Garden Picnic Plans

I've been taking it easy with this blog posting thing. The s.o. is out of town again and there's no food creations being made in this house; none at all.

We do have a family gathering coming up in a couple of weeks and the planning so far (still in development) calls for the menu to be:

• Salads
• Hiziki with onions (Japanese seaweed) (yes, really, seaweed [kelp])
• Caprese (Italian) (tomato, buffalo mozzarella, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil)
• Green - normal; with a really really good virgin olive oil and some balsamic vinegar on the side)
  
• Appetizers
  
• Pimineto de Padron (Galicia) (little green peppers [spicy]; fried whole)
• Ham Croquettes - basically a thick bechemal sauce mixed with ham, breaded and fried (oh! more fried food! healthy!) edit to add-> Or maybe Bitterballen (Dutch)
  
• I better make something else, not fried
  
• Eats
• Vegetable Paella (Spain) - rice & veggies (an excellent one more or less home-made by the lady with a little deli down the block)
  
• Roasted pork loin (probably a couple of them, one with crusted mustard maybe) (to be served cold); applesauce
  
• Beef Tagine (Morocco) - I've made quite a few times
• Pasta with a simple tomato/meat sauce (bought pasta, homemade sauce) the emergency backup plan for picky eaters
  
• Desserts
• Nanaimo Bars - famous (in some parts of the world [western Canada]) which I plan to tweak from the official recipe)
  
• Ice cream - a really good one (or two) (with a reduced balsamic vinegar for people who dare to try something new)
  
• something that an aunt is bringing
• Drinks
• Beer (local, and a few Buds [for laughs])
  
• A number of wines (Spanish, the whole lot of them)
  
• Water
• Probably a cola or two (but I'd rather not - don't like those sugary or aspertamey products much)
• Bread
• Baguettes (French)
  
• Rolls (hand made, baked in a wood oven, if I have time, or help)
  

Sounds like a lot, but it's for something like 30 people and I want to make sure there's enough to go around. If you're in the neighborhood…

The cooking part is not too much work; I'm rather looking forward to it 'cause it's been much too quite around here on the cooking front. It's getting the garden in shape for the supper that's going to be quite the pain.

I might even post pics/recipes of progress as things develop.