Working with leading Finnish chef Sara la Fountain, Finlandia Vodka has created some inspiring picnic ideas combining its range of vodkas with refreshing and tasty dishes. These are recipes that are simple to create as part of an outdoors picnic. So why not cook in advance and store to share with friends and family later?
Cooking with Finlandia
Picture the scene – sitting outside in a park on a beautiful summer’s evening, surrounded by friends, and listening to your favourite tunes into the night. That’s the buzz of British summer time, and this year the team at Finlandia Vodka want to make it even better! Working with leading Finnish chef Sara la Fountain, Finlandia Vodka brings you delicious and inspiring picnic ideas combining its range of vodkas with refreshing and tasty dishes.
Good Natured Aubergine makes great grilled salad
Yup, we know. When you think Aubergine (also known as Eggplant), you conjure up warmer, more exotic lands. But this purple-skinned beauty is widely cultivated in Britain too.
Greek’Reveni’ Cake
The cake itself is a simple and moist sponge but the syrup is what makes it really special and the perfect accompaniment to tea or coffee after a big meal. It’s absolutely delicious and perfect for those with a sweet tooth.
Where’s the beef? Leiths launch the Meat Bible
Though enough to make a vegetarian bawl like an overcome toddler, the Meat Bible is a lock, stock and barrel journey through carnivorous gastronomy and worthy of its heady title. And after all, a dnner party would never be complete without the recipe for a starter of python nuggets.
Nicely Nigerian -Akhaya Cookery School
On hearing about this beginners’ day-long course, I hotfooted it, via sweltering tube, to cool and leafy Hampstead. The African cookery school Akhaya is run by Jenny, a young woman of Nigerian descent just setting up business. We were welcomed with fresh mint and rooibos tea as well as charming applause the second we individually stepped through the doors.
Brasserie One
A very good lunch and perhaps the most resounding reason being that everything is just right. The cooking is good, the dishes are well thought out, the atmosphere is spot-on and in all the feeling is that, for a lunch, Brasserie One is just right and definitely more enchanting than squashing into the nearest franchise chain outlet.
Nozomi, Knightsbridge
Nozomi is battling to bring down costs by offering special Bento box deals at lunchtime as a way of luring in locals. Bento boxes are boxes of of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, originally designed as take out meals or lunch packs prepared at home for people to carry to work or school. In the UK we call them Tupperware Boxes.
Alice’s Cook Book – Alice Hart
A tone of encouragement and enthusiasm permeates the whole collection; when Alice isn’t comparing root vegetables to characters from Doctor Who, she is sharing stories of her coriander-hater brother, Ian, or cheekily catching the reader out, when she acknowledges that they probably didn’t bother reading the recipe introduction.