Outdoor Dining

In the Upper Midwest, we've reached the time of year where it's not too hot, not too cold, not too buggy and often the biggest concern is how breezy it is outside. The perfect weather for outdoor dining is upon us and I'm taking advantage of it as much as possible. Every evening when I get home I've been asking hubby if he thinks it's too windy to eat outside.  I'm asking his opinion, because otherwise I'd be out there every evening, too windy or not!  I can just see us chasing down the napkins, or biscuits or my daughter's half empty cup across the yard.

Enjoying a glass of tea while watching Kirsten and hubby play ball.

Since I do tend to push the limits of when it's suitable to eat outdoors and when it's too windy, I try to do a few things in order to make dining outdoors a little easier.

If possible, put the food on your plates in the kitchen rather than serving "family style".  That way you are just carrying dinner plates outside and not all the dishes and condiments and other things you might need.

Wrap the napkins around silverware to prevent them from flying off until you are ready to sit down.

Stick to heavier veggies and fruit speared kebab style, rather than lighter things like spinach salad.  I watched almost half my spinach salad blow off my plate one evening with one particularly gusty breeze on an otherwise lightly breezy day.

An outdoor table cloth with a bit of elastic sewn to each corner to wrap around the table edge or heavy washer weights sewn to the hem will help keep your tablecloth from blowing up and taking other things with it.

Do you have any tips that make dining outdoors easier for you?

Town Square Farmer's Market - Grand Forks

As I mentioned, Town Square in downtown Grand Forks is starting to get busy for the summer. We went to the Town Square Farmer's Market for breakfast on our Anniversary and spent the morning listening to music, eating kuchen and drinking coffee. We got both a chokecherry and apple kuchen and split them, while sitting at tables listening to Megan Johnson. Megan has a voice reminiscent of Janis Joplin, and I really enjoyed the entertainment. I wish we had gotten a chance to go this last weekend as well to listen to Still Fighting It (Blog), but didn't get going early enough in the morning.



The kuchen was very good, I wanted just a little more tartness with the chokecherry, but the apple was perfect. The morning was fairly warm, but I needed a little pick-me-up so, I got a great cup of coffee from Porpoura, a fairly new coffee house in town.

In the far corner of Town Square, there is a play area for kids, and on the opposite side of the Town Square closer to the river they have a pony/horse ride corral set up.





It's really a little too early in the year for much in the way of produce, but there were a few baked goods vendors there and a Pride of Dakota products vendor. I managed to buy a loaf of banana bread, a loaf of pumpkin bread, and a bag of rhubarb to make a rhubarb cobbler.

There is also a variety of other vendors: jewelry, glass, soaps, quilts, etc.



I love it when they get the water going over the wheel, although this weekend they only had it working on one side.



And a picture of the quilts for Tamy:

Camping Organization with Recipes

We went camping a few weeks ago for the first time this summer and while we were mostly prepared I thought I'd put together a checklist of sorts to use as a guide for our future trips and thought you might benefit as well.

We have 2 bins, 1 has all the eating/cooking items and the second has all of the overnight camping type items. We refer to these as the picnic bin and the camping bin. We also have all of our first aid items in a large tackle box at home that we store in the front closet, it's always together so we can just grab the first aid box and go.

Picnic Bin Checklist:
4 varying sizes cast iron skillets
1 pot
spatula
1 paring knife, 1 large serated knife
1 cutting board
cutlery for 8
serving utensils
can opener
cork screw/bottle opener
trash bags
paper towels
napkins
8 plates, bowls & cups picnic set
4 mugs
tableclothes and tablecloth clips
pitcher
heavy duty aluminum foil
dish pan
dish soap
scrubbing sponge
dish towel
hand sanitizer
Nature's Seasoning
Lawry's
matches
potholder
Ziplock Bags (small and X-large)
lawn rockets game
frisbee

Camping Bin Checklist:
small hatchet
rope
clothespins
small propane tanks
propane lantern
propane lantern mantles
lighter fluid
halogen lantern
batteries
flashlight
whisk broom
gloves
tarp
duct tape
toilet paper
citronella candles
tongs
BBQ set
scissors
campfire roasting skewers
small shovel
blanket
playing cards
matches
long lighter
air mattress repair kit

First Aid Tackle Box:
Band-Aids
bandages
gauze pads
rolled bandage
butterfly bandage
tape
cotton balls
purse size Kleenex packs
gloves
alcohol
hydrogen peroxide
Epsom Salts
hydrocortizone cream
Neosporin
burn ointment
Bactine
calamine lotion
Abreva
Tiger Balm
hand sanitizer
towelettes
thermometer (digital and head strip)
small sharp scissors with point cover
tweezers
strong magnet
safety pins
stick pins
matches
emergency thermal blanket
first aid book
cold compress
Visine
Tylenol
Advil
Aspirin
Excedrin
Sudafed
Nyquil
DayQuil
Imodum-AD
ExLax
Benadryl
Tums
cough drops
Sunblock
Sunburn aloe gel

When we go on a picnic we just grab the picnic tote and first aid box, our collapsible lawn chairs, camp stove and coolers.

When we go camping we just to grab the above totes and first aid box, our collapsible lawn chairs, camp stove, coolers, tent, sleeping bags, air mattress and clothes/personal items.

In addition to the normal food cooler(s), we have a 5 gallon round cooler to keep drinking water handy at the picnic/camping site, to do a quick handwash, or to mix up a beverage pitcher. So much easier than going back and forth between the campsite and water supply for each meal and throughout the day.

We freeze bottles of drinking water, and use reusable freezer blocks in the cooler to keep everything cold with having melted water all over the place in the bottom of the cooler. I also have a few Chillzanne pieces from The Pampered Chef that I use in the cooler and for serving.

Food is always a matter of personal preference, I stay away from anything involving mayonnaise, and try to pick items that are made on site. Certain recipes just lend themselves so well to picnics and camping. Granted they are delicious at any time, but for some reason we always do them over the campfire or camp stove.

Favorite Camping Recipes

Roasted Reds
B-size red potatoes (small, maybe a bit bigger than a golf ball)
Nature's Seasoning

Cut red potatoes in quarters with the paring knife
Place in large Ziplock bag
Sprinkle generously with Nature's Seasoning
Seal and shake
Pull off sheet of aluminum foil about 18 inches long
Pour about 1 1/2 - 2 cups of potatoes into center of foil
Pull foil up around potatoes lengthwise to meet and roll down tight to the potatoes, then roll up each end to seal (You need to be able to flip the packet without having them fall apart)Repeat making foil packets until all potatoes are in packets
Place foil packets upside down above fire on grate, turn after 10 minutes
Check every 5 minutes until done (open a packet and stab the biggest potato piece, should go through easily)

Roasted Steaks
Thick Steaks (ribeye is best... mmmmmm...)
Salt or Nature's Seasoning

Sprinkle meat with salt or Nature's Seasoning
Throw meat over fire til done, turning once halfway

Breakfast!
It seems dumb probably, but camping is the only time I make biscuits and gravy and I cheat! But it's so good when it's still cold outside and you are eating Biscuits & Gravy cooked over a fire.

Camping Biscuits & Gravy
Refrigerator Biscuits (I use Pillsbury)
White gravy mix (We are going for things like sausage country gravy, peppered country gravy, or country gravy by McCormick's, for example. If you find a white "southern" gravy mix use that!)
1-2 sausages cooked, chopped up

After you make your sausages in the morning in a LARGE cast iron skillet (assuming you didn't burn the sausages), pour off the fat (if there is any)
Place the biscuits in the skillet around the outside and what fits in the middle
Cook them over the fire for 4 minutes (or until brown but not burned on the bottoms) Flip the biscuits over
Take the pan off the fire, the pan will still be hot and will slowly finish up the biscuits
While you are waiting for the biscuits to finish, prepare the gravy according to the package (If you are guessing on the amount of water, it is better to have too much to start and let it cook off, than to have too little and end up with thick clumps that you have to try to fix!)
After the mix is added to the liquid and stirred thoroughly, basically during the stir until thickened stage, add the chopped COOKED sausage
Stir until thick like pudding
The biscuits are probably done by now (4 minutes or so), check the bottoms. If they are lightly brown, we're good!
Split the biscuits and spoon some gravy goodness on them.

Grand Forks in the Summer - The Kegs

I mentioned the Farmer's Market, The Grand Cities Art Fest and The Art & Wine Walk in a previous post. They are just a few of my favorite things, but what really signals that spring/summer has arrived around here is opening of The Kegs for the year. The Kegs Drive-In, aka The Kegs or The Fabulous Kegs is a drive-up that opens in April in Grand Forks, and is known for it's sloppy joes and root beer around town.

The Kegs just got a facelift last summer so it definitely looks a bit different, there are some older pics on Roadside America for comparison. I think it looks more like kegs now... and the food hasn't changed a bit... I always order a BLT with Onion Rings and a Cherry Coke. mmmmmm....







Click on the menu to see a larger readable image:

First Camping Trip of the Summer

First, I came home last night and crashed! After three restless nights in hotel beds I literally walked in the door and crawled in to bed, while hubby unloaded my care for me (isn't he sweet!!!). So I will do my best to catch up this afternoon with anyone I missed this week.

Second, I'm a glutton for punishment! After only 1 night back in my own comfy bed, we're leaving this afternoon for our first camping trip of the year. We'll be going to the Old Mill State Park in Minnesota and I definitely will NOT have internet access there. So I'll be light on posts this weekend and the Farmer's Market will have to make it's blog debut next weekend. So much to do, so little time.

So, it's the first day of summer and we're going on our first camping trip of the year. This is the camping trip in which we inevitably no matter how hard we try, we will forget half the things we need at home. Each time we go we say "Oh, we need to bring X next time." By the end of the summer, the last camping trip of the year we've packed everything we own into the car with the dogs.

At that point camping is kind of like this... All the comforts of home:

From RadioAblaze.com

Yeah, I'm dreaming again. Every year in the beginning of the season, I think we'll be fine with less stuff this year, and by the end of the summer we have all the same stuff loaded up. I'll learn my lesson eventually, or get a lake cabin so I can just leave the stuff there... ooops, there I go dreaming again.


These are actually the cabins at Grand Superior Lodge.
We've rented cabins here a few times for vacation, they are quite nice.