Picnic maple ginger red beans

 
Just a very few weeks ago, it looked like winter would never, ever end, and that this would be the year the glaciers reformed and traveled down I-94.

And now the farmers market is back, the trees are blooming, and it's picnic weather again.

The perfect time for a little bit of planned spontaneity. Oxymoronic, you say? Not entirely. Planning that can enable spontaneity isn't really cheating. It's making sure you have your wallet on hand on a delightful spring day in case you might find yourself on the patio at Sandcastle again. Or stocking up on ingredients that let you decide to assemble a quick backpack picnic in a half hour.

This recipe definitely helped, since it comes together really quickly and I usually have a "can" of beans lurking in my freezer. Plus, it's picnic friendly so even if you don't eat all the beans you take, they won't spoil before you get home. And they reheat just fine.

We paired this with a quick slaw tossed with light olive oil, a splash of toasted sesame oil and seasoned rice wine vinegar, another picnic winner.

I made curried chicken salad sandwiches by combining in a food processor 2 cut-up cooked chicken breasts, 3 tablespoons mango chutney, the zest of 1 orange, 1 scant teaspoon curry powder, 5 tablespoons of yogurt or mayo or a combo of the two, and 1 tablespoon pickle juice. By hand, stir in 2 diced celery stalks and 2 chopped green onions. Spread on bread and top with some greenery; I used pea shoots that called out to me at the farmers market.

Lots of things called out to me at the market, and it wasn't just the Wisconsin cheese barker. In addition to old friends, we've got a new bread baker again, an oil/vinegar stand that makes a really tasty lemon flavored variety that's an instant favorite and a new pickle person. Delightful dill pickles from the latter supplied our all-important pickle/condiment component of the picnic above the lake. All that and 8,400 steps round-trip to help walk it off.

Oh yeah, that's why we live here. Good to remember again.

Maple ginger red beans

Adapted from “The Spoonriver Cookbook” by Brenda Langton and Margaret Stuart

Ingredients

3 cups cooked small red beans*

2 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tablespoons ginger puree

1 tablespoon soy sauce (I used teriyaki sauce as well once when I ran out)

1 teaspoon salt

Method

Heat up cooked beans in a pan. When warmed, add maple syrup, soy sauce and salt. Cook a few minutes longer to let the flavors blend and serve warm or at room temperature.

Rating: Really nicely flavored with an excellent balance of sweet and sour. A great variation on the usual baked beans at picnics. Very pantry friendly, and speedy if you’re starting with cooked beans …

* Note: Achieve cooked beans however you prefer. Obviously 2 15-ounce cans of beans is fastest, and sometimes that’s necessary. My favorite way is to soak the beans in water overnight, then drain the beans, discarding any chaff. Place the beans in a slow cooker. Top with an onion cut into large chunks, a few peppercorns, two whole cloves, 1 teaspoon of salt per pound of beans and whatever herbs you’ve got handy. Cover with water by 2 inches. Cover and cook on low for anywhere from 4 to 8 hours, depending on whether you bothered to presoak the beans, how big they are, and whether you want really soft beans for soup or firmer beans for a salad. I think they cook best 2 pounds at a time, so you wind up with a lot. Divide up in the freezer storage boxes (including the liquid to help avoid freezer burn) in “can” size measures: 1¾ cup of actual beans, about 2 cups of bean/liquid combo. These beans are so much more flavorful and this lets you control the texture and salt factor. And now you're ready when the urge for a quick picnic side dish strikes.

Roasted potato salad, cucumber cilantro salad, dilly beans

I do so love picnics, and this was a lovely day for one. We found a nice shaded spot far away enough from the trail to be reasonably civilized. Just wish those concrete picnic tables were more comfortable for napping afterward.

Roasted potato salad with sour cream and shallots
Adapted from Saveur. Note that you'll want to make this shortly before serving. I finished right before we lit out for our picnic.

Ingredients
2 pounds small Yukon gold potatoes, quartered or cut into eighth depending on size (you're looking for bite-size pieces)
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 shallots, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place potatoes on a rimmed baking sheet. Toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil, some coarse salt and pepper. Roast until golden and tender, stirring about half way through, 25-35 minutes depending on your oven (I did 25 minutes on convection setting). Let cool slightly.

Meanwhile in remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil sprinkled with some salt, cook shallots over low heat until softened. Add garlic and cook another minute or two. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix sour cream, mustard and vinegar. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and mix well. Toss with slightly cooled potatoes. Mix in fresh parsley and serve warm or at room temperature.

Rating: I liked roasted potatoes, and I like nearly all potato salads, and this is the logical outcome of blending the two. Nicely deepened flavors on the potatoes, and the sour cream dressing works. Might be interesting to try it with an different herb such as dill or tarragon. Very easy to fix and viable repeater. Very nice change of pace from those cubes drenched in yellowy cream sauce found in tubs in some grocery stores. Serves maybe 4ish.

 

Cucumber salad with red onion and cilantro
Inspired by a couple of recipes, including this one from Laylita.com, which I was congratulating myself on still being able to read it all these years past college Spanish, and this one from thefoodcharlatan.com.

Ingredients
3 small cucumbers, very thinly sliced (mandolin thin)

½ small onion, thinly sliced

3 tablespoons olive oil

Juice of 1 lime

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

¼ teaspoon cumin

 
Method
Combine cucumbers and onion in a bowl. Combine olive oil, lime juice, cilantro and cumin in a small bowl. Mix well and season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss with cucumber mixture and chill unless serving immediately.

Rating: Refreshing counterpoint to the creamy potato salad. Comes together very quickly, and it's a good picnic candidate since the ingredients won't spoil quickly. Probably serves about 3.



Dilly beans
Adapted from "Put 'Em Up," by Sherri Brooks Vinton

Ingredients
1 pound green beans, ends snapped
2 garlic cloves, sliced
3 tablespoons dill weed
½ tablespoon dill seed
12 black peppercorns
1 cup white vinegar
½ cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
½ tablespoon salt

Method
Blanch beans for 1 minute in boiling water. Put in an ice bath to stop cooking or else stash them temporarily the freezer. Drain well. Pack beans vertically into two pint canning jars. Divide garlic, dill weed and seed and peppercorns among the jars.

Heat vinegar, water, sugar and salt to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Pour over beans and top with canning lids. Let cool to room temperature and refrigerate until ready to use.

Note: In the original recipe you skip the blanching, use hot sterilized jars and process the sealed jars in a hot water bath. I've modified some of the ingredients from the original, so don't try to make it and process it in a water bath, since the proportions have been altered and it's always best to do any actual canning with a recipe exactly as written since it's been tested for food safety.  Since I just had a small amount of beans left on hand (not the 4 pounds the original recipe called for), I was just opting for a quick refrigerator pickling route.

Rating: A good use of green beans when you've got a lot to use up and want to make something that will keep for a bit. A nice spot of crunch. Satisfies the all-important pickle/relish component on the picnic plate.




We rounded out the meal with some fresh berries. Still need that nap.

Bacon potato salad

Most of our picnics are transported in motorcycle saddlebags, or in a car in a 40-quart cooler. So sometimes I forget about the concept of just walking to a picnic table, several of which are in easy range of our home.

Sunday offered perfect weather, with a glorious breeze and only wispy clouds. We unloaded our backpacks at a table we've walked not far from hundreds of times, but never stopped at before. It offered a view of the lake and this unusual view of the willow with a seeming hole in it, something we've never noticed because we never stopped in just that spot.

Lyonnaise Potato Salad
Adapted from "The Picnic," by Marnie Hanel, Andrea Slonecker, and Jen Stevenson, founders of the Portland Picnic Society. This book elevates the simple picnic into an art form. It captures all things picnic related, from recipes to presentation to food safety and more. This is the first recipe I've tried from this inspiring book, and I look forward to trying several more.

Ingredients
1 pounds small potatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil (or less, depending on how fatty your bacon is)
4 ounces bacon, sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
1 large shallot, chopped

1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley, divided
1 hard-cooked egg
salt and pepper

Method
Slice potatoes in half if quite small, or in quarters if fingerling size. Place in a pot filled two-thirds full of salted water. Bring to a boil and simmer until just tender. Drain and transfer to a bowl.

Cook bacon in a skillet until crisp, adding 1 tablespoon olive oil if you have very lean bacon. Remove bacon strips to bowl with potatoes, leaving oil in pan.

Saute shallots until just softened; you don't want them crispy. Add to bowl with potatoes, reserving oil.

Stir vinegar, mustard, thyme and most of the parsley into baking fat. Add oil and fresh pepper as desired. Toss with potato mixture.Cover and refrigerate. (Can be made a day or two ahead.) Shortly before serving, grate on the egg over the top and garnish with remaining parsley.

Rating: Delightful. The vinegar-bacon combo always turns into something that's like meat candy. The grated egg works perfectly in this recipe. And admittedly, having a fresh supply of lemon thyme to use in this recipe was probably cheating.

To go with the potato salad, we had guacamole turkey sandwiches and green bean-cherry tomato salad with kalamata vinaigrette from the July 2001 Bon Appetit. We're still overrun with pole beans and have lots of little cherry tomatoes, and this salad is a fine enough use. The dressing in particular has lots of other uses.

Chicken salad with tarragon, homemade mayo and grapes

 

A good picnic is the sum of its parts, and sometimes the whole is better than the individual parts.

Today's was hard to go wrong, with soaring eagles overhead, fair weather and a passable picnic packed into the saddlebags on the bike. I might have managed a closer shot of the eagle, above, but I had left the longer lens at home to make room for the footed acrylic glasses in the camera bag. Clearly, food always outweighs photography for me.

This recipe comes from Alana Chernila, whose book includes a chapter entitled "Eat Outside," which I totally get behind. She includes this recipe after her descriptions of elaborate feasts remembered and reimagined from Tanglewood, where they know how to properly picnic. Like me, they realize that it isn't a proper picnic without a cloth tablecloth, although given today's setting I went for the more casual floral variety, suitably heavy to stay put on the windswept bluff.




Chicken salad with grapes
From "The Homemade Kitchen" by Alana Chernila

Ingredients
5 cups cooked chicken
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon leaves
5 chives, finely snipped
3/4 cup seedless red grapes
1 cup celery diced
1/2 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
Lettuce for lining plate

Method
Toss chicken with lemon juice and set aside.

Combine egg yolk, water and mustard. (You can use pasteurized eggs if you're concerned about your raw eggs.) Combine oils and whisk into egg yolk mixture, adding in a fine stream. When it's emulsified, add yogurt and salt.

Mix chicken with dressing, herbs, grapes, celery, pecans and some ground pepper. Taste and season with salt if needed. Serve on a bed of lettuce

Rating: Fine enough, but oddly despite featuring homemade mayo, it wasn't sublime. I've actually made a better version of this from a Rachael Ray recipe, of all things. So not bad, but it didn't knock it out of Spring Lake Park.

Also on the menu: Asian coleslaw (6 cups cabbage/carrot mix, 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro and 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil), cantaloupe wedges, some homemade pickles, and chocolate cupcakes I found in the freezer. So all in all, a perfectly fine picnic.

Picnic fodder: roast beef sandwiches, lemon Parmesan dip, carrot parsley salad

Sometimes simple is better, and often that’s the case with picnic food. My requirements for a nice picnic are a pleasant, reasonably private setting, clement weather and a properly stuffed picnic hamper of goodies. Some small savory element, like last year’s homemade gherkins, must be snuck into a crevice somewhere. Bonus points if there’s leftover blueberry pie, but that’s for the perfect picnic, and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Our most recent picnic qualified as a perfectly nice outing. Schaar’s Bluff, where you have a panoramic vista of the river and where eagles soar at eye height along the bluff, provided the setting. Nature provided the weather. I naturally provided the goodies: roast beef sandwiches with honey-mustard dressing, a carrot-cranberry-parsley salad (I substitute cilantro for half the parsley), mixed fruit and lemon Parmesan dip with veggies.

Roast beef sandwiches with honey-mustard sauce

Adapted from “Winnie-the-Pooh’s Picnic Cookbook,” inspired by A.A. Milne and with “decorations” by Ernest Shepard. As Christopher Robin and crew know something about rambling about and the need for proper sustenance after such rambling, it’s fitting that someone assembled a book of picnic recipes, interspersed with Shepard illustrations and Milne quotes. They’re all very straightforward, so the younger set can likely help prepare most of them. As an adorer of both picnics and Pooh stories, naturally I own it.

Ingredients

¼ cup Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon dry mustard

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

½ cup canola or light olive oil

6 kaiser rolls

1 pound sliced roast beef

6 lettuce leaves

2 sliced tomatoes, in season, or substitute two roasted red peppers, sliced

Method

Mix mustards, honey and vinegar in a jar. Whisk in olive oil until it emulsifies. This will make about a half cup, so you can be thinking of what you might like to do with the leftovers.

Split Kaiser rolls in half. Spread both halves with a bit of the dressing. Top with roast beef slices, lettuce and either tomatoes or roasted peppers, then Kaiser roll lid. Slice in half and wrap tightly with plastic wrap for ease of transport.

Rating: Simple but perfectly sustaining after rambling about. The dressing pairs well with beef, but its highest and best use is tossed with greens as a dressing.

Lemon Parmesan dip

From “Saveur The New Classics Cookbook”

Ingredients

1½ cups mayonnaise

¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 clove garlic, mashed into a paste

Zest of 1 lemon

Method

Combine all ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste.

Rating: Nice and lemony fresh. Fine as a dip. Leftovers also worked well as a sandwich spread.

Sarah’s carrot parsley salad

This recipe ran in the Star Tribune Taste section some years back, but I can’t find it to link to. No idea who the Sarah referred to is, at this point, but she made a tasty salad that travels well, so it’s good picnic fodder.

Ingredients

3½ cups grated carrots (I substituted the precut matchstick carrots this time; a variety of colors of carrots makes for a prettier salad)

1 cup chopped parsley

½ cup chopped cilantro

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1 large garlic clove, pressed

¼ cup fresh lime juice

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Method

Combine carrots, herbs and cranberries in a large bowl. Whisk together remaining ingredients and toss over carrot mixture. It's best if it has at least an hour to sit, so about however long it takes to get to your picnic spot will do.

Oh, and one more picnic requirement: proper table setting. Paper plates have no role outside of the overly large family gathering, which rarely qualifies as a good picnic. Given their propensity to become airborne when empty, they’re the enemy of food enjoyment. And plastic forks are a desperation measure, not a civilized means of consuming food. That’s not snobbery talking, that’s practicality. Although I’ll cut you some slack if you’ve perpetrated small children.

In the case of true picnic snobbery, you’d have to resort to this:

http://www.northernwaterssmokehaus.com/shop/salumi/food-snob-emergency-kit