Tuesday, July 23, 2013

FIRE - How to make one fast with DYI Fire Starters & Camp Fire Doughnuts

So we love to camp.  Not Rough it camp, but throw stuff in the car, set up a tent, blow up the air mattress, light up the tiki torches, and plug in the Christmas lights camp.  It's fun, we get outside.  If we are lucky we stay dry.  Tim likes to call our camp sites tarpville some times as it rains so much where we camp in the North West.  One of the things we are not so good at while we camp?  Camp fires! They are essential to the camping experience you cant suck at this. That is us, we sucked.  All the lighter fluid in the world could not help us keep one.  Super frustrating! Last year, per my sister I saved dryer lint and toilet paper rolls, well the burned but FAST.  Too fast, again we would try the lighter fluid.     Along came pintrest and I kept thinking I need to figure out how to make some fire starters!  
You can check out some of my camping pins here:
http://pinterest.com/timandceri/camping/  

In the last few months due to some hand pain, I have had to pull out my paraffin bath.  The wax was old and gross, but it still did the job.  Once I ordered some new stuff I wanted to clean it out but did not want to waste the wax.   


I found some ideas for inspiration and went from there.  Most of them said to use sawdust.  I assure you, you do not need it.  


I didn't get some good pictures when I made them.  Forgive me the pictures above are staged.  That paraffin is brand new I don't want to make another batch right now.  Plus when I was doing it, taking photos for a blog post wasn't on my mind.  And, ya your hands are covered in wax and dryer lint.  

Things I learned.  You might want to cover your work surface with news paper.  The wax squirts out of the tubes and it can get a little messy.  Also, don't wear a nice shirt... again, it squirts....  It does dry pretty quick, as soon as the wax cools.  I used the kind of wax you use in a paraffin bath.  I am not sure if any other kind of wax would work or not.  If you try it with a different kind and have positive results let me know.  It takes a while for my wax to get gunky.  I don't want to waste it!  


Finished Product.  All bagged up!  I just stored them in a zip lock bag.  


This stuff WORKS.  Like it BURNS, and it is amazing, You can hear a couple pops so it gets really hot!

Look what we made on our fire! 

I found the recipe for the camping doughnuts here: http://www.camping-tips.com/recipes.html
- refrigerated biscuits or frozen bread (thawed)
- 2 cups olive or vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup granular sugar (I mixed in cinnamon)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar 

from there, I just winged it like I always do.  I did not poke the holes, maybe next time I will try that.  We also used some Jiff Hazelnut Spread. (Like Nutella!)


 My son believe it or not is not a big fan of smores, or melted marshmallows.  He just wants to eat them before they are toasted.  We had some left over Ghost Peeps from his Halloween themed birthday, (those things never expire!) and we decided to try these out.  He thought they we SO cool!  And yes, they are so so good toasted, but I love toasted marshmallows. Do you have any camp fire tips, or yummy camp fire treats to share? 


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