The ultimate veg patch picnic menu

Ending with an epic plum, olive oil & black pepper cake. But first: herb frittata, courgette flatbreads, kohlrabi salad, cucumber-y whipped feta, beetroot hummus & more to celebrate the harvest.

Robust enough to travel - plum, olive oil and black pepper cake

Picture the scene

An English cottage garden frothing with blowsy plants; the early-evening sun catching the plum tree that overhangs a perfectly mown lawn, and on that lawn, an array of picnic blankets where twenty-five guests lie in resplendent peace as

Chloe’s Pilates

performs her sound bathing meditation and draws us into the sounds of the garden. Beside the lawn, a trestle table piled high with a picnic feast of my homegrown veg awaits.

Reconnecting with nature picnic and meditation evening

Reconnecting with nature

This was our evening a couple of weeks ago, hosted by me and my brilliant friend

Chloe’s Pilates

(excellent online classes here). As we tucked into the picnic, I chatted about Rough Patch and how the food we eat can reconnect us with the land and the healing powers of nature. Take the picnic, for example, all inspired by the veg patch, all ways to feel closer to the earth that grew the veg and the seasons that nurtured it.

I thought I’d share that menu and the recipes with you this week.

Everything can be made ahead and packed up for travel, including the cake which is both delicious and sturdy. Pick and mix to match the size of your picnic blanket and appetite or make the whole lot for a perfectly balanced veggie feast.

And here’s a little taste of the evening to get you in the picnicking mood:

gluts_gluttony

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The veg patch picnic menu

Herby pea frittata

I slightly adapted (added even more herbs) this spring herb frittata recipe which I wrote for Rhino Greenhouses.

Beetroot hummus

My recipe for Ocado featuring beetroot hummus. Photography by Emma Guscott, prop styling by Laura Miller, food styling by Esther Clark

Another recipe from my veg-filled recipe library and one I often whip out for picnics. This beetroot hummus comes from the beetroot broccoli and feta flatbreads recipe I created for OcadoLife magazine. (And thanks, by the way, to

Esther Clark

of this parish for the the styling - small world.)

Courgette flatbread

Thank you

Tim Spector

and the Zoe nutrition team for this super useful recipe. It’s the absolute business for picnics and uses a lot of courgettes. Winner.

zoe

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Seed crackers

Another easy and useful little picnic number from Zoe which supplemented the veg-patch crudités at our picnic.

zoe

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Kohlrabi, bean & fennel salad

Again, adapting the recipe to accommodate what I had in the patch, I made this kohlrabi slaw but without the salmon and with some shaved fennel and blanched beans added instead.

Kohlrabi slaw with salmon & toasted oats, plus a Norfolk food guide

Now for some new additions. The rest of the menu was made up of recipes from my latest book, Rough Patch, and the pudding was new creation.

Paid subscribers will find those recipes and PDF recipe cards below.

Whipped feta, cucumber & radish

This recipe is an extract from Rough Patch:

The nice thing about radishes is that they grow quickly. Five weeks, with warm days and a fair wind, and you will have a crop of little red jewels – which is less time, as I’ve said, than a bunch of smart people can spend failing to agree on the raison d’être of a margarine.

This recipe is a calming and simple affair. I like it because it is so pure, so unadulterated that you can concentrate on the peppery kick of the radish, the
clean greenness of the cucumber, undisturbed by fussy dressings or adornment. It is so gentle and self-contained that I find it almost meditative. These are vegetables so quietly confident in their beauty that they feel no need for embellishment; a total contrast to the flashy, grotesque dishes that filled the tables at advertising lunches. I would take this salad, made with home-grown vegetables, over an aerated lobster bisque and seaweed reduction any day, even if it came with a tuile.

Serves 2

• 8–10 radishes

• 1⁄2 cucumber

• 1 tsp chopped chives