Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Welcome Spring!

What do hardy snow people do on the first Saturday night of SPRING to welcome in the new season? Why, have a cook-out of course! No problem that there's still enough snow on the ground to be measured in feet and that the fire pit is buried somewhere under all that snow - we will not be deterred!
Our family does a cook-out a little different than most. We cook over an open fire. Naturally, we have the usual cook-out fare but we also do fresh bread, stir-fry, cobblers and....well, the list is limitless. I take great pleasure in trying to figure out how to cook foods that would normally require a stove or oven and do it on the open fire.

We built our pit last year from granite that was reclaimed from a building that collapsed the previous winter from the snow. The building was part of a summer camp and had a massive fireplace. I also have some of the white bricks from the interior firebox of that fireplace. I plan to make an oven for our fire pit out of them this year. Then I will be able to do some serious baking!

This spring kick-off-cook-out had a simple menu, gourmet hot dogs, fire-pit potatoes and stir fry veggies with peach cobbler and s'mores for dessert.

Thanks to my hubby who spent 3 afternoons chipping away the hard snow to find the fire pit and thanks to our friends who joined us. Everyone had a fun time (even though only 1 was smiling in the photo!) and no one went hungry (as usual). Can't wait until the next fire pit!
p.s. That's me in the black sweater in the back fixing up some more s'mores for the kids - not facing the camera, as usual!
Terri Sontra
Purple Moose Designs

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