Picnic Perfect

The best way to keep the memory of an all too brief vacation alive, is to picnic on the very same beach the following weekend. And to encourage your friends to eat your experiments, stored safely in your picnic hamper.

Since my friends are mostly vegetarian, and the beach is home to more than one case of sun induced food poisoning every summer; I decided to make everything veggie friendly, and although the picnic basket is insulated, I steered away from anything that might spoil, and therefore spoil our day. 

A muffaletta traditionally features various deli meats and cheeses layered in an entire loaf of bread with a tapenade mix that balances out all the richness. To Vegetarian-ize (yes, I'm making up my own words now) I grilled super thin slices of zucchini, and summer squash,(tossed lightly in coconut oil) and layered them with grilled onions, baby spinach, tapenade, and hummus. Simply pull out some of the inside of you loaf of bread, smear one side with hummus, the other with tapenade, and fill. Then wrap it up and stow it at the bottom of the picnic basket: it gets better if you give it a bit of a press.

The barley salad was inspired by one of my picnic companions. She once made a dip for freshly baked bread out of olive oil, garlic, and copious amounts of cilantro and I couldn't get enough of it. I’ve made it several times since, and when I was trying to think of a side dish that would be sun-safe and also refreshing it occurred to me that the dip would make a delicious dressing, I cut the olive oil way down and added a splash of white wine vinegar, for good measure a chopped cucumber from our garden went in.


For dessert we had Allison Attenborough’s lemon lavender shortbread. I made it in a small cake pan, so we could bread pieces off as desired. Its delicate enough that you taste the lavender but not so potent that you feel as though you ate a potpourri cookie, or licked your grandmothers drawer liner.

NOTE: There is nothing wrong with using fancy picnic fare to bribe friends to come to the beach with you, even though you know they have to work that afternoon.

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Zucchini Panzanella

Remember that zucchini that cropped up while I was on vacation? Well its starting to look like it might be the only one my Jurassic size plants create. And since it was enormous, I figured it deserved a place in the center of dinner, maybe to honor it in front of the garden gods so that they might give me one more zucchini.


Panzanella is a fabulous dish for when its too hot to eat, cook, or live in general. If you are like me, and lighting the grill and standing over it when its ninety degrees seems unappealing, you can use a grill pan and stand in your underwear in the kitchen.

For this version, I grilled cherry tomatoes until just blistered and corn on the cob until it looked - and smelled- really roasted, because my grill pan is teeny I  sauteed the zucchini with a sweet white onion but if you have the space I encourage you to grill all the vegetables.

I used a whole wheat rosemary bread bought at the farmers market, and toasted the cubes under the broiler. In this heat I sometimes just eat popsicles for dinner, so I'm willing to call this a win, even if its not really grilled the way I like it.


I dressed this with homemade raspberry vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper and a shallot all whizzed up in the blender. This is a substitution friendly sort of a dinner salad, so feel free to use whats on hand, if you have no zucchini, use another squash, or make it a little more fresh with a cucumber.


Quasi Grilled Panzanella
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 ears of corn, shucked and cleaned
1 loaf of rosemary bread
1 mammoth sized (or 2 small) zucchini
1 small sweet white onion
Raspberry Vinaigrette

Heat your grill to high, and place on the tomatoes and the ears of corn whole, turning occasionally to give an even char. * Once they reach your desired level of doneness, remove them from the grill and set them aside. To remove the kernels from the cob,I like to stand the ear of corn on the pillar in the center of a bundt pan and cut the corn off the cob with a sharp knife in a downward motion, just let the pan well collect all the roasted corn goodness. While you are grilling your vegetables, toast the cubes of bread and saute the onion and zucchini If you let this go as long as you grill the corn you should get a lovely caramelization on the onions. toss the ingredients together and serve warm with a drizzle of raspberry vinaigrette.

*Pay close attention to the tomatoes as they can explode in the heat, you want them just blistered, then you can remove them. Let the tomatoes cool while you prepare the rest of this salad, while cooking them deepens their flavor, because of their liquid insides they become finger and mouth scalding bombs when you cook them.

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