How to throw together a gourmet picnic in minutes
When do you like to picnic?
With a variety of fresh and gourmet foods in your pantry and fridge, you can be ready for a picnic in minutes
Do you love picnics? I do. There's nothing more satisfying of a summer's eve or a lazy Sunday afternoon than grabbing a picnic basket, a blanket and heading for the park, the forest or the beach.
Even in wintertime, no matter how cold it is, sometimes we like to get out and feel the crisp wind on our faces.
Impromptu picnics are easy any time of year if you stock your refrigerator and pantry with fresh and gourmet foods and condiments you love.
The food has to be good. Really good. I'm talking taste sensations, fragrances and beauty to match the glorious weather.
Take the luscious vegetables and greens in this photograph. I picked them up earlier today for a quick supper salad, but why not make a picnic of it? It's a gorgeous evening. Instead of eating in, we'll head to the park and watch the clouds floating overhead while we sip a glass of wine.
The avocado and lime make a pungent, tasty dressing with no effort at all. We slice the avocado over our salad at the last minute, hand squeeze the lime over all and toss with our forks just before eating. A few shaved bits of hard cheese for garnish, a twist of fresh ground pepper and salt, and our salad is perfect.
Between bites of salad and sips of jewel-red wine, we'll tear off chunks of a slightly tangy loaf of San Francisco sourdough bread laced with olives from a local artisan baker. That's all we need for a light supper on this hot summer's eve.
It's that easy. What about those times we don't have greens on hand or a fresh sourdough loaf? What then? On this page, I share with you all my little tricks for spur-of-the-moment picnics, including a list of foods we keep in our pantry and refrigerator so we can pack up a picnic in minutes, whenever the mood strikes us.
Quick, easy, gorgeous and delicious. That's my picnic motto.
Start with whatever fresh vegetables you have on hand
Fresh vegetables delight the senses. They fill the eyes with brilliant colors and textures, tickle the nose with pungent, piquant, sweet scents, and make the taste buds tingle. Juicy tomatoes and moist cucumbers help rehydrate us on a steaming hot day.
Besides being good for us, they are the perfect foundation for any picnic. Pack them in a lightweight stainless steel container, and you don't have to worry about BPA or pthalates leaching, as you would with plastic bags or tubs.
LunchBots are my go-to picnic, lunch and snack containers - Non-leaching stainless steel means they are safe
Their large divided container is perfect for a spontaneous picnic for two.
It holds slices of fruit, crudites, crackers, cheeses, just about an entire luncheon picnic.Or use several of the smaller LunchBots, like the divided one above with the tomatoes and cucumbers.
The food-grade stainless steel means it's safe for you and your family--no plastic chemicals leaching into your food.
Add flavorful hard and soft cheeses and a baguette or your favorite crackers, a soft cheese for spreading, a hard cheese for shaving or layering
Cheeses add texture and complex flavors to your picnic. Pair them with the tastiest crackers, or slice them and pile them on top of torn or sliced artisan breads with a smear of mustard, a basil leaf, and for the meat eaters, a thin round of salami or a fold of shaved ham.
What is a picnic without a good loaf?
If you're not a baker, stock your pantry regularly with baguettes, sweet or sour batards, or any other artisan loaf you fancy. It's true. You don't need much more than a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and good company.
For the meat fanciers, keep a package or two of a flavorful salami in the freezer
It thaws quickly and you will have a little savory meat fix for the carnivores in your life. Of course, if you are a regular meat eater too, go ahead and keep it on hand in the main compartment of your fridge.
Take along a small jar of mustard, a few leafy greens, a loaf of bread and a delicious cheese, and once again you have a complete picnic ready in five minutes or less.
You probably already have a nice assortment of condiments in your fridge you can mix for a quick spread or dip
Pickles, relishes, mayonnaise, balsamic vinegar, homemade hummus or in our case today, a wonderfully delicious selection of hummuses from a small, local mom-and-pop company. They are as good as any I can make.
Gotta have potato salad?
Try this Super Quick Potato Salad for Two you can make in just 20 minutes, quicker than a trip to the deli or supermarket, and oh so much tastier.
If you keep a few boiled eggs on hand, you can make it in even less time.
Don't forget the drinks!
Wine for the grownups, milk for the kiddies, and a quick, easy lemonade you can pop into a thermos in seconds.
Squeeze the juice of one-half lemon into a 20-30 ounce thermos, more if you like it more tart. To sweeten, add a couple of squirts of agave syrup, or more to taste. Fill with ice cold water and a few ice cubes. Perfect lemonade on the run.
For cold weather picnics, we love coffee made from fresh-ground beans, sometimes with a splash of Irish Cream if we're not driving, hot chocolate and flavorful teas of all kinds.
5-Minute homemade lemonade recipe
Don't have time to chill lemonade? Make it on the fly. You can make it ahead, just before you go out the door, or take the ingredients with you and make it there. It's that easy.
Ingredients
- 1-2 Fresh organic lemons
- 1 T or more to taste Organic evaporated cane sugar, Or substitute 2 t organic blue agave nectar
- 1-2 C Ice cubes or chipped ice
Cook Time
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
- You will need an insulated, wide-mouth 1 qt (or near) container for this recipe. If you're at home, drop the unpeeled, uncut lemons into a bowl of hot water for a minute or two to release the juices. If it's a hot day and they've been out on the counter, they'll be juicing already. Cut the lemons in half and squeeze out all their juice into a small pitcher or measuring cup. I like pulp in my lemonade, but if you don't, remove the pulp when you remove the seeds.
- Pour the juice into a 1-quart container, fill it about half full with cold tap water, add the sugar and stir. Drop in the ice cubes and add water to the fill line, cap securely, and you're done. Easy peasy!
Best picnic thermos for two
We have several insulated containers, both large and small.
One of our faves for a quick picnic is the 20-ounce Klean Kanteen, which is just about perfect for a refreshing lemonade on a summer's eve.
In winter time, or on trips to the beach on blustery days, these bottles keep coffee, hot chocolate and tea hot for hours.
Fill one per adult. The loop in the lid makes it easy to tote, and never spills! A word of caution: The easy-sip lid that also comes with this bottle can leak, so if you're toting the bottle, use the secure lid with the ring. Use the sip-lid when you can keep your bottle upright.
Take along your own homemade cookies, crackers or scones
Sweet or savory crackers and scones are welcome treats on any picnic. Homemade cookies? Take extras. You will be glad you did. In this pic: Homemade savory animal crackers, Cheesy homemade biscuits with Mediterranean olives and Toasted coconut snickerdoodles.
Nourishing our chocoholic - Yup, it's here! I didn't forget!
There's almost always chocolate at our house, with and without nuts. These are two of our pantry favorites.
We almost always have a few bars of Dagoba organic and Fair Trade chocolate on hand, for picnics and for treats for the grandkids.
Yep, we eat 'em too--way too many of them! I sometimes hide them in the freezer behind everything else in hopes I'll forget they're there. It works. Now and then.
To reduce sugar intake, break a bar into pieces and give each child a few in a colorful silicone mini-muffin liner. Make sure you bring enough so that everyone can pick their favorite color
Another favorite of the family members who do not have nut allergies is Green and Black's Organic Milk Chocolate Bar with whole almonds, also Fair Trade, so we know no child slaves were involved in its production. We love those almonds!
Keep these in your refrigerator and pantry so you're always ready
Refrigerator Items
| Pantry Items
|
|---|---|
Fresh, colorful in-season vegetables--Pre-wash them so they're ready to go when you are
| Fresh, in-season fruits--Pre-wash them so they're ready to go
|
Favorite hard and soft cheeses
| Selection of organic whole grain crackers you enjoy
|
Boiled eggs for potato salad and egg salad
| Baguette or batard, homemade or from your local artisan bakery
|
Grass-fed, pasture-raised organic deli meats, sliced thin
| Avocados for slicing into an on-the-run salad, onto sandwiches, or to smash and smear as a spread
|
Hummus for dips and spreads
| Small, quick-cooking potatoes, such as Yukon golds, marbles or new reds
|
Organic mayonnaise made with cage-free eggs (Less animal cruelty!) for quick dressings & spreads
| Red onion
|
Sour cream or yogurt for quick dips, dressings and spreads
| Fresh lemons and limes for making a super quick ade, for dressing salads, and for keeping apples, pears and other sliced fruits from turning brown
|
Stone-ground mustard also good for whisking up a quick dressing or spread, or wonderful by itself on baguette rounds with a bit of salami and cheese
| Organic wines or wines made with organic grapes, red and white
|
Sweet and savory pickle relishes
| Homemade cookies or bars
|
Green onion
| Chocolate! Organic and Fair Trade to vote with your dollars against child slavery
|
Radishes
| |
Celery
| |
Milk for the little ones
|
The key to a successful, gourmet picnic is to keep the tastiest, freshest foods you love on hand, so change this list to suit your needs
That's how we do it at our house
How do you plan for the unplanned picnic at the drop of a white cloud in a blue sky?
© 2014 Kathryn Grace
