happily random

Back in the saddle again

It's hard to believe that we have lived in North Idaho for 5 years now and this is the first time we have gone camping. I must admit there was one reason: bears. Silly, right? When we lived in California we went camping all the time but the biggest wildlife in the area were coyotes. Here there are all kinds of things in the forest: bears, moose, cougars... BIG FOOT. I'm sure the natives are laughing at us, but still.

We were blessed to find a camping trailer on Craigslist for a great price just a few weeks ago, so this past weekend we took it for it's first run. After being tent campers for our entire marriage, camping from a trailer is luxurious. It sleeps all 6 of us comfortably and has a bathroom, kitchen & shower. Heavenly. And while I know it might be an illusion, I did feel a little safer from Big Foot in our camper.

Two other families joined us for the weekend, which is a great way to spread out the cooking. My idea of camping is mostly sitting around the fire chatting and eating our way through the day while the kids get filthy-dirty playing. I was not disappointed!

We camped along the Coeur d'Alene River where the kids played when it got too hot. With 11 kids & 3 dogs in tow there was no shortage of entertainment!

Saturday afternoon we pried ourselves from our camp chairs long enough to hike to Keller Falls and Shadow Falls. I was amazed at the seeming 20 degree drop in temperature around the falls, like nature's own A/C.

Now that we have our camper, we have many more camping trips in our near future.

Freezer Jam

Expanding my domestic abilities, today I decided to take my first baby steps into learning to can by making freezer jam. My dear friend Jo gave me a huge bag of strawberries (I didn't even have to pick them or buy them -- how lucky is that?) and I bought plastic jars and fruit pectin, so today I decided to dive in!

After washing and trimming the berries came the squashing -- lots of fun! I used my Pampered Chef Mix n Chop to do the initial chopping, which worked great. It's supposed to be for ground beef, but it worked beautifully to chop up strawberries for jam. After they were chopped up, I finished them up with a potato masher, making 4 cups of squashed strawberries.

After that I cooked up the pectin, sugar and water according to the directions, mixing in the strawberries after the mixture had boiled.

Immediately after that I spooned the hot jam into the plastic jars I bought and -- VOILA!

They're supposed to sit out a room temperature for 24 hours and then I can freeze the ones we won't be using right away. I was very intimidated by the idea of canning, but this way was very simple. I know that I will do it again in a few weeks as my raspberries come in. As I gain confidence I might have to give traditional canning a try with our apple treat. Who knows?