Camping at Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area

Metamora-Hadley is in Lapeer County, and it's a lovely campground. My favorite so far this summer! We camped the weekend of June 13, but I am just getting around to writing about it. We camped close to Lake Minewanna. It had a wonderful sandy beach and has boats that can be rented. It has an operating camp store that sells ice cream cones and rents out recumbent bikes. Despite the crowded conditions, it was relatively quiet. Next year, I'd prefer a site right on the lake. Our friends live in nearby Oakland Township, so they came out and joined us for dinner. I experimented with a pork tenderloin in the dutch oven, and it was great! Here's my recipe:

Camping Pork Tenderloin

2 pork tenderloins, sliced in 1" thick slices
6 cloves garlic
1 lb new potatoes, cut in half
1 small bag baby carrots
1 Vidalia onion, sliced
Greek Seasoning
about a glass of white wine....whatever you happen to be drinking would be fine. Beer would work, too

Put all the veggies and garlic in the bottom of a 10 inch dutch oven that's lined with aluminum foil, layer with tenderloin slices. Sprinkle with Greek seasoning - I keep a container of it in the camping box. It's a great all purpose seasoning. Cook with 8 coals on the bottom, 14 on top for about 40 minutes, rotating the lid and pot every 15 minutes or so. Feeds 4 hungry adults and 4 hungry middles schoolers.

Pickled Asparagus

Today is the last day asparagus can be had at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market, so my friend Laura and I decided to make pickled asparagus. I love asparagus, but it is something that requires pressure canning, so my canning partner Laura suggested pickling it last year. She bought some at a gourmet shop and loved it. so we had to see if we could make it cheaper than we could buy it. Indeed, we could! We spent some extra money today to buy really thin asparagus, but I think it looks better in the jar, don't you?

We used the Ball Blue Book recipe, but in some jars, we added some piquin chili. I am going to give it a couple days to determine if what we tried is a good recipe. Stay tuned!