Not sure how to get there? Click here for a map to the 1st Annual Outdoor Fest.

Grate Outdoor Solutions and Jim’s Really Cool Camping Stuff will be sharing a booth and displaying our awesome camping & outdoor products. We’ll have Rotis-a-Prongs, Bagalots, Campfire Tongs, Poison Ivy Soap, and more on display and available for purchase. Come on out and say hi!

Outdoor Fest was put together by Dave Wallace, owner of the Squirmin’ Worm Farm. He’s organized a great event with exhibits, demonstrations, prizes for kids, and tons of fun for all who visit. Check out the flyer:

I, on the other hand, can do without coconut. But since she was trying them I felt obligated to give it a shot too. Here are the results:

• We tried them plain, fresh out of the wrapper. I thought they were so-so. My wife said they’re ok plain.
• We toasted them over the campfire. I thought they were a little better. Almost tolerable. My wife thinks they’re to die for.
• We tried them in s’mores. Well, she tried them in a s’more. I couldn’t push myself that far out of my comfort zone. I’m glad I didn’t try them because the wife said it wasn’t that great.

The verdict: if you’re a coconut lover, these are for you. You may like the toasted coconut flavor straight out of the bag, but we definitely recommend toasting them over the fire. Sounds a little redundant, but you do need to toast the toasted coconut marshmallows to truly appreciate them.

Give them a try this summer and let us know how it goes!

The wife did it again! She brought home some marshmallows with chocolate already drizzled on top. You know I couldn’t wait to roast those over the campfire.

These are the Campfire Zebras. They’re smaller than normal marshmallows but that just means you can roast more than a few at a time. By themselves, they’re pretty good. The marshmallow tastes, well, like a marshmallow, and the drizzled chocolate on top has a slightly hard texture, like a shell. Pretty much what you would expect from a Hershey bar or similar chocolate.

But the real taste of these bad boys is unleashed when you roast them over the fire. When you get them nice and toasted, the chocolate takes on a rich, dark chocolate flavor. You don’t even need to use a chocolate bar for making s’mores. They add the chocolate all by themselves and they are absolutely delicious!

I don’t think we’ll replace the traditional s’more completely with these since my 5-yr old likes to eat the chocolate and graham crackers by themselves (without marshmallows) but this is definitely something we’ll be doing again!

So we broke out the Rotis-a-Prong campfire roasting forks and put two pizza rolls on the fork to heat up with the campfire. I didn’t defrost them at all – I just stuck the frozen pizza rolls on the end of the fork. It took a little while to heat to the right temperature since they were frozen but with a little patience they came out fine. I was pleasantly surprised by the light smoky flavor added to the normal taste of the pizza rolls. In a way it reminded me of pizza baked in a wood fired oven. Delicious!

The only drawback to cooking your pizza rolls this way is that you can only do a few at a time. It takes a little while to cook enough for you to make a meal out of it. But, if you’re just looking for a nice snack and you enjoy being around the campfire, this might do the trick for you. I’m also thinking about seeing if we can find some larger size pizza rolls to try. All in all, I’d have to give this a thumbs up, and I’m ready to do it again!

There’s nothing special about this “recipe.” Nothing fancy in regards to how to do it. Just put the peep on the end of your favorite campfire cooking fork and roast it over the fire like you would a marshmallow. I recommend roasting it as evenly as possible to get a consistent flavor. It’s hard to do that when they’re not shaped symmetrically, but give it a shot. We used our Rotis-a-Prongs as always, but you can use whatever roasting fork you have.

The first thing I noticed was the sugar on the outside of the peeps started kind of melting and turning a different color. Some parts burned slightly and other parts looked just plain weird. But we were willing to get over the look so we could taste the awesomeness of the roasted peep.

But the awesomeness never quite came. The result was… ok at best. We were a little underwhelmed. The melted sugar gave the peeps a unique flavor but I think the overall quality of the marshmallow in the peeps isn’t the same as the regular marshmallows we roast over the fire. So I guess I’m saying we’re not planning to do this again anytime soon but it was still worth doing. Next time you’re bored, I recommend giving it a shot. Just don’t expect the best thing since sliced bread.