Camping and Camping Food

One of my goals for this summer is accomplished -- camping! We went to Otter River State Forest near Sterling, MA on a Friday. It was definitely the most "organized" camp site I've been on, with a lot of spots, pretty close together...so if you're looking to "rough it" this is definitely not the spot to go. But they allow pets, the sites and reasonably sized (fit a four person tent, a car, a fire pit, and a picnic table), and there's swimming...though we didn't partake in that particular joy because it was a bit too crowded for my taste. I'd definitely recommend it for a weekend getaway for someone who is interested in camping/getting away but doesn't want to go somewhere too remote.  

Our tent

Circle of trees

That view

Either way, it was pretty fun. Friday we got there and made an awesome dinner with our camp stove of cilantro tofu with cheese and Arriabata sauce from TJs. We took our big dog with us and made our lives much easier by investing in a spiral pet stake, which we put in the ground first thing, hooked Rain up to it, and let her have "free" run of the site. Next day we got up early, made coffee with our aeropress, packed up our stuff, and hiked up Mt. Wachusetts. All in all a medium hike, definitely possible for beginning hikers.

of puppies and more puppies

I recently invested in hiking shoes, and they made a world of a difference in my hiking. My feet hurt less at the end of the day, my ankles didn't roll as much and as such hurt much less, and I was way more stable walking which is super important. Anyways, it was beautiful up at the top, and my favorite aspect was the windmill "farm." They have two windmills near the top of the mountain, and you can get pretty close to them. The quiet coupled with just the sound of the windmill is pretty awesome.

windmills!

Then the piece de resistance, pizza. We made campfire pizza. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Trader Joes pre-made pizza dough, arriabata sauce, some peppers, some pickles (we had leftover pickles so I thought, why not?!) and some cheese. Man alive was that pizza good. 

For the pizza dough, we floured it, and then cut it into four parts, so that our pizzas would be small and thin, and we rolled them out as thin as we could.

Trader Joes Pizza Dough

1/4 of the dough rolled out thin

We used our cast-iron skillet, coated in some oil, heated it over the campfire, and when it was hot, we put the pizza dough on it to cook and removed the cast iron from the heat (the residual heat will cook the pizza)

cast iron skillet heating on the fire

It's cooking

Flip it a few times

After the dough was mostly cooked, we topped it with pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings (light on the sauce so you don't get a super soggy pizza), and finished it on the stove top. You can definitely finish it on the fire if you want, you'll just have to watch it carefully to make sure it doesn't burn. 

Toppings!

Add caption

Finishing it on the fire

Puppy wanting food!

Finished product!

Bottom of the pizza!

Full and happy bellies!

Super fun, I'd definitely recommend it for your next trip, and if you don't have a cast iron pan, I'd recommend investing in one -- it's one of my few kitchen must-haves because it's so versatile! 

Summer Goal 2015: Camping at least once, ACCOMPLISHED!