New Fire Pit and Tilapia Foil Packet Dinner

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We had an old fire pit in our backyard that was here when we bought the house this summer. It had minor rust, but it was still good enough to use. We left it out this winter, and to no surprise, most of the bowl had rusted out. We did one fire earlier this summer, but we lost not only ash out the bottom of the fire pit, but flaming coals as well! It was decided we needed to do something to update it. My In-law’s family has unlimited supply of oil barrels, and that was our source. First, we cut off the bottom 2 feet of the barrel using an angle grinder. We smoothed out the edge to make it less hazardous. Second, we disassembled the old fire pit. I really liked the mosaic ring, so my husband used the ring to hold the legs together as a rim, and welded it to the barrel to prevent our cover from falling in. He drilled several drainage holes in the bottom and air holes down the sides, we washed it out, put it in place, then added the stone ring. For our first fire it did very well. A barrel is pretty big for a fire pit, so if you plan to do the same, be sure to keep the fire small and contained. This fire pit also got extremely hot. The metal barrel was over 700 F, and the ground around it reached over 350 F with just 2 hours of use.

We cooked our packets over this fire pit. The grate we have is an old shelf from an oven, and was unphased after being licked by the flames. 15 minutes was long enough over our fire, but with even a smaller fire, 20 minutes should be more than enough. Everything was delicious, and there were no complaints. This recipe makes 2 packets, enough for 2 adult sized servings.

Tilapia Foil Packet Dinner Recipe Card Download

What You Will Need

2 Potatoes, cleaned and diced
1 Medium Onion, halved and sliced
1/2 Green Pepper, sliced
2 Garlic cloves, peeled and minced
4 Tbsp Oil
2 Tilapia fillets
2 Tbsp Italian Seasoning
2 Aluminum foil segments

Directions

Place pieces of foil on the counter. Add Potatoes. onion, pepper, garlic, and oil evenly between foil pieces. Add tilapia on top. Add Italian seasoning, then seal up foil packet. (Optional) Add extra foil for extra strength.
Build a nice large fire. Place grate over fire. Adjust fire so flames don’t touch the grate. Carefully, add packets over fire. Cook for 15 minutes. Move grate if fire jumps up to touch foil consistently, or if fire goes out under a packet.
Transfer to a thick plate. Carefully open packets, and let cool for 5 minutes before eating.

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September 9, 2020 0

August 2020 Garden Update

August was an eventful month in the garden. In the beginning of the month, I pulled a tomato plant because of fungus. On the 27th, I pulled my cucumbers from the fabric pots. They began forming very misshapen fruits, and the leaves were dying off rather fast. I also planted radish seeds that day in the two open fabric pots and in the free rows of the raised beds. They already have decent sized sprouts, and the rainy weather helps too. I noticed several of my tomatoes had blossom end rot, but I added some crushed egg shells and with lots of rain in the forecast, it had only happened to 3 tomatoes. Finally, I also ordered garlic to be planted beginning to mid-October. I tried to grow garlic last winter, but I really had no idea what I was doing, so they didn’t make it through the freeze. Finally, I’ve also begun trying to root a pineapple top. And, I found a volunteer pumpkin vine by the house.

I’ve also been thinking extensively about the garden for next Spring, Summer, and Fall. Josh and I plan to build 2 more 8X3 or 4 beds. We plan on placing them by our baby peach tree and we plan to place lower maintenance plants there, though I check on my garden at least once a day. Beans grew really well for us this year, so we plan to grow more green beans. We bought heirloom garlic from MI Gardener, so we plan to grow 3 varieties. We didn’t have much luck at all with tomatoes this summer, so though I’ll be more careful next year to water more often and soak them, I plan to up our quantity to 10 tomato plants with 2 heirloom varieties. I’d like to grow bell and banana peppers next year, potatoes and sweet potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, and more onions, but this time from seed. And, once garlic in harvested in July, we’ll wait about a month or so, and plant some peas. We are ambitious, but this summer has been such a blessing to us that we’d love to have even more fresh veggies next year! We would plant zucchini, yellow squash, or eggplant, but my in-laws always grow lots, so we help absorb some of their excess. Finally, we contemplated more carrots, growing celery, and beets, but we’d like to grow the garden in increments that won’t overwhelm me, and hopefully doubling in size won’t be too much.

This summer we also got quite a bit of seed from our garden. The radish seed pods below is about 1/2 the quantity I got from about 4-5 plants I let go to seed. It took me about 3 hours to break and filter out the seed, and I easily have 100-200 seeds. I also got 3 onion flowers from my sets this year. They formed seeds, but I want at least one other variety, so I will also be buying a packet of seeds. Finally, as I mentioned, my green beans have been doing great. We were harvesting once a week, but just Monday when I was harvesting, I found about 3 pods that were drying. So, I also got 12 new seeds from that, and I will now be harvesting beans twice a week until they slow down. I also am letting my lettuce go to seed, though we’ll see how far they get before I turn my beds.

August 18

August 27

September 1

Plants Outside the Garden

September 2, 2020 0

Meals Without Refrigeration

This weekend, Josh and I were looking at an end of season camping trip. As the weather was getting colder, we decided it was now or never for finally going on a summer trip. We chose not to, but I did lots of research, and below that I will have a list of refrigeration free meals and snacks. This is not only a good resource for future camping trips, but it’s a good idea to have some of these items in storage for the next possible natural disaster.

Meals

Cereal with Evaporated/Powdered Milk
Oatmeal with Evap./Powdered Milk, with dried fruit
English muffins with Butter or Jelly packets
Bagels with Butter
Muffins, Banana/Pumpkin Bread
Canned Meat Sandwiches/Soups (Tuna, Chicken, Ham/Spam, Salmon, Clams, Etc)
Boxed Mac & Cheese
Canned Pasta (Ravioli, Spaghetti Os, etc)
Canned Soup (Condensed Chicken Noodle, Vegetable Beef, Chicken and Rice, Etc)
Spaghetti with Red Sauce
Cheesy Chicken Casserole, make in a pot over fire, and used canned chicken, exclude cheese if don’t have shelf stable
Tuna Salad Cucumber Boats
Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
Fried Rice with canned veggies/meat
Tuna Noodle with Evap./Powdered Milk and Canned peas

Snacks

Peanut Butter on bread
Crackers, Chips, Nuts, or Cookies
Pop Tarts
Fresh Fruits/Veggies
Apple Sauce
Granola Bars
Trail Mix
Fruit Cups/ Canned Fruit
Muffins
S’mores

August 28, 2020 0

Refrigerator Pickles

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Original recipe can be found here. I used Dried Dill instead of fresh, though the original recipe used fresh dill. I also forgot to add onion, so that also changed the flavor.

I made this recipe a week and a half ago. This weekend I was making picnic food, and I thought these pickles would pair very nicely. These pickles are very good. They aren’t as sour as store bought pickles, but they had the right flavor and tasted great! I used 9 tsp dried dill, 2 garlic cloves, and I forgot the onion. Despite this these pickles were very good and still had a fresh flavor about them. If you still have as many cucumbers as I do, this would be a great recipe to make!

Refrigerator Pickles Recipe Card Download

What You Will Need

4 qts Cucumbers, with ends cut off and quartered if large
9-12 tsp dried dill
2-4 garlic cloves
1 small onion
7 1/2 cups water
2 cups vinegar
1/3-1/2 cup salt

Directions

In a large pot, bring water, vinegar, and salt to a boil. Turn off burner and remove from heat.
In a gallon container, add dill, garlic and onion, then top with cut cucumbers.
Cover with warm brine, place a plate on top to hold cucumbers under the brine, then add lid and transfer the fridge.
Pickles are ready after 5 days, and are good for 9-12 months.

August 17, 2020 0

July Garden Update 2020

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July has been very busy for the garden. I harvested radishes the end of June, and July I just pulled my onions. I started the month with several tomatoes set, but before long, there was a period of no setting fruit, and they stopped growing entirely. My cucumbers however had a great start of the month. I got lots of big and beautiful, as well as gourd-like and misshapen cucumbers. I was able to can pickles, and just last week I was able to make a gallon of fridge dill pickles that last up to a year! By the end of the month, I had gotten a tomato from each plant, and had begun finding green beans. The carrots were almost ready to harvest, and the seedpods on the radishes had begun to turn red. The last thing that happened this month, was the loss of a tomato plant. I planted 2 big beef, and 3 better boy, and one of my big beef plants must have been hit with fusarium, a fungus. I treated the roots with a mixture of peroxide and water, I heard it sizzling, showing it was a fungus, but the plant got hit hard and fast, so it couldn’t recover, and I had to pull it.

My second bed also went crazy this month. It grew so fast, that I had quite the mess there. Besides that, My marigolds had begun growing, and one day, there was a big hole in the bed, and the netting had several holes. I found, several weeks later, that it was in fact a bunny who found my raised bed, and had 4 little bunnies under my marigold. We also decided at that point, we’ll splurge next year and buy chicken wire for the beds next year. better safe than sorry. Despite that, only a few onions got toppled, and nothing was eaten, just a couple frightened bunnies when I’d come for my daily cucumber haul.