What am I doing posting something when clearly I have forgotten I’d even had a blog?

I don’t know. It’s been too long I guess. A few weeks back when I needed to renew domain mapping I honestly contemplated scrapping my little piece of internet in terrible need of attention. I wondered what I even need this for.

Then I went camping.

After weeks of all the kids being home all day in my face fighting and playing and messing and singing and OMG loud and can we go to the lake the movies the library the store I’m bored she hit me its mine me first stop stop STOP IT! I finally had a moment of clarity.

That little voice in my head that banters on about crafty sewing goodness and all the blah blah blah crud I usually deposit here flooded back in. Granted, camping with 4 kids is not exactly my dream vacation but it is my favorite thing to do so we take the good with the bad! And I decided to keep the blog and try to use it again 🙂

So I have no pictures to go with these things I’m going to blog about… I’m so not about taking pictures anymore.. Am I alone in this? I constantly see people glued to their phones taking pictures and posting them somewhere online and I’m just sitting there thinking, nah I’ll remember this. I have actually watched people walk into a lake and take selfies or pics of their kids. In a lake. A lake filled with water and piles of splashy other swimmers that don’t give a hoot about your phone. Maybe everyone has one of those waterproof phones? I dunno, but it makes me cringe.. and I’ve gotten off track.

So why am I here? I employed some fun stuff I found on Pinterest in our recent camping trip and I need to pass what I’ve learned along.

1. Dutch Oven Meatloaf. I read many a pin stating that a box of stove top stuffing, 2 eggs and about 2 lbs of ground beef makes a delicious meatloaf.. and a great one in the dutch oven to boot. I had a turkey flavored box in the cabinet and figured, yup, trying that. We mashed it up a bit before mixing it all together. I shaped it into a giant burger, wrapped it in wax paper, stuck it in a Ziploc and froze it. We had it for dinner on our second night with fire roasted potatoes and it was deelish, not a drop leftover! I have to say though, all the pins I read mentioned it would take about an hour to cook placing the dutch oven right in the fire but ours was done in about 25 minutes and I lined the oven with foil for easy cleanup. This will become a regular on our camp menu.However, I will not cook it directly on the coals again, this will go suspended over the fire or on a grate instead for a slower moister bake.
2. Dutch Oven Dump Cake. Again, probably skimmed through hundreds of pins in this subject, particularly looking for the can of soda options. With gathered information I formulated my own plan that worked flawlessly (as all dump cakes do). I used a can of coca-cola, box of devils food cake and 2 cans of cherry pie filling. Doing this with the kids proved to be the highlight of all the food – even nearby campers thought it was super cool. I let the kids prep the whole thing too, its so easy! We lined the dutch oven with foil, dumped in the pie filling, dumped in the cake, dumped the soda and I gave it a quick stir. It was decadent! We all agreed it tasted like brownies on cherry pie. We used the grate on the fire ring at our campsite for this one and I suggest checking it often and removing it from the heat when you think its just about done and letting it finish on its own so there is no risk of burning. Oh and its a lot of cake! Make sure you have a few folks to share it with!

Welp, back to the grind I guess…