SHRIMP boil

Two days ago we returned from family camp, we look forward to this week all summer, but when it's done it marks the end of another summer. We get back and it's time to get in "back to school" mode. I strongly dislike back to school mode. I dislike it because I am reminded of all the things I wanted to do this summer but did not. This summer most of those things were project type things.....so I guess I can put them on my list of things to do when the kids go back to school. Ugh, the procrastinator side of me is groaning......

One thing our summer did not lack of was time with friends. Right from the get go we were making the most of our summer. One thing we try to do at least once a summer is a Shrimp Boil, it's always extra fun if we do it with a family that has never done it before.

Our good friends invited us to a Boil a couple years ago. And after several phone calls to my friend Rebecca I got the Shrimp Boil thing down, kinda. We have done several of our own since. Sometimes in our backyard. Sometimes at the beach. It's always a bit of a trial and error process...but it is always a blast.

Back in July, if you remember, we rented a cottage with Big D and her family. The last night at the cottage our good friends the Boumas joined us and we decided to end our stay at the beach with a BANG!

There is nothing like fresh air, boiling shrimp and lots and lots of butter!

This particular night we had 8 adults and 11 kiddos around our shrimp boil table. Needless to say...in the hub-ub of everything (the Sangria might have added to problem too...sometimes these things will slow you down) I did not quite get all the pictures I would have like to get, so you would have the absolute full on immersion of how a Shrimp Boil is done from beginning to end. I also did not have all my stuff that I am used to using from home.....since we were at a rental, but we made it work. I am hoping you will get the general idea and maybe give it a try before summer is over.

Here is what you will need more or less:

click here for your printing pleasure

Red (small) potatoes 1 per person

Small onions, 1 for every 2 people

Sweet corn, 1 cob per person, cut in 1/2

1 lb of shrimp (unpeeled) , per 2 adults

2 Zaturans Shrimp boil Seasoning bags, more if you like spicy (usually come 2 bags in a box)

Hillshire Farms Smoked Sausages cut in 1" chunks (we used 1 lb)

lemon wedges

salt and pepper shakers

Hot Sauce/Cholula

sticks of melted butter or Squeezy Butter

cocktail sauce (if you like)

2-4 loaves of fresh French Baguettes

paper towels/napkins, several medium to small bowls for shells and cobs, newspaper or butchers paper, Turkey Fryer with large pot(18-20+quart)&strainer, a long table

We have never put sausages in with our Shrimp Boil before, but we had so many kiddos and some of them where scrunching their noses at the sound of shrimp eaten on news paper so we thought what the heck...and it was great and the kids loved it! Yeah! "You say Hillshire", "I'll say Farm" GO MEAT!

So you want to get your ingredients all prepped. Thaw the shrimp. Clean the potatoes, onions, and corn. Cut up sausage if using. Get your butter out and in dishes or if you want to make it really easy buy some of the squeezy butter in bottles and sit it on the table. Cut up your lemon wedges.

You will want to prepare the table well before people get there, or if you are us you send the kids out with news paper and tape and let them have at it! You definitely want to make sure that the table has at least two layers of paper on it. Then when the meal is finished you can just roll up the mess and voila, presto change-O! throw it in the garbage and your mess is all gone!

Also set out the salt/pepper shakers, sauces, paper towels, baskets for bread, bowls for shells and cobs.

NOTICE: there is not dinnerware involved in this meal. This can be a problem for some guest. If you sense they are ready to pack it up and head out, then by all means get them a plate, but most people with a little nudge, will see that it is really fun, and they will get over it and dig in. Full on drop their face on the table kinda fun!

This is our turkey fryer. We love this guy. He has allowed us to have many fond memories with family and friends. You want to get the gas hooked up to your fire thingy and get that going a good 1/2 hour before you are ready to start cooking so about an hour before you want to eat. Fill the pot to the fill line if there is one or about 2/3 full.

Throw your spice bags in. And get the water to a full rolling boil.

The key to the shrimp boil it the timing, which means remembering what to put in the pot when and how long it needs to cook. So here is the time line more or less. Our pot was full of vegi's because of the number of people so we had to do the boil in two stages.

time line:

20 minutes potatoes

15 minutes corn and onions

5 minutes out sausages if you do them

**now if you were going to do it in two stages you would pour this out on your table
2-3 minutes for the shrimp

That is what Big D's man is doing here dumping the vegi's out on the table. Then you want to have your shrimp ready...stick the strainer back in the boiling water, make sure you have the seasoning packets in the water (they might have gotten dumped out on the table). Throw the shrimp in boiling water...this will go super duper fast. Sing yourself a rousing rendition of your favorite T.V. shows theme song.....like maybe Gilligan's Island or something and then the Shrimpys will be done. It only take the shrimp 2-3 minutes max! As soon as they are all pink pull those babies out of the water and dump them out on top of the other goodies. But if you have a big enough pot, by all means do it all together, just add the shrimp in 2-3 minutes before the rest is done.

There are the taters and corn all lonely waiting for the shrimps!

AAAh there they are!

It will look like your table is kinda strewn with food, and maybe like there is not enough. But believe me if you follow the list above there will be plenty. We always have leftover shrimp...well almost always.

My heart aches when I look at this picture. It was so much fun. Truly I have never done a boil or been to a boil that hasn't been overwhelmingly memorable...like you don't want the meal and the conversation and the laughs to end.

You can pull chairs up, we have. But this night we stood.

It takes time this meal, the peeling of the shrimp, the tearing of the bread. It's a little bit of work, but great memories and conversations revolve around this type of meal. Look at those cutie patootie faces....oooh it's killing me.

Peel and eat shrimp!

It's fun to see who has the biggest pile of shells and cobs next to them. Pig! Oinker! "hey save some for the rest of us we're starvin' down here!".

I usually don't serve a whole lot else when I do a Shrimp Boil. Maybe a light appetizer, but you want people to come to the table full of anticipation, and hungry tummies.

Oh yeah this is serious business...as you see my son otherwise known as HotSauce he has the hot sauces all lined up.

That's Big D and her ginormous girls...the are giantesses (giant cutie PIES that is!). These two love the "tradition" of the Shrimp Boil with the Johnsons! Big D was not just wearing a towel to the table in case you wondered. We were at the beach, that is her bathing suit cover up. (She is going to kill me....)

Here is the reason three woman in Michigan get up everyday and thank the Lord above. I am not joking. These three are the nicest, sweetest, funniest (well the two on the outside are funny anyway) guys you will ever meet. Hearts of gold these three! They have known each other since high school, maybe before. Mr. Bouma is on the right. This guys is funny just breathing. He does a killer impersonation (no pun intended) of a dead man floating in the water....not funny you say...well not until you have seen Mr. B do it on the beach with 80 million kids running around...somehow it is just gut busting hilarious. Big D's hubby is on the left. He always makes everyone smile and my kids think he is the best ever. And the one in the middle is my Kenny of course. You gotta luv um. We do. I think this pictures is what frames were meant for.

Two weeks from today school starts here in Michigan. We intend to make the most of these last days of summer. Hoping you are too!

family CAMP

Our family is preparing to pack up and take off to Portage Lake Bible Camp tomorrow. This will be our 7th year of family camping. We wouldn't miss it for the world. It is one of the most peaceful, relaxing places on earth...I like to say it's like a little piece of heaven on earth. Posh it is not. I did say we were camping. We stay in a cabin, with bunks, and we share a bathroom with another family. Mmmmhmmm.

I know what you are thinking...that I have very low expectations for heaven. But family camp is not about the accommodations it's all about the fellowship. Being with your family and meeting up with friends, with out the distraction of TV, computers, phones, laundry, cooking.

Well I cannot lie, we will have our cell phones, and I will probably bring the laptop, but only for late night email checking(wink). I will have the chance to meet with people and put some some things together for the cookbook I and a group of others are doing as a fundraiser for camp...I am super duper geeked about this project.

Once you and your family arrive and get settled in there are many options to choose from, so you can make yourself as busy or as unbusy as you want.

Above, would be the beginning of "The Portager Challenge". It's always on Thursday and it brings out every ones competitive spirit. Teams form, with kids and adults. Usually families combine, and then your team has to canoe out to a point in the lake, run a mile, climb a 50ft wall, run a short sprint, do a swim out to another point in the lake to get matches....when the swimmer finishes, the rest of the team needs to get busy building a fire to pop Jiffy Pop popcorn over. The first team to get their popcorn popping wins the rights to say they won the Challenger and of course the coveted T-shirt. Over the years we have figures out it is ALL about the fire. You can come in last and still win if you can get your fire going. My oldest son was on the winning team one year...yeah, I know....I am still pumped over it!

This is the waterfront...look at these little munchkins. The lake water in Northern Michigan lakes is so beautiful. Crystal clear!

My Cece likes to be the big helper and hang out with the staff. They all love her. This day they gave her mop bucket duty(only because she begs to help them, really you don't have to clean a thing if you don't want to all week!) If only she was that happy to mop the floors at home.

Earlier, did you catch that I said NO cooking? All the meals are prepared for you...the bells rings 3 times a day and we run like cattle to the trough. MAaAaOOOO.

And while my littlest is yucking it up while mopping the floors my oldest is doing crazy stuff like jumping 14 skate boards! Yes my friends there is something for everyone at Portage Lake Bible Camp....

AAAAAHHHHHaaaahhhhhAHHH! Two years ago I conquered my fear of heights...which I have not always had, just since I had my chitlins have I become Ascardy Cat of high places.

I even sky dived once....in my other life.

Here I am finishing the high ropes course. I am smiling, but one hour prior to this picture I was skeet-a-dee-bruky...if you get my drift. I was so petrified, I was seeing stars and my bowels were not very cooperative.....it was the fight or flight response....ah yeah I would have been the talk of camp for years. Luckily I overcame my bowel cramps and made it through the course. I am thinking of trying it again this year.....or not.

My older two can do it with there eyes closed...show offs!!!

This would be the canteen, or Sugar Shack. It is open in the afternoon and after night chapel. My youngest junk food junky son, loves to just hang around this red lil building just in case it opens early.

The last night is the Talent Show. It is the perfect ending to a perfect family vacation. There are always so many talented people. And then there are these mothers who get wild, weird ideas and talk there children into doing them. And then want to crawl in a hole when the time comes for the fruit of their womb to get up on stage and do this cwazy thing there mothers told them everyone would love and laugh uproariously at. It's really way too long of a story. One I should save for a cold January day when I have you trapped in your house with nothing else to do but read about how I made my kids make fools of themselves.

So today I will be packing, and making sure I have all the stuff we need for a week at Family Camp. Like my camp sweatshirt with the little skunky on it. Did I tell you Big D and her family come to camp too? One year a Mama skunk and her babies were guests under their cabin. Oh...my, my, Big D was a trouper...it was really quite funny.........to all of us that were skunk free. The next year the camp sweat shirt had a skunk on it.

Towels flappin in the wind. Naps on the cabin deck,with a cool breeze off the lake. Wunderbar!

BECAUSE I am going to miss you terribly while I am away MONDAY I am going to have a much needed giveaway. It has been way TOO long. I was starting to feel antsy and anxious...like something was missing. I am super excited about this giveaway. It is something anyone could use! Monday through Friday the giveaway will be going on. So come on back...bring a friend.

Have a great weekend! See you Monday!

ABOUT giveaways ON STRAWBERRY CAKE.

HEART of palm salad

Last week we spent a week on the beach at a cottage on Lake Michigan, the "BIG" lake, "THE lake". If you are a Michigander from the West side, and someone says they are going to "the lake", you know they mean Lake Michigan. There are a bAzillion lakes in this state....well maybe a half a bazillion...anyway...

We stayed on the mother of lakes. Have you ever been somewhere and it reminds you of someplace else you've been. The smell.....or just something about it. A couple years back we took our kiddos and traveled to Costa Rica for two weeks on the beach. It was magnifee-cO!

Paradise! Hanging on the beach last week reminded me of the fresh produce and simple fresh food we had in Costa Rica. It was the first place I ever partook of hearts of palm. How do I describe hearts of palm.....hmmm...pickley...kinda, fresh...yummy....definetly. I had to google hearts of palm to figure out exactly what they are....it really is the heart of palm trees...the middle of the new palm tree shoots, baby palm hearts... I am just glad that it had nothing to do with this guy....

YIKers, he scared the bajeebers out of my littlest son....scared the hearts of palm right out of him. These dudes are everywhere down there...they won't hurt you...but they sure is OOOgly.

So last week I whipped us up a salad, that included palm hearts.

SIMPLE, easy, you can do it in 2 minutes flat. The hardest thing might just be finding the palm hearts. I found them in my grocery store next to the canned artichoke hearts....in the heart section of your local grocery store. Or Costco has these nice big jars enough to make a salad or two and have some left for snacking.

Here is what you will need:

limes

tomatoes

avocados

hearts of palm

fresh ground pepper

course salt or kosher salt

There it is THE jar of palm hearts the star of todays show!

There is no real recipe....just cut up your tomatoes, avocados, and hearts up in to nice sized chunks. I do equal amounts...nice proportions....just like to be fair. Wouldn't want the maters getting there feelings hurt or anything. By the way I prefer roma tomatoes. Just in case you were wondering... Then juice your lime or limes (or really any citrus is fabulous...I really prefer orange, but I didn't have one handy) over the motley crew and then give it a good crack of pepper and a generous shake of salt and there you have it!!!

Here is how we had it last week. All fancy...it was part of our appetizer course, before the shrimp boil, thus the newspaper table cloth..

You can pretend that you are in paradise while you nibble on you salad.

Enjoy!

lifes a BEACH!

Life is rough. I am telling you all the sun and sand is just wearing me out.

Just kiddin'......

I could live here, I could totally stay here, and never go back to my semi-suburban life. I brought my food processor what more could I need? I brought my iron skillet too, so I got that covered. All my kiddos, and Kenny and I am good to go!
Who needs grass when you can hear the waves crashing on the shore and feel the sand between your toes....

And look at these smilin faces! I know it might get a bit cold in the winter months....but oh the ice on the Lake Michigan is a beautiful thing too.

My oldest is a fish....

a skim boarding....body surfing.....paddle boarding kinda fish...

Whoa, CHILD!

That's my extreme sport kid!

Fires on the beach...smores...kids swimming into the sunset.....

Yippee, yahoo, the waters warmer than is has been in the last 20 years. We are celebrating....hoping it doesn't mean we have a problem, of global proportion....

The sunsets....we love um!

sigh....deep long relaxed sigh...thankful sigh.....

Tonight is our last night...we are doing a shrimp boil...aaahhh sigh....shrimp, fresh corn, taters, crusty bread...and friends....deep big nostril sigh....life is good.