Car Camping – Farris Style

I am a big fan of camping! Particularly – car camping. (However I recently purchased a backpack and hope to become proficient at the kind of camping where you haul everything up the trail with you in a little bag!) The great thing about car camping is that you can chuck everything into the trunk and backseat of your car in about 15 min for a last minute camping trip and if you bring too much stuff or forget something and have to run to the store – it doesn’t matter!Β 

If you haven’t figured it out yet – we Farris’ like to eat good food. And if I’m going to be camping I’m going to be cooking over a fire. (None of that bring-your-own-gas-grill stuff for me!) So the challenge is to make good food over a wood fire! Veggies, some kind of meat and some sort of bread seem to be a winning combination!

For dinner there was grilled shrimp on a skewer along with grilled veggies and lightly toasted bread! (Tip: I always bring my own grill grates to lay over the top of the rusty one that may or may not be provided.) I cut up some zucchini (long big strips), quartered some bell peppers and cleaned some mushrooms (leaving them whole). Tossed the whole bunch with some olive oil and salt and pepper and grilled them until just tender! Also sliced up some crusty bread and threw that on the grill. The shrimp we kind of cheated with by buying them pre-skewered from the seafood section of our local grocery store. When grilling shrimp it is important to keep a close eye on them and pull them off almost before you think they are done… Over cooked shrimp is dry and chewy.

Of course… because we waited too long to get all of this going, we were cooking in the dark (no pictures) by the light of one small flashlight and the dimly burning camp fire. It was challenging. All-in-all though – it was a delicious meal!

Birthday Blog Party WINNER!

Thank you to everyone who helped make my birthday special by reading my blog or commenting on my post πŸ™‚

I’m excited to announce the winner of my first ever Birthday Blog Party Giveaway! The winner will be getting some delicious spices and fabulous loose leaf teas from my favorite shop Wonderland Teas & Spices (Bellingham WA). I decided to opt out of sending chocolate because… well… it would melt :-/

And the winner IS… Meg S. πŸ™‚ Congratulations! (I’ll be sending you an e-mail soon – if you don’t see it let me know!)

Thanks again for all of the birthday wishes and fun birthday tradition ideas! I had fun “planning” this party and picking out the teas and spices I was going to give away! Can’t wait to do it again πŸ™‚

27th Birthday Blog Party!

It’s my birthday! Twenty-seven years ago today I was born in Portland Oregon to the best parents on earth!

Birthdays are interesting things. When I was younger I always thought I would wake up feeling different somehow… Older maybe. I always felt the same – although I usually felt pretty special πŸ™‚ My family has some great birthday traditions… When I was little we would wake up to a bedroom completely covered in crepe paper! We would have to climb out of it like a spy through laser beams or rip our way through in order to get to the door. As I got older my parents decided that toilet paper was cheaper, so from then on we just got our room “toilet-papered”. One year (when I was either 21 or 22) my dad called up my neighbors/good friends and (easily) talked them into toilet-papering my entire apartment! This year I won’t be waking up to a room strewn with toilet paper. I will instead be waking up at 5:00 am to go to work and cook for 10.5 hours. I’m not complaining. I’m grateful to have a job! I’ll be celebrating my birthday with my sisters on Sunday when we go camping! And next week I’ll be able to see my family and have a little family party…

With my brother at my birthday last year!

Another family tradition that we have is that the birthday person always gets to pick what they want to have for dinner. And when I was little we had “moneyΒ  cakes” that were just traditional style cakes with coins stuck in them! (Don’t worry, the coins were thoroughly washed.) We always got really excited if we got anything bigger then a penny πŸ™‚

This year I want to start a new tradition! I want to celebrate with all of you by hosting a little blog party/giveaway! I’m going to give away a gift box filled with stuff from a couple of my favorite local shops (spices, teas, possibly chocolate), simply because it’s my birthday! In order to be entered to receive this gift box of foodie goodies you need to leave me a comment telling me what your favorite birthday tradition is!

It would make my day if I got a whole bunch of comments – so spread the word!