Vegan Cooking Tips
Quick & Easy
Portable Picnic Buffets
By Nancy Berkoff
How fun is an interactive buffet during warm months? Lots of fun, with a bit of planning and preparation. Depending on your plan, the interaction may begin in the kitchen, with some of the participants assisting in the preparation, or it may begin when everyone helps themselves to build their own meal. Either way, you'll need lots of containers and some imagination.
The idea is to bring many containers of ready-to-eat ingredients. The containers may be placed in the center of a picnic blanket or on an outdoor table. Participants may pass the containers around, or they may circulate around the containers, depending on your setup. It's a great way for everyone to interact and to have their meal exactly as they like.
Here are some ideas to get you started!
Build-Your-Own Burrito or Wrap
Offer a choice of several "wrap" materials, including different flavors or types of tortillas, flat bread, or large, washed Romaine leaves or red cabbage leaves.
- Guests can top their wraps with fresh items such as sweet and red chopped onions; red, yellow, or green bell peppers; diced summer squash or cucumber; shredded carrots, green or red cabbage, fresh collard greens, or beets; fresh corn (not cooked, cut right from the cob); and sliced or mashed avocado.
- As for items from the pantry, try sliced olives, pickled chilies, chopped fresh tomatoes, or drained canned white, red, or black beans or garbanzos. If you have leftover cooked chili beans, you may want to bring these along, as well.
- Bring several types of salsa and/or hot sauce.
If you don't have the time to shop and prepare, there are always "take-out wraps." (At least, that's what my students call them.) The night before your picnic, order double or triple servings of Chinese or Thai veggie combinations, along with several orders of brown rice. Place in separate containers, so that participants may make their own choices. Bring along washed lettuce and/or cabbage leaves, and let everyone create their own wrap.
Another version of take-out wraps, approved by my students, is a combination of potato salad and cold chili beans, wrapped in lettuce or a tortilla. Use your imagination and what is available "to go" at your favorite market!
Build-Your-Own Salad Entrée
Everyone receives either a plate or an edible salad bowl; you can find large tortilla shells in the store, or if you have the time, fry or bake your own. You can also purchase individual rolls and scoop out the center to use as an edible bread bowl.
- Take advantage of the season and prepare several salad mixes with fresh baby lettuces, spinach, beet greens, mustard greens, collards — you name it!
- Offer a variety of salad dressings, as well as salsa and hummus. To enhance your hummus, you can add a small amount of beet juice, chopped fresh or canned chilies, hot sauce, shredded nori, harissa or chili sauce, horseradish, or chopped nuts.
- Depending on what is in season, you can offer diced or chopped carrots, beets, peaches, nectarines or apricots, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cherries (have your guests pit their own), melon, or summer squash.
- If you have cooked, cooled pasta or cooked, cooled diced potatoes in your refrigerator, bring them along, too!
Corn or veggie chips make great summer sides for salads. Or bring along some rolls or biscuits to create a warm-weather meal!
Build-Your-Own Gazpacho
The base of your gazpacho is blenderized fresh tomatoes. If tomatoes are having a good season, purchase a large quantity and allow to ripen. Estimate approximately 2
tomatoes per person and blend, along with your own preference for onions (1 teaspoon per tomato); chopped bell peppers (1 teaspoon per tomato); fresh, minced garlic (1/4 teaspoon per tomato); and ground white or black pepper. If you would like a thickened gazpacho base, add fresh bread (without the crust), approximately 1/4 cup per tomato. Blend the night before and allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least six hours.
When you're ready to serve, everyone receives a bowl or a cup and a serving of the gazpacho base.
- Bring along canned, drained white or black beans, chopped bell peppers, chopped onions, diced melon, diced pineapple, and diced tempeh or smoked tofu to add to the gazpacho base.
- Consider providing vegan sour cream or silken, soft tofu that has been combined with a small amount of lemon juice or white vinegar as a topping.
Pair with a fresh fruit salad and/or a green salad and baked veggie chips, and you have a refreshing meal!
STUFFED PRODUCE
Stuffed produce means that everyone "gets their own" in an edible container. Think about stuffing fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, or yellow summer squash or zucchini with a mixed potato-and-veggie salad. Cooked, cooled potatoes can be mixed with any combination of fresh green peas (no need to cook), the leftover "inside" of the veggie you have scooped out for the shell, and any combination of chopped onions, chopped parsley, chopped fresh basil, chopped fresh green beans, diced carrots, diced beets (rinsed under cool water so that everything doesn't turn purple), chopped mushrooms, and/or other seasonal veggies. You may toss with vinaigrette, hummus, nutritional yeast, or dried herbs and spices. In addition to potatoes, cooked, small-shaped pasta; cooked barley, quinoa, or kasha; or a combination works as well. These may be prepared a day ahead and kept in the refrigerator until you are ready to go.
If you would like a sweet version of stuffed produce, small melons can be halved and filled with fresh seasonal fruit salad, a granola-and-vegan yogurt mixture, or a vegan sour cream-and-berry mixture. If you have some time, you can create your own dessert crème by blending silken tofu with fresh seasonal fruit, such as ripe peaches, apricots, strawberries, or blueberries, and placing it in the refrigerator to chill for at least six hours. Bring the dessert crème to your outdoor site, along with the cut-and-seeded melon, and fill right on the spot. The dessert crème can also be used for dessert wraps or to top fresh fruit salad.
COLD PIZZA
If you would like to bring ready-to-eat items, you might want to consider cold vegan pizza. You can create your own; using a bagel or vegan pizza crust prepare the night before, cool, wrap, and be ready to go. You may want to prepare a cauliflower pizza crust, which does take some time, as the cauliflower needs to be chopped, cooked, cooled, mixed with bread crumbs and other ingredients, and then baked, but it is worth the time!
Condiments
No matter what type of savory meal you choose to pack, you'll want to have hot-weather-friendly condiments, ones that don't require a lot of chilling to stay tasty and safe. You may want to consider salsas, vinaigrettes, assorted vinegars and oils, prepared mustard, harissa, hot sauce, ketchup, and tomato paste. If you'd like to add an international flavor to your condiments, you may want to visit some ethnic markets for different types of pickles, such as South Asian mango pickle; Southeast Asian lotus root pickle; Japanese pickled plum or ginger; central American pickled chilies, carrots, and onions; Italian pickled garden salad; Eastern European pickled zucchini or red cabbage; and traditional American pickled veggies, such as pickled okra, green beans, baby corn, and Brussels sprouts. You can create your own Mediterranean tapenade, a thick mixture of finely chopped olives, capers, minced garlic, and a small amount of oil.
Fruit or Vegetable Sushi
Fruit or vegetable sushi takes some time to prepare, but it is worth the effort. You'll want to review basic sushi rolling and then decide if you would like to invest in sushi equipment or improvise with cheesecloth or plastic wrap to replace the bamboo rollers and mats.
For vegetable sushi wrappers, you may use nori sheets or seeded, very thinly sliced cucumbers, fresh daikon radish, or zucchini.
- Cook the short-grained rice of your choice, spread on a baking sheet, and allow to cool to room temperature.
- While the rice is cooling, sprinkle with sesame seeds of your choice (white, black, toasted) and rice wine vinegar or very light vinegar.
- Cut fresh veggies, seitan, extra-firm tofu, tempeh, mushrooms, carrots, green beans, celery, pickles, seeded tomatoes, fresh or canned bamboo shoots, soybean sprouts, fresh chilies or peppers, and/or fresh pineapple into "sushi"-sized pieces. This usually means pieces no more than 1/4- to 1/2-inch long and wide, depending on whether you are going to be presenting the sushi in slices or in whole rolls.
- When you are ready to roll, place your wrapper on your selected surface, and cover with a thin layer of rice. A thin layer of your selected filling goes down the middle of the rice layer, leaving a wide border on each side. Tightly roll the sushi and cut slices at the width you prefer.
- Condiments could include soy sauce, assorted vinegars, pickled ginger, diced garlic or sweet pickles, wasabi, or spicy mustard.
For fruit sushi, you would omit the vinegar and sprinkle rice very lightly with agave or rice syrup.
- Your fillings could include chopped dried fruit; chopped fresh fruit such as peaches, apricots, melon, or strawberries; dried items such as granola, toasted coconut, or carob chips; or diced and drained canned fruit.
- Your wraps could include very thinly sliced fresh pineapple, melon, or underripe avocado (which can be a bit difficult to do).
- If you are a baker, try thin layers of either yellow or white cake.
If you would like to make your sushi "interactive," you can bring all the fixings and allow participants to create sushi cones, with the wrapper simply folded into an ice cream cone shape, rather than rolled. This provides the taste without attempting to master sushi techniques in the outdoors.
Build-Your-Own Dessert
(parfaits, dessert wraps)
You can bring the fixings for a parfait or a wrap, and allow your guests to choose. For parfaits, you'll need individual cups; for dessert wraps, get corn or flour tortillas or even vegan ice cream cones!
- Layers for the parfaits or interiors for the wraps or cones may include vegan pudding; sweet chutney; dried fruit mixes; nut butters or apple butters; fruit preserves; fresh berries; chopped fresh melon, peaches, nectarines, or apricots; chopped fresh grapes; and shredded coconut.
- If you have extra portions of cake, cupcakes, or cornbread (without chilies), crumble them and use them as a dessert ingredient as well.
- If you have a cooler, bring along some vegan yogurt or silken tofu that has been blended with seasonal fruit to use as a layer or a topping.
Have fun with your outdoor eating, taking advantage of all the wonderful seasonal ingredients!
