Goodbye 119 Bedford!

After 3 wonderful years at 119 Bedford St SE, Boyd and I packed up all of our belongings (minus garage sale, goodwill and other items yet to be boxed) and moved over to the Saint Paul, the wonderful Minnesota state capitol. Before such a momentous occasion, though, we needed to ha ve a big BBQ bash, celebrating summer's bounty and the amazing yard and great house in Prospect Park!

We prepared an amazing spread of food, starting with Joy of Cooking's yummy 7-layer dip. For regular readers of this blog - you might recognize that 7-layer dip is almost identical to taco special (see last camping trip)

except that you have to do the dipping for each bit rather than having it all on your plate at once.

It was a great hit!

Here I am layering the goodness:

1. beans
2. sour cream (with taco seasoning)
3. chopped chili peppers
4. tomatoes
5. olives
6. cheese
7. hmmm...I can't remember the last layer but I'm sure it's something good!

In addition to the really yummy dip we also BBQed up some great sausage (veggie and meat) including one curry chicken sausage which was really tasty! We grilled some eggplant, corn and zucchini and really celebrated the wonderful bounty on Minnesota summer produce. We had so much food, actually, that Boyd and I were eating potato salad and brats for about a week afterwards - no complaints here though! Here is the full spread...

After ALL that food we also had hand-cranked ice cream to top it all off! After our long crank last time (see Lake Shetek camping trip post) we made sure that the bucket was placed in the contraption correctly before we started.

We tried another one of the quick ice cream recipes - this time Coffee ice cream! (I'll jump ahead now and tell you that the ice cream was amazingly tasty! It was a bit softer than store bought ice cream, and that turned out perfect for coffee flavored ice cream because it sort of tasted like a frappuccino. mmmm...) Everyone helped making the ice cream - even Fiona! (Pictured Left) However, once she cranked once or twice Fiona became more interested in pulling out the salty ice cubes and putting them in her mouth... Good job Fiona!

Finally it was ready... and we got to enjoy yummy ice cream, a huge bonfire and great company in our wonderful backyard. Thanks for all the great memories Minneapolis - 1013 Thorn St here we come!