Nature trails at Porcupine Mountain

If you’re ever in the upper peninsula of Michigan, you won’t want to miss out on one of my favorite hiking trails. We should start our trip with a little introduction of this great area.  A wonderful place to back pack tent camp or take your travel trailer. I am talking about what is called Porkies by local residents or  Porcupine Mountains that is located near Ontonagon Michigan.   You can’t ask for better nature trails for anyone that loves remote hiking.  You will find breathtaking views of forest, streams, lakes & clouds. There is much wildlife in this area. Some places are very remote & you have to back pack everything in to your camping site. This is just a great area for getting away. Giving us a great sense of what it was like before roads & highways was developed. Some areas have rustic cabins for guests, come here to feel the atmosphere that early settlers did many years ago.

Just one trip to these mountains in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula is not enough; you will want to come back again for years. With over 60 thousand acres of wilderness you will always find something new to see.  A special annual three day event that is something I look forward to is Porcupine Mountains Music Festival Music including Americana, folk, blues, bluegrass & contemporary.
What ever the reason you decide to make this trip into this great part of Michigan, be it fishing, hiking, camping or just being with nature in its best. Come see why the locals call this Gods Country.

Iron Cooker Newsletter  6 – 22 – 2011

Spring fishing season was great.  It is our time of year to be outside with all our camping friends swapping stories around a campfire after a long afternoon in our boat.

We have met some great people along with finding some great new products to share with you.

Our garden is off to a good start with Mother Nature giving a helping hand this year with all this rain we have been having.

I know everyone is expecting a big exciting list of new products with interesting details, We are going to spare you from advertizing that normally goes with placements of products in our adds, Here is a link to some great new products we have added & some old, we have some additional cast iron cookware for your campfire, Great new American made cookware items from Jacob Bromwell for both home use & campsite cooking.

Follow our rss feed on our blog http://www.wildernessoutdoors.net

For updates on our recipes, old newsletter post & many other articles, links to product updates & other sites.

Be sure to check out our new product pages at

http://www.ironcooker.com

For our new members, we include a recipe at close of every newsletter.

CAMP BURRITOS

1 lb ground sirloin 1 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 4 oz can salsa 10 large burrito size flour tortillas, or more if smaller size

1 tsp ground cumin 1/4 tsp each of black pepper and salt

1 10 oz pkg frozen spinach

In a large skillet brown the ground sirloin. Add the ground cumin, salt, pepper and the salsa. The spinach should be

defrosted, just drain any liquid from it as best you can. I take it out of the store packaging and put it in a Ziploc bag when

we leave home, then just open the bag and squeeze. Add the spinach and heat through. Meanwhile heat the tortillas on a

flat griddle or skillet. Fill tortillas with meat mixture, top with grated cheese and roll up. Enjoy!

NOTES: Can also use ground turkey or chicken. Make sure it’s lean or you’ll have to drain the meat after browning. You

can also mix the cheese into the meat mixture just before serving. This makes for really easy serving. Just don’t forget to

make this early in the trip or you’ll be forced to try the Vegetarian version!

For desert

MOCK BANANA CREAM PIE

Ingredients and supplies:

1 large box instant banana pudding

1 small box vanilla wafers

milk

1 c. non-dairy whipped topping, frozen and then thawed (who can keep anything frozen while camping??)

spoons

disposable cups (paper is good, but if you can afford the clear plastic ones, the dessert looks “pretty” in those!)

2 gallon size zip lock bag

1 c. measuring cup (for measuring the milk)

In one of the gallon zip lock bags pour about a dozen vanilla wafers (more or less to taste…the wafers are going to be your

“crust”). Seal up zip lock bag tightly and with your hands or some other hard sturdy object, crush the vanilla wafers. Be careful

not to tear holes in the bag.

Pour contents of instant banana pudding in zip lock bag, add milk per directions on pudding box. Seal up zip lock bag tightly

and shake bag until pudding is set up.

When pudding is set up, spoon vanilla wafer crumbs into bottom of paper cups, enough to form a small layer. Spoon a layer of

pudding on top of the wafers, then a layer of non-dairy whipped topping, then a layer of wafers, layer of pudding, layer of

topping. Ta-dum! Banana cream pie! It’s delicious! You can also add banana slices if you’d like. Mmmm, mmm good!

Cast Iron Blackened Catfish

Now that camping season is here, all of us at Wilderness Outdoors have been searching for new ideas & uses of cast iron cookware for campfire use.  One cast iron cookware recipe that has been around for a very long time is cast iron blackened catfish. This great recipe just doesn’t seem to taste right when you leave out a cast iron skillet. Us fishermen & women here at Wilderness Outdoors would like to hear your campfire cooking & fishing stories. Tell us what you use for cooking your favorite fish or game when you get back to your camp for an evening meal. We all would like your opinion on what you think is best of all. Please share your experiences with us. For a great tasting cast iron blackened catfish recipe you have to try this great recipe for blackened catfish filets. This recipe calls for a 10 inch cast iron skillet that you can find on sale at Iron Cooker. We all have memories of sitting along a river bank fishing or wading in waist deep to feel for them big fish down under a log. Some of my best memories growing up were either up to my arm pits in a river or on a lake catching blue gills just before dark.

We all have great fishing or hunting memories with our families that we have shared around a campfire or two. What do you have hanging from your campfire tripod?  Do you have a favorite Dutch oven or cast iron cookware that you use? It is nearing time to load my boat down the ramp for a quiet evening on my favorite lake, so I’m going to end this with wishing you were here to taste them big old pieces of blackened catfish cooked in our cast iron cookware tonight.