big glass jar. And I thought it was so ugly and boring. So I decided to dress it up a little bit!! All I used was paper, hot glue, and glitter!! The first thing I did was pick out my paper and cut it to my Desired size to be a little bit lower than half on the jar. Then I put hot glue on the end and glued it to the jar. Then I went around the jar with the glue following it with the paper so I could get it as even as possible. Then I let that dry. After it dried I took the hot glue gun and used it around the top of the paper. After I did that I poured glitter on that glue on the top. Then I let it dry again! Then once it was fully dry I poured all my coins back in it and now it’s so pretty! This was so easy and it looks 10x cuter than it did!

Pine nut Pilaf

This recipe is on the inside cover of a pine nut clamshell container from great lakes international trading co (click here), I had all the ingredients on hand so made it as a side with grilled pork chops last night and it is great! I shouldn't be surprised since they bothered to put it on the cover hahaha, but I was surprised none-the-less. Pinenuts are expensive but sooooo worth it in this recipe - click here to see how to toast pine nuts to bring out even more fragrant nutty flavor. 

Apricot Pinenut Rice

 

Print

Author: Jill Wilkes

Ingredients

• 1 medium Onion, chopped
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 cup Long Grain or Basmati Rice
• ½ teaspoon Salt
• 1 14oz can Chicken Broth
• ¼ cup Water
• ½ cup Great Lakes’ Dried Apricots, diced
• ⅓ cup Great Lakes’ Pinenuts, toasted
• 1 Tablespoon Basil
• ½ teaspoon ground Cumin
• pepper

Instructions

1. Cook onion in olive oil over low heat.
2. Add rice, salt, broth and water. Bring to a boil. Cover, turn the heat down to simmer for 15 to 18 minutes (until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed).
3. Add apricots, cover and let stand for 5 minutes.
4. Stir in the pinenuts, basil and cumin.
5. Pepper to taste and serve.

note: I omitted the onion and it still has great flavor, and I used dried basil. Yum. 

Chessman Banana Pudding Dessert

Cat brought this dessert to a cookout a while ago and it's so pretty and such a good idea I knew I wanted to share it; I've been sitting on it though because I wanted to ask her more questions but I haven't been able to connect with her so I'm going to share what I know, and if there's questions we'll wing it together ;)

Basically she replaced the vanilla wafers traditionally used in banana cream desserts with chessman cookies (they come in a bag, I think they're Pepperidge Farms? Hold on, I'm going to google to verify...yep, Pepperidge Farms. And while I was googling I found a bunch of recipes for this online, here's one that looks good from Paula Dean titled 'not yo mama's banana pudding' - I don't know if that's the recipe Cat followed but this way we aren't having to guess). Put down a layer of chessman cookies in thee bottom of your dish, top with bananas and whatever filling you like for banana cream pudding, then top with more cookies. Isn't it pretty? 

Here's Paula's recipe ~

Ingredients:

• 1 (12-oz) container frozen whipped topping, thawed, or equal amount sweetened whipped cream
• 1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk 
• 1 (8-oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups milk 
• 1 (5-oz) box instant French vanilla pudding mix 
• 6 to 8 bananas, sliced
• 2 bags chessmen cookies 

Line the bottom of a 13x9x2-inch dish with 1 bag of cookies and layer bananas on top.

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended.

 Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Tip-sy Tuesday: storage wrap tip

Brooke taught me this little tip and I can't believe I never questioned what the little tabs on the side of cling-wrap, aluminum foil, waxed paper, etc. boxes is for! Did you know this? Push the cut outs on either side of the box in and it holds the inside roll in place so it doesn't fall out of the box. Seriously, how did I not know this? And how did B know it?

Troll Costume

Yes, I get that Halloween was last week and we won't be needing costumes for a while (unless you want to just have a random costume party for something to do, hey that'd be fun - we should do that!), but I wanted to post this super easy, no-sew, lazy, quickie costume because let's face it, I will never remember a year from now that I made this! Now at least it'll be on the blog if you're searching for easy, no-sew, lazy, quickie costume ideas in the future :)

The pictures make it look really wrinkled, I did not notice that until seeing the photos - ignore that part hahaha. 

I took an extra-large t-shirt I had on hand for another project (actually I can't remember what I originally bought it for - it's in a bag with supplies to make a Snow White costume, did I think the shirt was going to be her dress somehow? I don't know so it's now a troll costume hahaha), cut the sleeves off, and hot glued felt shapes to the bottom. The t-shirt is long enough that I could wear it as a short shift dress but I did wear boy shorts underneath to cover my assets. Just in case. And thank goodness I did because naturally my sister made us do the limbo!

The arm holes are super big on the cut up t-shirt and since I was making this literally 2 hours before going to my sissy's I didn't have time to make this more flattering - the best and quickest thing I could think of was to thread ribbon thru the neck and arm holes and tie it in a bow on top of my shoulders. I used a piece of the same ribbon to tie a bow at the top of my hair - my hair is short right now so with a bunch of hair products and good ol' Aqua Net hairspray I was able to stand it straight up. It's maybe a little weird that my natural hair is also troll hair but whatever. If you have long hair and want to be a troll, I saw lots of ideas online to make a headband with tulle into troll hair. 

To finish I did colorful eyeshadow with fake lashes, bright lipstick, and stuck some gems to my face. Silly and easy, and for how last minute this came together I think it turned out pretty cute. 

🔥Around the Campfire (week 45)

 Dear Campers ~

Here's a quick recap of what happened at camp last week:

Posts ~

11/1: 🔥week 44

11/2: flamingo donut cake

11/3: tip-sy tuesday: pumpkin spice cookies

11/4: chicken with sun-dried tomato cream sauce

11/5: MSIH: west coast chili and a trophy

11/6: Brooke decorates phone cases

11/7: pickled green beans

What's Cooking ~

• leftover cheesy potatoes with ham, roasted broccoli
• chicken sausages, white beans baked in marinara, green beans
• grilled chicken, spaghetti squash with marinara, caesar salad
• grilled tuna, greek salad (tomatoes, cukes, feta), roasted garbanzo beans
• broccoli and cheese quiche (costco), green salad
• burger salad

Miscellaneous stuff keeping me busy:

• read the last 2 books in the Charley Davidson grim reaper/p.i. series by Darynda Jones. I loved this series and I will definitely be re-readiing them! I might even put them on my Christmas list (there are 13 of them!)
• while putting away Halloween stuff I decided to sort thru all of the costumes I have, make a list so I'll easily know what I have next year, and also a list of what is needed to make costumes out of all the little random bits (i.e. there's a pirate eye patch and a gold hoop earring, but nothing else...etc.) 
• also while putting away Halloween stuff I got a little side-tracked and started sorting and organizing other parts of the basement. Yep, the basement is now torn up and I have a new project at hand! 

Hope everyone had a good week - stop back and see more projects, recipes, and whatever else I think of to make at MMDC! Bye!

Sincerely ~

Jill

camp counselor

Pickled Green Beans

My sister went with Ronda to her parent's house to make dilly beans a few weeks ago and she brought home a couple jars - and they are so so delicious we wanted to make more on our own...but do you think we could find a time to get together and make them? So I woke up this morning and decided to attempt it on my own! I don't have Ronda's family recipe but I googled and got tons of ideas, I went with this one but changed it a bit - I'll give you the original recipe and then my notes below. 

2 1/2 pounds fresh string beans
2 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
2 cups water
1/4 cup salt
1/2 pound garlic cloves, peeled
1 bunch fresh dill weed
1 pound small spicy red peppers
3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional

Sterilize 6 half-pint jars with rings and lids and keep hot. Cut string beans to 1/4 inch shorter than your jars.

In a large saucepan, stir together the vinegar, water, and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. In each jar, place 1 garlic clove, 1 sprig of dill, 2 red peppers, and 1/8 teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Pack string beans into the jars so the are standing on their ends.

Ladle the boiling brine into the jars, filling to within 1/4 inch of the tops. Wipe top rim of the jar so no moisture gets captured under the lid. Seal the jars with lids and rings. Place in a hot water bath so the jars are covered by 1 inch of water. Simmer but do not boil (approximately 180 degrees) for 10 minutes to process. Remove from the pot. Cool to room temperature. Tests jars for a good seal by pressing on the center of the lid. It should not move. When jars are cooled you should hear a "pop" to signal the lids are sealed. Refrigerate any jars that do not seal properly. Let pickles ferment for 2 to 3 weeks before eating.

notes: 

*I bought a 2 pound bag of beans and made the brine according to the directions and didn't have enough so had to make more. Because the original brine cooled down while making the additional, I dumped what liquid I had poured over the beans in the jars back into the pan so it would all be hot at the same time. 

*I couldn't find small spicy red peppers so omitted them. 

*I put 2 garlic cloves in each jar, along with the fresh dill, a pinch of mustard seeds, and the red pepper flakes. I read somewhere to lay the jars on their sides and lay the dill along one side before adding the beans - it looks pretty in the jar that way instead of laying at the bottom. 

*I got 3 (12 ounce) jars and 3 (8 ounce) jars from 2 pounds of beans.

original recipe from 'The Book of Doing' by Allison Arden

Phone Cases by Brooke

I love this easy and economical idea from Brooke to decorate phone cases, here's what she did in her words:

Hi everyone! So today I wanted to show you how I make my phone cases! So some phone cases are very expensive and I don’t know about you but I don’t want to drop $35 on a phone case!! So my mom and I do ours like this and it makes them super cute and they’re super inexpensive! I just have a clear phone case and a pack of any stickers. And instead of peeling the stickers off and sticking them on the outside of the case, I keep the sticker backs on and just place them where I want them on the back of my phone, then put the phone case on! So cute and so easy and you can make it whatever you want it to look like!! :)