About Time

OK, so I have been back for a week now, but I have just been really busy. There has been hundreds of loads of laundry, trying to get the smell of campfire out. Of coarse this time of year also means back to school shopping, and not like I am complaining, but we just finished booking a trip to the Riviera Maya.

Now I will try to update you as quickly as I can on our wonderful trip to the Oregon Coast. We spend 11 days camping at the Oregon Dunes, and it's never enough time. We ride sandrails and quads, walk on the beach collecting shells, visit the tiny towns nearby, and I bake of coarse.

This year on one of our trips into town we stopped in at a very promising bakery. (Promising because the sign and name were so cute.) Inside was just a basic coffee shop, but what should I expect in such a small town. I ordered a box of random treats that looked good, but again looks were deceiving. The best were the donuts, which were light and airy.(I think it might have something to do with trans fat, maybe Oregon can still use it.) One of the worst things were the meringues. I have never had a meringue before, but they are so darn cute, unfortunately they taste like chalk.(I don't think that was the bakeries fault, I think that's just how they taste.)

We also stopped at an ice cream parlor, where we bought ice cream, salt water taffy, and a cupcake. I have had these cupcakes before and they aren't anything to rave about, but they look so pretty. (Note to self: freeze the cupcake before eating it, it might make the frosting better.)

I have been learning how to bake using a dutch oven for the last 2 years and it is not easy.  I was using the oven in our camper, which is still not easy to control, but I wanted to be more camper like and use the dutch oven.(It's the least I can do considering we have hot showers, a refrigerator, and heaters, we aren't exactly roughing it.)

I made brownies, chocolate camping cake, cornbread, and fresh huckleberry/black berry muffins. I remeasured the dry ingredients at home to make it a little easier to make at the campsite. It was hard to bake at the right temperature using the dutch oven, but everything I baked was devoured. The berries I used in the muffins I gathered from around our campground and immediately put in the muffin batter so you couldn't really get more fresh than that. I swear this year I am going to practice so I will be a Betty Crocker Camper next year.

I also have to quickly review my homemade marshmallow s'mores. They all turned out really good, if I do say so myself. My favorite was the caramel, how can you go wrong with caramel, marshmallow, and chocolate. The mint was good sparingly meaning you couldn't eat one right after the other, but they did taste a lot like chocolate mint ice cream. The real surprise was the fresh blackberry, when pared with Lindt coconut white chocolate it was delicious, just like a blackberry cobbler.

This week I am going to be continuing the back to school thing, but next week I will be showing off a special back to school treat I am making for my kids.