Boy Scout Camping and Cookout

     You might not know this about me, but I'm a foodie.  That's why my Jillian Michaels DVD and I have a special on again off again relationship.  After the eating I did this past weekend, we're on again.
     Kid and Young'un invited their Boy Scout patrol, the Invisible Scouts, over for a camping weekend to work on their cooking badge.  Honestly, at first I was skeptical.  Not about the boys coming for a camp out, but for the food portion of the program.  Although I leave camping with the Scouts up to Hon, I do know what their menus have been like, mainly being hot dogs and under cooked macaroni and cheese, and this lovely mixture of eggs and sausage they call moose crap.  Therefore, I was kind of happy to have made plans after Saturday's farmers market to go to Yoder's Greenhouse for their fall festival with Eldest and my friend Cassie to eat lunch.  Those plans were made before I had a sampling of Friday night's dinner.  Boy, I should have stayed...although Yoder's chicken dinner was fabulous!
     Friday night when the boys started cooking I was apprehensive about the bounty they were going to procure for taste testing.  So much so, Eldest and I ordered a pizza for dinner.  After I had eaten my pizza, I ventured down to the campsite because the smells from there had come wafting into the house and were smelling quite good.  There were two scouts having a pasta duel-off, another making grilled cheese and tomato soup (my favorite on a cold day), Kid making spider dogs, and Young'un roasting Tilapia with zucchini, mushrooms, and peppers in a foil packet over the fire. Oh. My. Goodness.  Even after eating pizza, I found room to taste some of these awesome dinners.  Each and every one of them were fantastic!  Oh, and the desserts after...s'mores that had the added bonus of sliced apple and peanut butter with it, roasted bananas with marshmallows and M & M's...I was in a lovely chocolate haze.
     On Saturday, when I got back from stuffing myself at Yoder's, the boys were all fishing at the pond.  We have uneducated fish.  You think once they get caught they'd head for the hills, like all the frogs do when someone shows up.  Instead, it's like they get caught, thrown back in, and then impatiently wait for another tempting worm on a hook to show up.  Really ruins any kid for when they go fishing somewhere else and the fish avoid them like the plague.  The boys caught fish after fish, keeping the men-folk busy with helping get the hooks out and showing the boys how to bait and de-fish hooks on their own.  
     Here's the bummer about later Saturday.  It started to rain.  I mean reeeeally rain.  We knew it was coming, and the boys decided to depart early, which I can't blame them for.  Problem is, when they packed up, the food was packed up, too.  At least they cooked dinner before they left.  I didn't order pizza that night.
     Saturday night was another filling experience.  There were submarine sandwiches that were better than the ones I buy at Subway.  There was a bow tie pasta dish with peas and carrots in it.  There was barbecued chicken soup.  There was even a hobo stew cooked in foil packets.  I sampled and sampled, then sampled some more...then there was desert...another blissful chocolate haze with marshmallow chasers. Mmmmmmmm!
     So, there you have it, folks.  A weekend of eating meals I never thought I'd eat from foil packets, camp stoves, and fires. I'm still upset about missing out on the homemade Pop-tarts for breakfast.  Due to the uncooperative weather, the solar oven made using a pizza box will have to be used another day, but I'm willing to do my duty and taste test the results.  Time for me to go.  Jillian Michaels is calling...  Smiling & Waving, Sharon 

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