It's National Picnic Week - 13-21 June

It's national picnic week from the 13 to the 21 June in the UK the sun is (hopefully) shining, the days are long and warm, so what better way to send a few hours than going for a walk or to a park and packing a picnic to eat when you're there? 

National Picnic Week 13 - 18 June 2015 

My miniature picnic

I'm not sure on some of the recipes on the site - under the 'love your greens' section there is a broccoli frittata which sounds lovely but then the next one is for sprout kebabs which sound like the kind of thing I won't be trying even though I quite like sprouts. 

Lots of yummy goodies for the miniature picnic.

Another angle of the picnic made in one inch scale. 

For me a picnic normally involves a sandwich of some kind, crisps, scotch eggs, sausage rolls and 'pudding' which is usually a slice of cake.

The past couple of years have seen more recipes for picnic sandwiches or pressed sandwiches. These are usually bread rolls or a large round crusty loaf that has had the middle taken out and filled with all kinds of deli food Ham, cheese, pesto, tomato, mustard, lettuce, salami, beef are all layered up into the bread and then it is wrapped in foil and left overnight, Sometimes a small weight is added  to squash the loaf down. The following day the loaf is cut into slices and eaten. I've seen lots of inspiration on Pinterest and these are my mini versions - one is a round crusty loaf, the other is a baguette which has been cut into chunks.

Pork pie, gala pie, sausage rolls are always a favourite on a picnic - anything wrapped in pastry is good in my book. 

Pork pie

Gala Pie

Sausage rolls

There is also a flask of tea and some cold juice drinks on any picnic I pack. But they aren't on the picnic blanket above. By the way I knitted the blanket many years ago, it was my first attempt at knitting in miniature on tiny thin small needles and was a challenge to say the least. I haven't knitted anything since but I do have ideas that I might do one day when I have the time. 

Now I'm off to check the weather forecast and think about going to the seaside for the day with my picnic!

Lots of open sandwiches

This week I've made a variety of open sandwiches. I  may have gone a little overboard on the toppings instead of two or three varieties I ended up making 16 different types. From relatively simple cheese and onion to the more complicated avocado, tomato and cucumber canes. 

In a wierd way it's just like cooking in real life. Mise en place my college lecturer called it, getting everything ready in order to prepare the food. Sliced onion, cucumbers, tomatoes along with ham, beef, avocado, tuna mayo and cheese. I also had tin foil dishes with mayonnaise and tls to glue everything together as I was mixing precooked and uncooked clay. 

Some things were more successful than others. I like the fatty bits in the ham but I think it could have been a bit more random to look more lifelike. 

Trays of open sandwiches 

Trays of open sandwiches

Sandwich selection

Sandwich selection

Avocado and hummus sandwich

Cheese and onion sanddwich

Tuna and cucumber sandwich 

Lunch - Meat Sandwiches

I've been making cakes for the past couple of months and decided it was time to do something different. So I made some meat sandwiches. The photos aren't the best because they were taken with my phone rather than my camera.

These were the first ones I made and as usual forgot to take pictures during the process of making them. I've made another batch of bread rolls and maybe this time I'll have remember to take some.