From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
I’m a romantic. I love picnics – you know the fried chicken, potato salad, baked beans and tasty dessert kind of picnic. So I decided to put together some recipes for a nice picnic or your Memorial Day cookout. Picnic basket is optional.
The featured recipes tonight are an easy fried chicken and spiced up baked beans. What goes great with fried chicken and spicy baked beans? How about some salads?
Italian Potato Salad (recipe here)
JeffreyW makes a bunch of picnic sides, including Red Potato Salad and a Tomato, Black Olive and Mozzarella Salad (recipes and great photos here)
And then for dessert? A simple pie that looks amazing and tastes pretty good, too.
Buttermilk Pie (pictured above and recipe here)
Now it’s your turn. What are some of your favorite picnic/cookout foods? Do you have anything that’s different and unexpected? Don’t hold out, share in the comments.
Now about that fried chicken and my very favorite sweet and spicy baked beans that use unexpected ingredients:
(JeffreyW serves up fried chicken, baked beans and slaw)Easy Fried Chicken
(adapted from Cook’s Country)1-1/4 cups buttermilk (use 5 tbsp buttermilk powder and 1-1/4 cup water)
salt
1/4 tsp hot sauce
3 tsp black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder (this works better than fresh)
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 1/2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken parts (breasts, thighs, and drumsticks, or a mix – go with your favorites. With breasts cut them in half to make them equal size with the thighs, so they all cook evenly)
2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 3/4cups vegetable oilWhisk 1 cup buttermilk, 1 tablespoon salt, hot sauce, 1 tsp black pepper, ¼ tsp garlic powder, ¼ tsp paprika, and pinch of cayenne together in large bowl. Add chicken and turn to coat. Refrigerate, covered, at least 1 hour.
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk flour, baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and remaining 2 teaspoons black pepper, ¾ teaspoon garlic powder, ¾ teaspoon paprika, and remaining cayenne together in large bowl. Add remaining ¼ cup buttermilk to flour mixture and mix with fingers until combined and small clumps form. Working with 1 piece at a time, dredge chicken pieces in flour mixture, pressing mixture onto pieces to form thick, even coating. Place dredged chicken on large plate, skin side up.
Heat oil in 11-inch straight-sided sauté pan over medium-high heat to 375 degrees. Carefully place chicken pieces in pan, skin side down, and cook until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Carefully flip and continue to cook until golden brown on second side, 2 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer chicken to wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet. Bake chicken until instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of chicken registers 160 degrees for breasts and 175 for legs and thighs, 15 to 20 minutes. (Smaller pieces may cook faster than larger pieces. Remove pieces from oven as they reach -correct temperature.) Let chicken rest 5 minutes before serving.
I’ve stolen this baked bean recipe from friends who wowed me with it years ago. Amazingly simple, it takes ordinary canned baked beans up a notch. Go for good quality beans and sausage and real maple syrup and it’s a can’t miss. Sit back and accept all the compliments that will come your way.
Nita’s Baked Beans
½ lb spicy Italian sausage
28 oz can favorite baked beans
3 tbsp maple syrup
saucepanIn saucepan, brown Italian sausage, drain well and crumble. Add beans and syrup, let simmer for 15 minutes to heat through and let flavors blend together.
Probably should think about doubling this recipe, because the leftovers are even better.
SiubhanDuinne
So I saw “Buttermilk Pie” (which looks beautiful, by the way!) and then scrolled quickly down to the recipe, saw that the first ingredient listed was buttermilk — but then, hot sauce? garlic powder? black and cayenne pepper?
Serve me right for not reading as carefully as I ought.
Whole picnic theme is mouthwatering. Just yum. As for me, I dropped my iPad on my unshod foot an hour or so ago, and it is quite the sight. My evening will feature ice compresses, Advil, and an early bedtime.
Yatsuno
Hamburgers just taste amazing made from fresh beef cooked on an open fire on one of those sad barbecues they have at picnic areas. That and my mom’s potato salad that she won’t teach me how to make.
NotMax
Cherished recipe is one for no-mayo (German style) potato salad from a 1936 booklet of Pennsylvania Dutch cookery acquired somewhere along the line.
patrick II
I am taipei this morning and dor brakfast I had some dim sum, pot stickers greens soy bean curd with thousand year egg. Best breakfadt I have haf in awhile.
Corner Stone
Let’s start a riot, a riot
Let’s start a riot
Let’s start a riot, a riot
Let’s start a riot
JPL
Since I was bitching down below, I feel obligated to make the pie, although the potato salad sounds intriguing. One son is not a fan of mayo, so it is a good alternative.
maven
Deviled eggs mean summer to me. True old fashioned comfort food.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Might have mentioned this previously, but still mourn the loss of one grandmother’s recipes for garlic dill sour pickles and for sauerkraut, which were simply the best tasting in creation.
She always stubbornly swore that she wouldn’t share how to make them and would take that knowledge to her grave.
Which she did, at 108 (though we suspect she was older).
Litlebritdifrnt
My favorite picnic buns with a really kick ass cheese and chips placed on the cheese;
JPL
@efgoldman: omg.. no smashing. When I moved to LA in the seventies, I ordered Potato Salad as a side and received cold mashed potatoes.
WereBear
Waldorf Salad.
Thanks to Monty Python, it’s a rare holiday/event that cannot accommodate this dish.
Apples, celery, walnuts, grapes. In a mayonnaise sauce!
I’ve been known to add dried cherries (because I love them) but otherwise, it is As John Cleese presented it.
In a sea of pasta-based picnic salads, it is often the only salad the celiac-challenged can handle.
WereBear
Yes, sometimes a dash of nutmeg.
NotMax
@JPL
Shortcut cheat for any potato salad (also works for hash brown type fried potatoes) is to use canned potatoes.
Buy the whole potatoes in the can. They’re already cooked.
Rinse them well and either slice or cut into quarters (eighths for the big ones).
MikeJ
Not a picnic thing, but it could be the result of a late summer picnic: I just made some blackberry-ginger coulis to go with my Alaskan king salmon. Water (a cup), sugar, (1/4cup) 12oz blackberries, a sliced up bit of ginger all go in a pot. Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer for a few minutes to break down the blackberries. Toss ’em in the blender and strain. You can put it back in the pot to reduce, or skip the reduction. On a nice August afternoon you can pick enough blackberries for a school of fish.
Keith
I’ve got meatball subs on the brain. I tried for years to find sandwich/Italian places with great meatball subs. Not only are they hard to find period, but they almost always like it came from Sisco (I’ve had a single “pretty good” MBS at a restaurant). Finally, it dawned on me to just make my own. Nothing beats grinding your own beef (you can blend any cut you want), and add in fresh herbs and a scratch-made marinara made with San Marzanos with cheese melted under the broiler….phenomenal.
In fact, I’m going to start grinding some short ribs/sirloin right now to make a new batch.
PurpleGirl
On picnics my father would grill chicken and sometimes do baked potatoes. No other “fancy” stuff. For a man of Austrian descent he didn’t care for pickles, sour things, etc.
My friend N made a cold macaroni salad with a little mayo and curry spicing. I liked that a lot when he decided to grill and have picnic foods.
ETA: My father made his own grill from sheet metal and pipes. We used charcoal.
WereBear
Just had a chicken curry salad in a half avocado for lunch on Thursday. Nice.
As someone who was raised on Midwestern cooking: whoo, exotic!
waratah
Buttermilk pie is one of my favorites and like a good cheesecake is perfect alone, and, I have not seen any recipes that added whipped cream and fresh fruit before. Because the buttermilk pie is so rich and sweet the topping should cut that sweetness. Thank you TaMara I may not wait until Memorial day to try this.
MikeJ
@Keith: I made Jeffery’s recipe for meatball sammiches a few weeks ago. One the one hand it was too bad he wasn’t here to take pictures. On the other, his absence meant more for me.
Diana
don’t know much about picnicking, but this is my go-to recipe for potato salad:
http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/m/2013/01/smoked_herring_and_potato_salad.html
works just fine without the herring, BTW. The key is that the combination of good olive oil, lemon juice, and mustard.
NotMax
Try substituting cubed Portuguese sausage for the Italian in the baked beans. And a pinch of brown sugar.
You might never go back.
PurpleGirl
Isn’t it a shame that so many of our grandmothers had recipes they didn’t share with other people, even their children. My grandmother made a sour-cream cake and cookies with hazelnuts and didn’t give us the recipes either.
schrodinger's cat
Sandwiches made from leftovers of tandoori chicken, Turkish potato salad , green salad and white wine makes for a great picnic. Next time I will add TaMara’s pie.
PurpleGirl
What goes into Turkish potato salad?
schrodinger's cat
@efgoldman: My mother’s the same way. I have been successful at reverse engineering many of her recipes though, mostly through trial and error.
Poopyman
@PurpleGirl: Potatoes, silly.
MikeJ
@Poopyman: Turkish potatoes.
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: My mother and I tried to reverse engineer the cookies but couldn’t get the same taste and texture. And Grandma never talked about amounts, not even “a pinch of this” type amounts.
schrodinger's cat
@PurpleGirl: Potatoes, red onions, olive oil, lime juice and flat leaf parsley.
schrodinger's cat
@PurpleGirl: Baking is hard to pull off without accurate instructions.
Calming Influence
Hey, where’d all that hockey shit go?
schrodinger's cat
@Calming Influence: To Canada.
? Martin
@PurpleGirl: My grandparents shared every recipe. Taught me how to make every one of them, step by step.
They tried with my mom. It didn’t take. I was their last hope.
I’ve been responsible for every holiday meal since I graduated college.
raven
I make sweet potato salad.
Calming Influence
Bar-B-Qed corn on the cob. Should be super-fresh corn, kept on the grill until there are some browned/blackened kernels. Then, hot off the grill:
1. Squeeze fresh lime all over the corn.
2. Roll the cob over a stick of butter.
3. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper.
Do it in that order. The butter seals in the lime juice, and the cayenne and salt is captured in the butter. If the grilled corn has been sitting on a plate and has cooled down, hand that cob to a little kid and get one hot off the grill. If you think you’ll be too full of beer to remember the order of application, have someone write the correct order on your forehead before you start drinking. Then you can just hand the corn to a friend, point to your forehead, and say “Do this, bro.”
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: And my mother didn’t start baking until her early fifties.
Thank you for the ingredients of the Turkish potato salad.
Calming Influence
TaMara, where did you find those cool ladybug plates?
Thor Heyerdahl
I love a red flannel hash – with steamed beets, potatoes & sweet potatoes. Not sure how it would work for a picnic, but it’s potato salad-ish.
My mom makes beet pickles that everyone loves and always asks for a jar of.
With Swedish ancestry on my dad’s side, some of my relatives cook palt potato dumplings, keep them cold and then slice and fry them when they go camping.
schrodinger's cat
@PurpleGirl: You are welcome. I use red potatoes for the salad, Yukon Gold will do in a pinch but Russets are too mealy.
schrodinger's cat
For dinner this evening I made tilapia, rice with chickpeas and dill, green salad with argula, oranges and beets and Limoncello to drink.
NotMax
@schrodinger’s cat
Super cheat for times when you gotta have a batch of cookies on hand and from scratch not an option.
Empty any flavor packaged cake mix into a bowl.
Thoroughly mix in 2 eggs and a half cup of vegetable oil.
Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at around 350 (ovens vary) for 10-12 minutes*.
Move with a spatula to a wire rack to cool. (Optional: sprinkle with a teensy bit of sugar while still warm.)
*Check the undersides of the first batch often, as they will suddenly brown too much very quickly. Don’t fret if they look underdone when you take them out. They’ll continue to cook just enough while cooling. After some experience, the look of the crackling on the tops will be a dead giveaway of when to remove them.
Mousebumples
I’m actually heading to a picnic this weekend, and I’m bringing a pile of (easy!) biscuits of different varieties. A few people are bringing crock-pot soups, and I have a yummy and delicious biscuit recipe, so I figured that would be my contribution.
2 INGREDIENT YOGURT BISCUITS (adapted from here: http://relish.com/recipes/yogurt-biscuits/)
Ingredients
2 cups (16 ounces) plain greek yogurt [I use a medium-sized canister of Chobani Greek Yogurt. The large size is 32 ounces, so double the recipe if you use that one.]
2 1/3 cups flour*
3 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
*You may also use self-rising flour. If so, omit baking powder and only use 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 450F.
2. Whisk flour and salt together in a large bowl. Make a hollow in the center. Pour yogurt into center, and stir with a fork or spoon pulling flour into yogurt. Mix until dry ingredients are moistened and the dough forms.
3. Sprinkle a clean surface with flour. Turn dough out, sprinkle with flour and fold in half. Pat dough until 1/2-inch thick. Flour again if necessary and fold dough in half a second time. Pat dough into a 1/2-inch thick round.
4. Dip a 2-inch biscuit cutter into flour and cut out biscuits without twisting.
5. Place biscuits close together on a baking sheet. Bake 10 to 14 minutes, until light golden brown. Serve hot.
Additional notes:
I usually don’t actually roll out the dough and use a biscuit cutter because my apartment’s kitchen is waaaay too tiny. I just use a Tablespoon measuring spoon measure out a decent amount of dough before placing on my baking sheet – drop-cookie style.
For this weekend’s picnic fun, I played with a few variations with success:
1.) Using Chobani’s Vanilla Chocolate Chunk Greek Yogurt instead of plain. Absolutely delicious, and my favorite thus far.
2.) Adding 1 cup diced spinach, 1/4 c diced cilantro, and 3 slices of marbled cheese to the dry ingredients. I cut the slices of cheese prior to using – and I only used sliced cheese because that’s what I had in my fridge.
Future attempts that I’m thinking about include more of a fruity Chobani yogurt … and maybe trying to add some Crystal Light powder to the dry ingredients and seeing what happens.
Mnemosyne
I always get raves when I make Caesar Potato Salad. I usually leave out the anchovy paste, though.
That same issue of Cooking Light also had another favorite, Sweet Onion, Tomato and Corn Salad with Basil.
@Calming Influence:
Back in the Midwest, they keep a big pot of melted butter on the grill for easy dipping.
Origuy
I can’t find my baked beans recipe, but it starts with the one in The Joy of Cooking, which adds chopped onion, celery, and bell pepper. I add about a teaspoon of powered mustard and a teaspoon of curry powder, more or less, with two tall cans of beans. I use the vegetarian baked beans so that the non-meat eaters in my crowd can have it.
Another good picnic dish is pork tenderloin churrasco, from Epicurious.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Yatsuno: Facemail me. I’ll give you a potato salad recipe your mother will kill you for.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Origuy: The best baked beans always start with apple juice.