“STEEMIT CULINARY CHALLENGE # 32: Picnic Al Fresco or all'aperto M...

Hello Everyone, This post is for the culinary challenge.

This is my first time doing this as I'm new to STEEMIT.
I would like to introduce myself since I really want to make some connections in the culinary and just in general topics here on Steemit and probably in real life, who knows. And as well offer my help or collaboration to anyone as long that is within my possibilities :). We all can help each other
First of all, I need to show my lovely company for this picnic date, my girlfriend because I made this a surprise. I brought everything to her workplace and we had a little picnic in the grass outside her office.

She loved the surprise and I loved actually doing it. Thank you for having this kind of contest and good luck to everyone :) also thanks for checking my post out :D

I have to say me and my girlfriend both try to eat healthier so I made this meal paleo and mostly raw vegan since we actually enjoy this food.

All this food was prepared this morning of Tuesday 6/27 in around 3 hours since I had to catch her for lunch at noon. hahaha A busy day for me! anyway, it totally worth it. She was so happy and me too :) <3

This is my meal

From left to right:
*Raw Vegan Chocolate Mousse
*Zuccinni Carrot Pappardelle with Olive Tapenade
*Spanish Style Cauliflower "Rice"
*Sesame Strawberry Avocado Tapa (non paleo neither raw)

Sesame Strawberry Avocado Spread (raw vegan)

For the spread you will need:
75 gr sesame seeds
250 gr strawberries
1 avocado
2 Tbs walnuts
Honey to taste

First, we need to break down the sesame seeds to a flour like consistency in the blender.

add strawberries and blend until smooth and creamy, add water if needed.

Pour out, then we cut open the avocado and smash it as if we are making guacamole.

Chop the walnuts for garnish

Then drissle with honey.

as you can see in the picture at the beginning of the recipe I mounted this in regular bread that is why they are not even vegan or raw, or paleo or anything. if you don't and choose a vegan alternative you are good to go :)
Bread was made by me last week as well.

I just didn't save a step by step because I did it out of no recipe. Is what I call a sourdough sweet potato brioche bread.

Moving on to one of the main dishes, the pasta dish.

Really simple pasta, you just need a peeler :) or really good knife skills.

Zucchini and Carrot Pappardelle:

2 carrots peeled
2 zucchinis
4 oz sweetheart grape tomatoes

Time to peel them to the core :)

For the Tappenade:

For this we need:

1 Cup black olives
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
3 ea garlic cloves
3 tsp of capers

Basically, we just blend everything until the desired consistency.

super simple and delicious. Actually, this is what my girlfriend liked the most.
She was eating it with the bread.

and BAM, you can add sundried tomatoes or basil to change it a little bit.
That is what I love about food, especially raw vegan food, that you can just play with it. Change this here move that there and you will probably end up with something great. or at least something that you can eat no matter what.
Really fun to create with.

Spanish Style Cauliflower "Rice"

oh yeah this is our Salt and Pepper buddies :D ahhaha
I was making all this food at my girlfriend place because she has the food processor!!

But that will change pretty soon, Hopefully, I will be moving in at the beginning of August.

Then at the end of the year when her lease is up we need to decide if we stay there or find a new place :)

hahaha, new adventures to come! But I'm excited I think we are both ready and we really want to move on and hopefully, get married next year :D
For this we need:

First, we will core the cauliflower

cut it into pieces you can put in your food processor.

YOU CAN ALSO SHRED BY HAND, in that case, I would just cut it in half and shred to the core.

Then you shred I did in our food processor

Then you chop everything else, small dice on the onions and basically slices as thick as you like on the mushrooms.

in my opinion, you could also throw the garlic in that shredding process. why not.

Then we move on to cooking. cook the chorizo on a separated pan to make sure it is cooked properly. Remember to stir every once in a while on those veggies.

Once the chorizo is cook and vegetables are soft (around 8 mins) you can add the tomato paste and seasonings to the cauliflower and also add the chorizo to it.

Be sure to stir pretty good and let the flavor marry for couple minutes.

I used some fresh cilantro as garnish.

And last but not least!

Raw Vegan Chocolate Mouse

One of our favorites and one of the recipes we created, With this we also make raw vegan cheesecakes.

For Chocolate Mouse:

This recipe is super simple, what you need is a really good blender. Definitely a Vitamix or Blendtec something that can handle the nuts :P

We add everything to the blender except the coconut oil. and blend until smooth

Then we add the coconut oil at the end. In this case, I adjusted the sweetness but the recipe calls for the final amount.

and then we re-blend until smooth. Be careful if you think your blender is having issues with it you can make it thinner with some water or coconut water.

Actually, my girlfriend's blender start to smell like burnt pretty bad, but I knew it could take the job ;D
Been around Vitamixes for a while

and BAM. In this case I used local cherries and strawberries to top it off also cacao nibs.

mmmmm
She loved it!

I even saved her mine since I don't have a sweet tooth ahhaha but I do make lots of sweets.

I put these bad boys in the freezer for around 1 hour so they were perfect for the sunny afternoon

Someone really enjoyed it...

I really enjoyed making it :)

This is me, Luis Duarte :D aka tu tio luis.
Nice to meet you all.

Now onto my picnic basket, I had a challenge:

How to fit all this, into this!!

But I love challenges :P if are food related.

Also I had a salad you can see it top left corner but I forgot to take it.
I put it in the freezer for a second because the sprouts were getting soft and I forgot to grab it hahaha.
So I guess it doesn't count for the challenge. I will post some pictures at the end anyway.

Anyway I think that forgetting that salad actually helped everything else fit perfect :)
Even plates.
This is my lovely picnic blanket, not as crazy but beautiful and old. It belong to my grandaunt it might not even be a picnic blanket hahaha

So here we are! Picnic time with my beautiful company on this lovely day!
88° weather and both are super hungry. that means!

Time to unpack

I did not forget the dressing hehehe :D

couple minutes later it was all done and we were just chilling on the grass :D

It was time to go back to work. The date was over but it had been amazing :)

So this is my entry, hopefully is not too long. I still don't have the skill to convine pictures and stuff like that :D sorry.

I would like to make sure everyone note that I live in California and we are blessed with good crops most of the year, so most of my shopping list is from local farms :) I hope I can start growing some of our own once we move together.

To make the spread more kid friendly I would make it on the sweet side or spread it over a sweet bread, the pasta can be spiralized and make it look like noodles and use a tomato base tapenade.

Also you saw my Jamaica water or Hibiscus tea.
Easy to prepare this is my recipe
1 lb of hibiscus flower per
1 gallon water
1 Cup sugar