Cast Iron Cooking, Yurts, and Campfires

Hello, everybody! I hope everyone had a fabulous Fourth of July! Something we love to do on those summer nights on the beach is to get a pack of industrial glow sticks for the kids. We head down in the dark and they can play tag in the pitch blackness... because they're wearing a brightly colored glow stick we can keep track of them, and they can find each other!

        These aren't the party sticks that fade out after a few hours. They're military grade and you can read by the light they produce. Great for camping!
 Now, I mention camping because not all of this trip is in a lovely beach house overlooking the sea. Oh, no... I have a few family members who prefer (why, WHY?) camping. Now, I can't quite make myself go all out camping (too much of that when I was a child!) but I can do a week in a
yurt .  (Click the link to read more.)

photo courtesy of Oregon State Parks

They're sort of a glorified tent and can be a great option for people who prefer... I don't know... a BED? And some HEAT? And a way to keep the bugs from crawling up into your blankets?

photo courtesy of Oregon State Parks

Some yurts are just gorgeous and even have showers. (*sob*) but these are part of the state park system and right on the beach so... no glamorous magazine yurts for us. Inside there are some beds and it's generally a place that children think is the coolest thing EVER but the mom is wondering how she'll cook when, although there's electricity, you aren't allowed to use it for cooking. That brings us back to cast iron. Remember the last post?

I finally learned that my pans shouldn't look like this.

Or this... Still upside down, too.

But like this! Ta-dah! Now, I'll get to the larger cast iron cooking in a bit, but first I have to mention this awesome thing I saw on my new favorite facebook page, Cast Iron Cooking.

Westlandcamping.com

 PIE IRONS. I'd never heard of such a thing. A lot of people have. A lot of people haven't. It seems regional. I'd like to say it's a Southern thing, since my Southern friends knew what I was talking about, but around here, nobody had. But I'm only guessing because my friend from Michigan knew what they were, too. Here's a video of someone making grilled cheese and ham sandwiches if you want to make yourself really hungry! As far as I can tell, you cane make pretty much ANYTHING in these. Fruit pies, nutella stuffed waffles, grilled sandwiches, puff pastries, hash browns and ham, chicken pot pie, fried eggs, a flaky apple pie, etc.

Sold by RomeIndustries.com

So, I ordered a few waffle irons (mine have long handles but I couldn't find a good picture), a few sandwich irons and a large round one for pizza. How fun is this? No more living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (with a side of sand). I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. But some recipes I'm going to use can be found here. (WARNING: that's a Pinterest link. Danger ahead. Time suck can be averted by not clicking!)
So, these can all be made in a skillet over a fire.

 I'll be making blueberry cobbler. Recipe is here.

Pizza nachos. Recipe is here.

Peach pie with cinnamon crust. Recipe is here.

Breakfast fritatta. Recipe is here.

And so many more. The camp is right on a lake, and the ocean is just the other direction, so I'm assuming there will be some fish to fry, too. :) I'm not a fryer, though, so I'll leave that up to hubby.  I' sure there will be some flubs and some inedible messes, but I'm hoping to really learn some great campfire recipes. And if not, by the time our week in a yurt is over and we're headed to the beach house, we'll all be MUCH thinner. And crankier. And every so much more appreciative of a stove.

Until next time, my friends! And don't forget, just one more week until Only Through Love releases! I'm biting my nails while I hang out on the beach. It's like waiting for a baby! *deep breaths* Until next time!

I'm baaa-aaack!!! And Fourth of July cake ideas when it's 107F

Hello everybody!! The Fresh Pioneer is back and she's not feeling so fresh.

 

 There's a heart wave in these here parts and I'm thinking 107 is just plain too high. As someone said on twitter, "I don't mind sweating in certain circumstances. But just standing around is not one of them."
 Yup. That sounds about right.
Anyway, we had a great time camping and saw lots of great little buildings like this.

                                             I wanna ring the bell like Quasimodo, baby.

I am not a happy traveler (I'm an okay camper). I HATE being in the car an I can't read without getting sick so I tried to write a sentence and stare out the window, write a sentence, stare out the window, write a sentence... You get the picture. URRRG.

But the kids had a great time in the new car, which had several movie screens that drop down an wireless headphones. It was shockingly exciting. I mean, this family so low tech.... We have one cell phone, one small TV with no cable, and one stereo. When we bought this SUV I mostly was looking at number of seats and safety.  I had no idea that I should have been looking at DROP DOWN MOVIE SCREENS. Happy kids. For hours. And silence for me.

That charming caretaker's cabin with all the room? The one that slept ten? The one next to the old electrical station? The one that had insulators and other odd pieces of pottery from last century scattered all over? It had these so very charming double hung windows. So, so very charming. So, so very not easy to open. It took an act of God and all His angels to get a breeze in that place.

But you know, heat stroke doesn't really mean much when you get memories like this.

To be honest, I wasn't even here for this moment. My sister and her husband, Jim,  and my husband took the kids to Olive Lake for a fishing trip. The adults were kept busy untangling lines and putting on bait and handling poles... And the kids caught a lot of fish. Me? I was at home in the quiet cabin in the middle of the forest, writing. How awesome is that??)

 

 

 

They came back happy, exhausted and sunburned. My sister then organized dinner over the fire, ending with s'mores. (No, you can't have her. She's mine.)

Anyway, as I mentioned, it's hideously hot here. Fourth of July is coming and I wanted to make a cake WITHOUT raising the temperature in my kitchen. I may just not survive that. Not even with the promise of cake. So, one store-bought cake. It's flat. Vanilla, I think.

One tub of Cool Whip, on packet of blueberries and one of strawberries. My kids thought that was a tub of Mayo. They'd never seen Cool Whip. I know, I'm a terrible mother. Don't call CPS, they're all introduced now and are big fans of... whatever it's made out of.

Slice the cake in half, lengthwise, with a long, serrated knife.

Fill with a layer of Cool Whip, lay on the top. Have dainty-handed child place blueberries along the seam. Scold said child for eating lots of berries. Sneak a few of your own.

Cover the top with the white stuff. It helps if you start with a frozen tub, since it's 107F outside and 140F in the house.

Artfully lay on blueberries and strawberries. I would say like the American flag, but hey, we're not picky. Whatever floats your boat.

 

Fourth of July is a special day for this family because we have a naturalized citizen. A long time ago, a teenage boy came to a country where he didn't speak the language . All he knew, was that he could pick fruit for more than a teacher was paid in his country. For a family that didn't get enough to eat on a daily basis, it sounded like heaven.

 

He was the second oldest of eleven and although he didn't get the chance to go to school, he desperately wanted his little brothers and sisters to have that chance. He also had a sister who was very sick and the medicine was more than they could possibly borrow. He and his brother talked it over, and he volunteered to leave his home. His mother cried for weeks.

 

He traveled through California, then Oregon, then Washington. He sent his mother almost every penny he earned picking apples, trimming grape vines, harvesting onions. It was a hard and lonely life. He wanted to go home. He felt lost. One day a friend invited him to church and he went, because he was tired of being one young man in a group of young men.

The service was in his language, the music was familiar, the people welcomed him. For the first time in years, this young man felt like he was home.

 

His new friends encouraged him to study. He told them he had never gone to school, but they said here in America, it was never too late. Here you could get permission to sit in the back of the night classes at the community college. You didn't get credit, but it was free. So, he took classes. English first, then science, then history, and all the other classes he'd missed when he'd been working to help the family.

 

He started working at the church as the youth group leader, along with his farm jobs. The director told him about the naturalization process, how he could apply for legal status.

 

That day, the day my husband took the oath of citizenship, a mutual friend named Sr. Kathy invited me along. She knew I had lived over seas and had struggled to adapt to other cultures. She though I would love to see this ceremony first-hand. Even now, fifteen years later, it moves me to think of those people standing there, from all corners of the world, and pledging loyalty to my country.

So, I made a special dish for hubby and called him out of the garden where he was moving sprinklers. He wasn't  happy about getting his picture taken when he was covered in water and dirty, but we're all friends here at the Yankee Belle Café. And I wanted you to celebrate this Fourth of July with us, natural born citizens and naturalized citizens alike.

  Have a wonderful Fourth!!

P.S. Remember you can download my new book 'Leaving Liberty' for FREE this week!

Random Thoughts for a Random Week

Hi, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I'm... feeling scattered. I'm right at the tail end of editing a new book and getting butterflies in my stomach. As always! It just never seems to go away, no matter how many I put up!

(photo from onebigphoto.com)

This is me. The butterflies have escaped my tummy and are sitting on my face. I still look happy.

 I think.

Anyway, we're in the middle of packing for a camping trip. Well, sort of camping. I spent my childhood in the wilds of the Sawtooth Mountains, hiking 15 miles in to a nice spot and stay a week before hiking back out. I won't say I'm scarred. We'll just say I'm over my need to sleep on the ground and eat Rice-A-Roni every meal.

So, we're staying here. It's the old caretaker's cabin outside of a ghost town called Granite. About 3 hours from us in the middle of the Wallowa Mountains. It has beds. Not fancy, but actual off-the-ground sleeping accomodations. Suits me. A lake nearby. Some abandoned buildings. Gold mining equipment sitting around. You know... country stuff.

 

 

 

                            Um, random photo of flowers from my garden. Cheery!

Random photo of my footwear. I bet you didn't know I had such awesome style. Have I mentioned I have a 13 year old and 12 year old? I'm not sure why they don't want to be seen in public with me anymore. Weird.

Random paining I did for one of my daughters. It's a family tree. Get it? We're all in there, but some are hidden by the flash. The kids got to pick their spot in the tree. I wanted to be a cat, but hubby wanted to be a bird and my daughter thought that wasn't a good match.

And then I made this delicious feast of... watermelon and garlic and matchsticks with bits of catnip.

What?
You don't think that sounds good?
*pouts for a while*
 Fine, I admit that's a stock photo from foodrepublic.com. I'm sure it's something really tasty. Or at least, it's very colorful. And well-engineered.

(anvari.com)

I admit that I don't know what I cooked this week. I definitely ate something because I didn't lose weight. And I'm assuming children were eating something around here because they get really loud and obnoxious when hungry. But we did buy about 10 pounds of popsicles so maybe that's why they're so quiet.

The only thing I have to show for the week is a new cover. (I know, lame. But at least I can tell you how they made it. That's something, right?) These are the photos I sent the Killion Group from dreamstime.com, along with some ideas and the story synopsis.

So, the heroine is a small town girl who escaped to the big city, vowing never to look back. After college, Daisy McConnell settles as a grade school teacher and is perfectly happy with her new life in California.  Her lousy dad was more interested in his own issues than raising his child, but she did have a mother-figure in the old librarian, Marie.

Hero is a cop in above-mentioned small town. Lane lost his brother in an accident and his close-knit family still bears the scars of grief, forgiveness, and moving forward. His home town is second only to his family. It's the place he loves more than any other, the place he'll never leave. Everyone gets a second chance in a small town, even old drunks like Rocky McConnell. Once he stops drinking, they actually get along pretty well. In fact, they're pretty good friends.

 

When Marie dies, Daisy comes home for the funeral and to retrieve her inheritance, an old quilt. She finds out the library is scheduled to close because flood insurance and repairs would cost too much for the small town. Daisy can't let that happen, right? She gives up her summer to write grants and run the summer reading program and try to save the only place she's ever loved.

(picstation.info)

 

Nothing can go wrong with this plan... Only that she's renting Lane's cabin, he's winning her heart, her dad wants to reconcile, and it just won't stop raining.

 

By the time the river jumps the banks, there's a whole lot more drama going in Liberty than a spring flood. The town pulls together to save the library, the quilt holds a startling secret, and two young people in love must decide if NEVER really means FOREVER.

 

My sister made me this quilt last year for my birthday and I wrote the story after I saw it. Doesn't this just spark all sorts of ideas?? She told me I had to write as many books as there are on the quilt. Ha! Funny girl.

Anyway, so this is the cover The Killion Group came up with from all the rambling plot and pictures and vague hand-waving I did by way of explaining what I wanted...

Ready???

 

Awww! So cute!
And then I rushed back an re-wrote her as a skinny-Minnie, since the original Daisy was a little more curvy. Now she's more runtish. And heroines come in all sizes so we love her just the same. I love the Carnegie library they chose for the background. Since the library in the story is an old Carnegie based off the one in my town, I really wanted the library to be the focus. (Of course, nobody minds a cute guy, either. But we love books, so we'll take it.)

Anyway, that's all I got for this week. Leaving Liberty will be available on Amazon July 1st, starting with a free run. Whoohoo! Love those giveaways!

So, not much to eat this week, but maybe that picture of my footwear will keep you all satisfied until I find something to cook.

Oh, and the oven is broken. Did I mention that? It died a few weeks ago. Huh. I never thought about it being related. But there ya go. Appliance shopping rates right up there with root canals for me, so I'm hoping hubby will just stop asking me what I want and go pick something out. Not holding my breath, though. It would be like me trying to buy him some nice tools. *eye boggle*

So, until next time! This week, enjoy the sunshine and wear some fantastically embarrassing footwear!