National Picnic Week is coming of the week of the 17th to the 23rd of June! Nobody does picnics better than the British! When the weather turns nice we just adore packing up a tasty lunch, hopping into the car, or on a bus or a train and high tailing it out and into our stunningly beautiful countryside to enjoy some good food and outdoor delights!
We are a nation of picnic-ers and for the last nine years we have been celebrating our love for the outdoors and outdoor lunches with a National Picnic Week!
A picnic can be as grand or as simple as you desire . . . a moveable feast which pleases all of the senses. I can remember a picnic when I was a girl which consisted of nothing more than a bread bag filled with peanut butter sandwiches and a thermos filled with coolaid. (A North American powdered drink which you re-constitute with water, much like the British squash) A friend and I biked half a day up the South mountain back home and enjoyed our picnic resting on a grassy knoll overlooking a church graveyard. The sun was hot. The drinks were refreshing and the sandwiches were every bit at delicious as delicious could be!
Another memorable picnic was one which I enjoyed after I had grown and had a family of my own. Rained out, we spread a blanket on the floor in the living room, where we enjoyed our sandwiches and treats and each others company as thunder cracked and lightening light up our big picture window. It's not so much the food you eat, or the location as it is the company that you keep! And of course the spirit which you bring to the occasion!
I was recently sent a delightful picnic hamper from Unilever and challenged to come up with a new recipe for the upcoming National Picnic Week! You know I do love a challenge and I do love picnics so the hardest part for me was narrowing it down to one recipe!
Let me say first of all the hamper was absolutely gorgeous. A lovely white wicker basket filled to the brim with an assortment of lever products . . . Hellman's mayonnaise's, Coleman's sauces, a variety of mustard's and every thing else you could need for a successful picnic . . .
. . . a cooler bag to keep your salads cool, plates, salt and pepper shakers, forks, knives, spoons etc.
In short, everything that anyone could possibly need to take four hungry and adventurous people on a picnic!!
I can tell you that we will sure be getting good use of this (I'm being optimistic here! We can't have three bummer summers in a row can we??? I sure hope not!) We do love a good picnic here at Casa da Rayner!
The Toddster is a potato fiend! He just loves potatoes. I love them too. In this house it's not a perfect day unless some potatoes are involved and so I decided to create a delicious potato salad to take on our picnic and to help celebrate National Picnic week!
I love potato salad. This is something which all too often is done very poorly though . . . over gloppy and cloying . . . stogged far too full of mayonnaise, with potatoes that are either under cooked and hard . . . or over cooked and falling apart.
Store bought ready made potato salads are always a HUGE disappointment to me! Lacking in flavour, they just never quite reach the mark of what a good potato salad should and can be.
My salad has a lovely light dressing that is neither cloying or gloppy, flavoured lightly with a touch of horseradish, lemon and dill . . . sweet and oniony spring chives . . . the merest hint of mayonnaise . . .a dollop of extra virgin olive oil . . . the peppiness of mustard cress . . .
Add to that the delightful crunch and color of spring beans and petit pois . . . crisp slices of red radishes . . .
In short the perfect picnic potato salad! I call it Better than Grandma's Potato Salad! Not because it's better, but because I'm cheeky! My gran made the best potato salad ever, and so did my mom. But this is good too, very . . . very good! Happy National Picnic Week!
*Better Than Grandma's Potato Salad*
Serves 4 to 5Printable RecipeMuch better for you than the mayonnaise laden potato salad of yore, yet still every bit as tasty and healthier with the addition of lots of green vegetable crunch and snap!2 1/2 pounds of waxy new potatoes, halved or quartered if large6 large radishes, trimmed and finely sliceda large handful of fresh chives, finely snipped1/2 of a punnet of mustard cress, snippeda large handful of fresh haricot beans, trimmed and cut into two inch lengthsa handful of frozen petit pois, thawed and drained1 TBS minced fresh dill weedFor the dressing:2 TBS creamed horseradish2 TBS good quality mayonnaisethe juice of half a lemon4 TBS good quality olive oilfine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to the boil. Add the potatoes and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender, adding the green beans during the last five minutes. Drain well and then tip in to a large salad bowl. Toss in the peas.Whisk together the dressing ingredients and pour them over the vegetables. Season with some sea salt and black pepper to taste. Allow to cool. Add the radishes, chives and cress, folding together gently. Serve at room temperature.
Many thanks to the people at Unilever for sending me this delightful hamper and for challenging me to come up with something new!
Now, get out there and have a picnic! Go on . . . you know you want to!
Note: All artwork and photographs for this post are copyright owned by myself, the artist and photographer.
