Kickin’ Off The New Year – Campfire Cooking, Friends & Home-made Cider
Happy New Year to all of you! I wish you an abundant and prosperous year ahead for you, your families, and friends. I wish 2017 to be a most amazing year for you!
This December was a much better month than last year at this time. We actually had time to prepare for our gathering and the day was completely stress free and I know you are thinking there is no such thing as a stress free gathering but it’s true we had everything done in advance and our guests were happy to relax and enjoy some soup and great conversation! Speaking of guests one of our guests was a local photographer Brian Lantz and he was very kind to take a few pictures and share them with us of our Annual Event this year. This was our 3rd one and I must say it’s a tradition we want to continue. You can find Brian’s work at Brianlantz.com and or you can follow him on Instagram click here. I have to share I am quite enamored with Brian’s photography he has a perspective that resonates with me and of course you have to admit the photos below he took of our black star, our pup River, and the fam are the best don’t you think? No, I’m not biased about the subjects in those photos at all.
We love campfire cooking as you know and we love southern cooking in a big way so we pull all of those different flavors together every year with some home-cooked black-eyed peas, our famous frugal fish stew and our very popular Karen Lynn’s Brunswick Campfire Stew (this feeds approximately 30 people when I double the recipe!) Our friends all brought wine, appetizers, and desserts and well it turned out to be a great day!
Every year we provide for our guests our home-made cider for this event which is always popular. This year we served up Blueberry-Apple cider and Cranberry-Apple cider both of which were huge hits and I would say our guests were equally divided. We purchase the cider making kits at Wilmington Brewing Co./Wilmington Home Brew a local brewer destination for supplies. Our reasons for not making cider from scratch are as follows the kits are easy, no-fail, and quick and we get perfect results every time. it ‘s an easy decision for us and way more affordable than buying cider for your party or event from the grocery store. Good cider is expensive unless you make it yourself plus I think it always tastes better when you make it yourself or that may just be my passion for all things home-made.
This year we ended the day with a campfire, chatter, and some campfire s’mores! I would say it’s a day I will treasure for the year and yes after everyone left we were tired but we have been eating off all of our soup all week and no complaints from the Viking or me lol. Our son joined us for the day and it was actually a warm New Year’s Day for us in Coastal North Carolina and I ran from hot to cold at one point I was in short sleeves and as I tell my husband all the time I am sure my temperature problems have nothing to do with me ;).
Hot topics on our homestead this year!
- Camping
- Sourdough
- Soapmaking
- and much, much more!
I wish you all a beautiful week….until next time! We have lots coming on the blog for 2017! Cheers to all of you who are on the journey with us!
Fondly,
