Delicious Picnics Begin With Appetizing Picnic Food
When you start planning your picnic, you visualize a wonderfully relaxing day in a beautiful location. Everyone is relaxed and enjoying the sun and the soft breeze. The leaves rustle overhead as everyone leisurely enjoys the food you packed. Every bite is delicious. The trick is… what food will you take?
Planning a wonderful picnic can be hard work. Do you pack sandwiches and salads? Do you cook? How will you keep everything cold? Do you really want to bring plates and silverware? Even packing paper plates and plastic silverware is extra work and expense. Then there is all the clean up afterwards. Suddenly a picnic does not seem all that relaxing.
There is a way to keep your picnic fun and enjoyable. Bring appetizers. They can all be made ahead of time and packaged up so they are easy to serve. You will not have to worry about plates, silverware, or serving platters. Clean up will be a breeze!
Pick out a cold appetizer recipe that you enjoy. It could be as simple as deviled eggs or fresh vegetables. Make a big list of all the recipes you are considering for your picnic, and a second list of the ingredients needed for those recipes. Compare each recipe to discover similar ingredients. If they are prepped in a similar fashion, you can combine your prep time. For example, if you have a few recipes that use bacon, you can cook all the bacon at one time so you save yourself time.
Add all the recipes that sound good, such as bacon wrapped shrimp, cheese puffs, tomatoes filled with chicken salad and so on. Finger foods should be fun and easy. You do not want a lot of mess to clean up. The day before your picnic, assemble your appetizers. Pack them up securely in sturdy plastic storage containers and let them chill in the fridge. If you need to layer your appetizers, separate them with layers of waxed paper to keep them from touching each other.
Plan to have a couple of really special cold appetizer recipes to be the highlight of your picnic spread. They can be anything from pate and crackers to smoked salmon stuffed into fresh pea pods. The point is to create a couple dishes that will make your picnic memorable. Get them all prepared and chill them until the picnic.
Cold appetizers are great because you do not have to worry about reheating and timing when they will be ready to eat. On the big day, pack all your plastic storage containers into a large cooler to transport to your picnic. Pick out the perfect spot where you want to have your picnic.
When you get there, unpack your cooler, and let everyone eat. Spread out your storage containers on a nearby picnic table or on a blanket and let everyone help themselves. After your relaxing picnic, just toss the empty containers into the cooler to take back home. You get a nice relaxing day in the sun after all!
