We had a picnic!

This was that weekend that spring came to NYC all at once in a crazy explosion of 95 degree weather in the middle of April. We celebrated by throwing together a picnic in Fort Greene Park.

In my humble opinion, picnic food should be easy. Easy to make, easy to eat, easy to carry, easy to keep in the sun without spoling. BUT IT ALSO MUST BE DELICIOUS! Is it possible? you may be wondering.

Well the answer is yes. Just take a look at this spread.


Clock wise from top:

I made black bean salad (recipe follows).
Hill made AWESOME brownies.
Alena brought some fruit.
Billy brought a refreshing celery blue cheese salad.
Joey brought "Summer Pasta", which is basically tortelini with basil, cherry tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. He taught me how to make this when we were in grad school together and having almost nightly dinner-making/study dates. This is sooo easy to throw together--just throw all the ingredients besides the pasta in a bowl, let sit so the flavors infuse the olive oil, and then toss with the pasta. You don't have to use tortelini--bowties work well if you want something less heavy.

Here is the recipe for my black bean salad. It is inspired by something I found on Epicurious, but I can't find the original recipe, and I've tweaked it so much anyway that we can just say I invented it.

Ingredients
Salad:
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can corn, drained
1 can heart of palm, drained and sliced into medallions
1 diced tomato
1 green pepper, chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped

1 avocado, sliced

Dressing:
1 clove garlic
Juice of 2 limes
Tb olive oil
tsp white vinegar
splash hot sauce if you want

E-Z:
Toss all the salad ingredients in a bowl. Then toss all the dressing ingredients into a smaller bowl and whisk together. Combine bowls. Toss that salad. Through some pretty avocado slices on top.

Done. Simple, refreshing, good. Look at how happy it made us:

I made joey's mama's sauce and it was the best sunday afternoon project EVER!!!

This is just a note to say that a couple Sundays ago, I made Joey's Mama's tomato sauce, and it was a very rewarding experience. Making sauce from scratch seems like such a labor intensive, exact science, but it is really not that hard, and any sauce you buy in a jar really does not compare. The only thing that is at all laborious is that you have to cook it a long time--i cooked mine for about three hours--but that's why it's a good Sunday activity. You get it on the stove, do some laundry, go to the gym, give it a stir once in a while. No big deal! And THEN you freeze what you don't use right then, which will be a lot. Here is a list of things I have made with this sauce:

-spinach ravioli in sauce
-angel hair pasta in sauce with sauteed eggplant and romano cheese
-ricotta filled whole wheat tortellini with chunks of roasted butternut, sauce.
-POLENTA PIZZA (this baby will have its own post.)

The only changes I made to Mama Vallese's sacred recipe is that I added some glugs of red wine (which I've seen Joey do when he makes it, so i figured it was ok), and sauteed some garlic with the vegetable mush before adding the tomatoes.

and i mushed those vegetables in a bowl with my trusty hand blender. i am telling you. you can do anything with that thing. it is the most universal kitchen appliance.

ok that's it. make this sauce this sunday. you won't be sorry. it will be really fulfilling.