The Spicy Spatula

It’s a nice day for a picnic, isn’t it?

What a wonderful sentence, am I right? Any time those words leave my lips I know it’s gonna be a good one.

In the spirit of work-life balance I like to try to get out of the house for recreational purposes at least once a week. That doesn’t mean to run errands or go grocery shopping or any other obligation, just for fun and relaxation and quality time with Cos. Honestly when the weather is nice, it’s hard to stay inside most days!

Anyway we decided on the fly to head to one of our favorite nearby spots, Barajul Paltinu (Paltinu Dam) because it’s a 45-ish minute drive from our apartment, it’s scenic and oh so peaceful.

And it’s a great outdoor space which makes it pretty great for an impromptu vegan picnic. So before we hit the highway, packed up our travel utensils, items from the fridge and then we stopped at the grocery store to stock up on favorites.

Fancy or Nah?

Most people think of two things when it comes to picnics, fancy or romantic, perhaps both. There is a time and place for a fancy, romantic picnic but this wasn’t our vibe . We were going for:

*Yummy
*Vegan
*Easy to eat
*Recyclable materials

Vegan Cheese Optional

We had half a brick of vegan feta left, and let’s be honest things like olives, roasted red peppers and vegan cured “meats” go great with vegan feta cheese…so we packed it.

There’s this really delicious brand of vegan gouda from Naturli but it only comes in slices so we skipped it.

Vegan Meat Alternatives

One of the things I love about the evolution of vegan food is that you can find plenty of meat alternatives that do not contain soy. Not that I have a problem with soy, mind you, but just that you don’t have to load up on protein if you want variety.

We opted for vegan sausages, vegetable balls and a vegan mortadella made from peas & beet proteins.

Gotta Have Bread

I’m sure this is true of many cultures but you can’t really have a meal, not even a vegan picnic, in Romania without a loaf of bread. In fact, I think there’s a law on the books…somewhere. Just kidding, but seriously Romanians do love their bread.

We opted for a rustic potato loaf because it’s easy to tear and super delicious!

The Rest…

After all that, what’s left you ask? Only everything else. This is where you get what you really like or something that’ll go over well with your picnic companions. Olives of any color is always a great choice, and I really love the earthy, less salty Castelvetrano olives.

Hummus or any other type of bean or vegetable dip is a great option to spread on bread or use veggie dippers. Roasted red pepper hummus is my favorite so that’s what we got.

Pickled red peppers is a new find at the market that my husband really loves so he added that to the basket too. Maybe we went a little overboard because we’d skipped breakfast and were running on nothing but sunshine and coffee, but that was it.

Drinks

We kept the beverage options simple, water. Cold water for me and room temperature water for him. Usually I’d make a pitcher of lemonade or mocktails or even grab a few beers but I wasn’t in the mood so we kept it simple.

We ate, took photos and walked around until the sunshine and fresh air made us a little sleepy.

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