Mimi Camp Has Come And Gone

Mimi Camp this year started as soon as we got home from the lake. And unlike all the other years it started without a plan because we had been busy with the family at the lake and with the lake renovations before that. But because we had skipped two Covid years we were determined to do something. This is just a peek at a few of the things we did. And we had two recipes worth sharing. 

I crawled into bed the first night home from the lake after tucking the girls into their beds and I laid there wondering what on earth we could do in the morning. And what was I going to put in ''the box." I was hoping they wouldn't remember that we usually start our camp day by opening the official Mimi Camp box to see the clues for the day's activity. (They remembered.) I couldn't even find the actual box but thankfully had an empty box with a lid that hadn't made it to the trash dump yet. 

Early that first morning I filled it with an assortment of fruits and vegetables from the fridge. Some were wilted and about to be tossed anyway. But they were a great for creating food art. They added herbs from the garden. The girls worked all afternoon making food paintings. We talked about different ways to see ordinary things.

I can't even begin to put the rest of the week in order, but there was fishing at the pond behind the house. And a picnic. On a blanket. On the ground. 

According to Baby Girl that's the definition of a real picnic. It has to be on a blanket on the ground. We came home with no fish but it was all great fun.

Another morning they found my gallon jar of buttons in the box along with an old flannel shirt that Daddy-O sacrificed to the cause. We cut off the sleeves and cut off the cuff button and learned to sew that button back on. I wanted them to be able to button it back up. Button sewing turned out to be the sleeper hit of the week. They kept sewing buttons. Both girls agreed the hardest part was tying the knot in the thread.

I thought we would have fun going through an old cookbook of mine that has a chapter of recipes for each decade from the 1930s to the 1970s. The plan was to find a recipe from each decade. We started off with a bang and made ice cream from the 1930s the first night. This is the 1930s recipe. 

PEPPERMINT ICE CREAM

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

3 drops red food coloring (I was out of red, so we used green)

1 cup whipping cream

Combine the condensed milk, water, extract and food coloring. Whip cream until thick and custard like and fold into the peppermint mixture. Pour mixture into a 3-cup refrigerator tray. Freeze until partially frozen. Break mixture into chunks into a chilled mixer bowl. Beat until smooth. Return to cold refrigerator tray. Freeze until firm. Makes 3 cups.

Since our ice cream had to be green, Baby Girl said, "Isn't it supposed to have chocolate chips in it?" So we added those. And Little Sister asked, "Why can't we use your little churn?"  I explained about refrigerator freezer desserts from way back. (My mother made a great frozen lemon dessert in a metal ice cube tray.) But then thought she might be on to something. So we skipped the "beat the cream" part and mixed it all together and poured into my countertop churn. 1930s meets 2022. Worked like a charm.

When the girls got up another morning, they found a five pound bag of flour in the box. And each girl separately made a loaf of no-knead bread. The only thing I did was move the heavy Dutch oven in and out of the hot oven. If Mimi Camp had badges, both of them would have earned the bread baking badge.

The next night Little Sister made caprese skewers for a late afternoon snack on our patio and we added some bread wedges to our tray.

And Daddy-O used the very last of the bread for French toast on Saturday morning. We didn't want to waste a crumb of their delicious bread.

Our "foods from the decades" exploration had one more success when they made brownie pudding from the 1940s. After that, they looked at the 1950s recipes and decided to abandon this project when they saw shrimp in jello. EVERYTHING was in jello in the fifties! 

BROWNIE PUDDING

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons cooking oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cups packed brown sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1-3/4 cup hot water

Stir together flour, sugar, 2 tbsp cocoa, baking powder and salt. Mix in milk, oil and vanilla. Pour into greases 8x8-inch baking pan. Combine brown sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa and hot water; pour over batter. Bake at 350º for about 40 minutes. Serves 6 to 8. 

The chocolate sauce layer on the bottom gets thicker as it cools. We liked ours warm, not hot.

So much more happened. But this hits the highlights. If I'm a smart Mimi I'll start collecting ideas for another camp right now. Baby Girl informed me that she planned to come to Mim Camp until she finished high school. Maybe college. "By then I'll have learned all that Mimi knows."