On Sunday a couple friends of mine and I went to the Montage in Laguna Beach for a picnic, and a few games of Bocce Ball. It turned out to be a very nice day. As I love to cook, I took charge of the picnic part and made chicken salad sandwiches, and a lemon-berry trifle for dessert.
To make it easy, I bought a rotisserie chicken for the chicken salad. Doing that cut down on the prep time for the chicken salad sandwiches quite a bit. Here are the recipes for a perfect picnic!
Arugula Pesto Chicken Salad Sandwiches
This is a delicious chicken salad sandwich with roasted red peppers, havarti cheese, and lettuce. It's easy to make, and has a great presentation. Using two chicken breasts yielded 3 very large sandwiches, and could easily yield 4 still good-sized sandwiches.
Ingredients
1 Rotisserie Chicken (you just need the breasts)
1 Roasted Red Pepper (per sandwich)
1 Slice Havarti Cheese (per sandwich)
Lettuce
Ciabatta Baguette
2 cups Baby Arugula
2 cloves of Garlic
4 tbsp Olive Oil
4-6 tbsp Veganaise (to taste)
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano Cheese
Zest of 1/2 Lemon
Salt
Pepper
We will start with the arugula pesto. Combine the arugula, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and pecorino romano cheese in the food processor until smooth. Set aside until we are ready to combine with the chicken.Cut the breasts off the chicken. Leave the skin on, as the skin adds a nice flavor to the mix. Dice up the chicken into small 1/4 to 1/2 inch cubes. Combine the chicken, veganaise, and pesto mixture. I used about half the pesto mixture (approx. 5 tbsp), and saved the rest. Zest the rind of 1/2 of a lemon, and mix into the chicken salad.
I took one ciabatta baguette and cut it into thirds, then cut each third in half to make the sandwich. Place 1/3 of the chicken salad in each sandwich, top with roasted red pepper, havarti cheese, and lettuce. I cut up tomatoes, but thought it would be a little much to have tomato and roasted red pepper. I brought the tomato along so each person could make that decision for themselves.These sandwiches are simple, and delicious. I like to use veganaise when making chicken salad, or tuna sandwiches as it is olive oil based and while it still has packs quite a few calories, it has significantly less cholesterol than regular mayonnaise.
Lemon-Berry Trifle
This is a light dessert, great for a hot summer day, and also has a great presentation. Again, I cut corners on this recipe. I bought an organic box of lemon cake mix from Whole Foods. I am not a huge dessert fan, so it is rare that I put a lot of effort into making one. Which is great, because this one is pretty simple!
Ingredients
2 cups Whipping Cream
1 small box Blueberries
1 small box Raspberries
1 large box Strawberries
4 tbsp Sugar
1 Lemon Cake Mix
Eggs/milk/oil for Cake Mix (quantities vary depending on mix)
Start by making the lemon cake according to the directions on the box. While it is cooking, whip the whipping cream, adding the sugar to taste. Once the cake is fully baked, remove it from the oven and let it cool completely. I cut off all the edges, top, and bottom, to avoid using the darker brown edges of the cake. Put the cake in a food processor and pulse until the cake is all crumbs. Rinse all your berries, and cut the strawberries into slivers.
The first layer of your trifle is cake. Spread half of the cake mixture evenly in the bottom of your trifle bowl. Top that with an evenly spread layer of the whipped cream (1/2 of the whipped cream). Arrange the berries in an attractive fashion around the outside of the bowl, and sprinkle the rest with a mixture of the berries. Repeat the layers, and top with layers of berries!
Take these items to a park, setup a nice picnic and enjoy! We went to the Montage, and setup in the grass at a park overlooking the ocean in Laguna Beach. It was beautiful. We enjoyed lunch, wine spritzers, dessert, and an insane number of bocce ball games! It got competitive. I'm still pissed that I didn't win.
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