Can you believe it is now summer?! 2020 has definitely whizzed past and now that the government has eased the lockdown slightly, we decided it would be a lovely idea to have a socially distanced picnic with a few friends. Plus, we’ve had some nice weather lately and it definitely called for some bubbly and delicious food.

3 Picnic Recipes

We all bought something to the picnic – I made some smoked paprika hummus to dip the crisps in, Sam made Kimbap which was a real treat, Claire made her delicious pasta salad. Sam also bought along some bubbly – I would highly recommend ASTI sweet sparkling wine!

Here’s how we made the dishes:

Smoked Paprika Hummus

Ingredients:

• Lemon
• Water
• Tahini
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Canned Chickpeas
• Smoked paprika
• Garlic (2 or 3 cloves)

Drain the chickpea liquid (aquafaba) into a jar to use in another recipe. Cover the chickpeas with water and simmer for 20 minutes (this will help the hummus become much smoother in texture). Whilst that is cooking use a blender and put the rest of the ingredients in – tahini, water, lemon, minced garlic, salt, olive oil, smoked paprika and mix it altogether. Once 20 minutes is up drain the water and pop the chickpeas into the blender for about 3-4 minutes, to taste I like to put more tahini and smoked paprika into the mix. Once everything has been blended store the hummus in the fridge.  Personally, I like to wait 24 hours before I dig into it as this allows the hummus to thicken.

Sam’s Kimbap

We were so delighted when Sam made Kimbap as we hadn’t had it since our trip to Seoul last October, which you can read all about my food experience here. It was as tasty as we’d remembered, juicy and full of flavour – a real treat! We fantasised about it for days…

Ingredients:

• Short grain rice
• Korean seaweed
• Medium to Firm Tofu
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Cucumbers
• Picked Daikon
• Burdock
• Sesame oil
• Sesame seeds

First cook the rice in less water than normal (set aside for it to cool). Cover the tofu with corn starch fry in a pan with some oil over medium heat and add some salt, in the same pan add the sliced carrots adding a bit of salt and sesame oil until cooked through. Blanch the spinach and quickly rinse with cold water and squeeze the excess liquid out – season with cooked garlic, sesame oil and salt. Slice the cucumber length ways, now you have all the ingredients ready, add a small amount of salt, sesame seeds and sesame oil into the rice – it’s now time to roll! Take your seaweed and face it shiny side down onto the mat with the rough side facing you, add your rice onto the seaweed, layer your ingredients horizontally, including the burdock and pickled radish when ready – start rolling, make sure you firmly roll using the mat until you reach the end. Brush some sesame oil onto the roll and cut into 8 equal pieces.

Claire’s gf pasta salad

Ingredients:

• Red lentil pasta
• Onions + Garlic
• Olives
• Oil
• Vegan Pesto
• Vegan cheese
• Salt + pepper

In a pan cook the red lentil pasta (al dente) and drain the water. In a different pan drizzle oil and sauté the chopped onions and minced garlic, add the pasta, pesto, cheese and olives, mix well and season to taste.

We had an amazing day eating and catching up in the sun and enjoying each other’s company. The food was delicious, and we were all talking about it for days to come. We made sure there was cutlery for each dish so we could easily share without it being contaminated so don’t worry about not being able to share!

I hope you enjoyed our recipes as much as we enjoyed eating them!