Hiya everyone!
Last weekend I'd arranged a meetup(with my parents being there of course) with BeautyBe Blogger; for those who do not know who BeautyBe Blogger is, she is an amazing beauty blogger who had started up her blog the start of this year and now is my best blogger friend! Anyway, we had decided it would be a great treat for us and our viewers if we collaborated a blog post based on a video Zoe had made around two weeks ago.
Together, we split up tasks that we would need to complete for our perfect picnic. My duties from her
are the food, drinks and crafts On her blog, she would've also explained what her tasks were from
me. What we plan to do next week is meetup again and go on a picnic, completing all the tasks instructed,take pictures and post them!
The first and most important task I intend on completing first our picnic obviously is the food.
I've decided to include a variety of bakes and cooked food just to keep the picnic combination interesting.
To start off, I shall share a very simple recipe of "Picnic Salad".
1/2 cucumber,cut into chunks
1/2 red onion,slice
2 wholemeal pitta breads
1tbsp of olive oil
150g of feta cheese.
Put the cucumber, onion into a large bowl. Toast the pitta bread and cut them into small pieces. Add them to the vegetables. Drizzle on the olive oil before tossing the salad together.Scatter the feta onto, refrigerate until ready and Volia!
After searching a few websites and researching, My first recipe is "Tear and Share Pastry". In order to make this pastry, you'll need:
500g of strong white bread flour
100g of lard, chilled & chopped
•140g of butter, chilled & chopped
•1 egg,beaten
For the filling, you'll need:
•350g of beef skirt, cut into small cubes
•300g of waxy potatoes, chopped into small pieces
•175g of swede, chopped into small pieces
•1 onion,chopped
Method to making the pastry:
Firstly, tip the flour into a large mixing bowl , adding the lard and butter. With your fingertips, rub in the butter and lard into the flour, later on, mixing in 1 tsp of salt. Create a well inside of the mix and stir in 175ml of cold water. Knead just enough to bring the pastry together into a smooth ball shape wrap in clingfilm and let it rest inside the fridge for 3o mins-1hr.
Method to making the filling:
Place all the filling ingredients into another bowl along with 1 tsp of ground black pepper and 1 1/2 tsp of salt. Stir well to combine and spread the seasoning evenly.
Heat the oven at the 160c/140c fan/ Gas Mark 3. Line a large baking tray with baking parchment. Split the pastry into two and roll each piece into very large circles approx, 40cm diameter. Plae on of the pastry circles onto the tray.
Pile a generous handful of the filling into the centre of the pastry, then create seven slightly smaller mounds of filling, spaced evenly around the centre
like petals – make sure they don’t touch. Brush a little water onto the pastry gaps around each petal
and the centre, then carefully drape the other pastry circle over the top. Starting in the middle, gently press the pastry down to seal in the sections – imagine it’s a giant, flower-shaped ravioli.
Using a sharp knife, separate the "petals" by cutting triangular slivers out of the pastry leaving a 1-2cm pastry border around each petal. Reserve the pastry you cut away and roll out into two ropes. Twist them together and place around the edge of the centre of the flower.
Using your fingertips and starting at one edge of one of the petals, crimp the pastry. Do this all the way around each of the
petals to create the classic Cornish pasty-style crimp.
Brush the whole pasty flower with beaten egg and put in the oven for 1 hr 15 mins-1 hr 20 mins or until it is golden brown and the pastry is cooked through underneath.
Allow to cool for about 5 mins, then serve on the baking parchment or carefully slide onto a serving platter. To eat, simply pull off or slice the individual pasties, then chop up the central pasty. Serve with salad leaves and a mustardy dressing, if you like. And there you go! That's one recipe I plan on making for our picnic next week!
Another recipe I plan to bake for our organised picnic are of course, pressed sandwiches! It's super quick, really easy and most obviously a tasty picnic nibble.
For these delicious sandwiches, you'll need:
Long baguette(you van find these cheaply, at the bakery), sliced in half lengthways
3 tbsp of oil
1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
2 big handfuls of baby spinach
8 marinated artichoke heart from a jar, quartered ( neither I or BBB liked artichoke, therefore we substituted it for spinach)
250g of roasted red pepper from a jar
8 slices of prosciutto (if you do not eat pork or aren't allowed it,an alternative would be cheese)
125g of ball mozzarella,cut in slices
1/2 of an red onion, finely chopped
Using a bread knife, slice the baguette in half and heat the oven to 200c/180c fan/Gas Mark 6.
Then, place the halved baguette, crust-side down, onto a large baking tray and drizzle with a little olive oil. Pop them into the oven for a couple minutes until just golden brown and lightly toasted.
Tip the olive oil,balsamic vinegar,garlic and mustard into a bowl and whisk them together with a fork.
Remove the toasted bread halves from the tray and drizzle the bottom slice with about half of the dressing.
Arrange the ingredients in layers. I would suggest starting with a large handful of baby spinach followed by a few artichoke hearts. Continue layering with slices of pepper, the prosciutto(or the alternative,cheese),basil,mozzarella and finally the red onion. Drizzle over the rest of the dressing and pop the other slice of bread on top.
Press down on the sandwich to squash all the layers together. Then, wrap the sandwich in baking parchment and tie it together with a few pretty,decorative pieces of string.
Place a heavy baking tray on top of your sandwich and top it with weights or loaf tins filled with baking beans. Pop it all in the fridge overnight or until you're ready to eat it. To serve, cut in slices; And's that's another one of my selected picnic snacks.
My final recipe for this picnic is of course, picnic brownies! For this you'll need:
-85g of plain chocolate
-
125g of plain flour
-
1/2tsp of salt
15g of cocoa powder
2 eggs
300g of brown sugar
1tsp of vanilla extract
100g of chopped pecan nuts(optional for anyone
who cannot eat nuts for whatever reasons).
Method:
Begin by preheating the oven to 180c. Put the chocolate and butter in a pan over a low heat. Stir until melted.
Pour the mixture into a bowl. Sieve in the salt, flour,baking powder and cocoa powder and mix together.
In another bowl,mix the eggs, sugar and the vanilla extract. Stir in the chocolate mixture and pecans.
Line a baking tin with baking paper. Pour the mix into the tin and smooth it out. Bake for 25 minutes. Leave the brownies to cool , later on, dividing them into squares.
Although this may be the end of the recipes I am planning to make, ther are picninc snacks tyhat are essential and do not even require baking or cooking such as:
Falafels
Chips from the chip shop (if there's one nearby)
Fruits such as apples, plums, oranges (I wouldn't
recommend strawberries on a warm day as they
can go off very quickly).
You don't nesercarily need to make everything I have posted; there all options.
CRAFTS
There is no picnic more special than one documented within a photo album for you and your friends and family to look back out.
To make this you'll need:
Plenty of pictures from your awesome day
Plain,A4,hardback notebook
Stickers, glitter,ribbons,sequins, sweet wrappers buttons-whattever you like
Either a glue stick or PVA glue
Scissors (of course)
Start by laying out all your photographs, deciding
which one you want to display on what page.
Then, stick your pictures within the couple first pages of your notebook, allowing enough room for each one.
Here's the fun part: decorate each page with
whatever you want. Whether it's a souvenir from
the day or stickers, glitters, cut-out fabric shapes-
whatever you like.
What I also thought would be a good idea was if I protected each paper with cheap cut out plastic wallet just in case anything would happen to it.
If you find your notebook is quite bland and plain and you want to jazz it up a little, go ahead and do so , letting your creative juices FLOW!
Another craft I also made in preparation for next week is the decorations. You don't necessarily have to decorate your picnic. However, as it is my first picnic with BeautyBe blogger, I thought I'd make it special.
My chosen decorations consists of:
Bunting
Prettily-coloured flowers
And of course I had decorate the cupcake stand with blue velvet flowers!
A few things to remember:
Don't forget to take with you:
🌼A camera/mobile phone
🌼Picnic blanket
🌼Wicker Basket
🌼Cups,plates,plastic cutlery
🌼Wet wipes, tissues,napkins
🌼Possibly entertainment of some sort such as music or video camera, book, magazine-whatever you think entertains.
🌼Check out BeautyBe Blogger's blog for her take on the picnic challenge. I apologize for not posting last week as I were working on today's post.
See you next week!
#sweetreats xx
