sliders Archives - My Island Bistro Kitchen

I so love a good picnic! My color theme for today’s picnic is lime green, one of my favorite summertime colors.

The dishes, cutlery, and napkins are all simply dollar store specials! If you are a regular follower to my blog, you will have heard me say before that you don’t need expensive dishes for lovely outdoor dining. Check out your local dollar stores but do so early in the season as these do tend to be items that get snatched up quickly. Unbreakable, these are great picnic basket staples and they are so much more sturdy (and classy) than paper plates.

Even though this table is set for two, it is very easy to prepare this setup for multiple settings.

Glasses are simply Mason jars into which I have placed the napkins and plastic cutlery – a good idea if you are setting the table and it’s a bit breezy – this keeps everything in its place.

I found this lime-green colored beverage and knew it would fit in with one of my summertime picnics! Sometimes I draw my color theme inspiration for a picnic from just one simple item like this drink.

I grow a lot of herbs every summer and, this year, grew several in pots. This terracotta trio is another dollar store find. I think they look very Tuscan with their tinge of moss green color that has appeared over the summer as they’ve ‘aged’ out in the weather. This was all that was needed for a table centerpiece for an impromptu picnic.

I had made a batch of pan rolls and shaped them suitably so they could be used for slider buns for the grilled hamburgers.

I used my new blueberry barbeque sauce on the slider burgers.

These are as tasty as they are colorful!

The menu for today’s picnic was simple and tasty. Slider cheeseburgers, homemade potato salad, and a green salad.

I most often mash the potatoes for my potato salad because the salad is easy to scoop and it plates well as the salad stays in perfect mounds on the plate. However, for casual picnic fare, I often like a slightly more rustic, jagged look to my salad so have cubed the potatoes and eggs. The salad mounds actually stayed in place quite well when plated.

I love slider burgers! Today’s burgers have a lime green lettuce leaf, ADL Cheddar Cheese, fresh Island tomato, a red onion ring, and the usual burger condiments. When adding tomatoes to slider burgers, try to find smaller sized tomatoes so the slices don’t have to be cut or don’t overpower the burger. For sliders, everything should be proportionately balanced. To dress up the burgers, I’ve topped each burger with a cherry tomato half along with a sprig of oregano from our garden. Sometimes, it doesn’t take a lot to take a burger from plain to dressy!

One of my favorite summertime green salads starts with a mix of salad greens topped with cubed watermelon, fresh PEI high bush blueberries, and red onion rings drizzled with a blueberry vinaigrette.

A colorful and tasty summertime picnic!

Are picnics part of your summer?

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There are so many options for picnics that can range from very impromptu casual style to more elaborate events. Today, it was about 30C on Prince Edward Island so the theme for the day was casual….very casual.

I had made a batch of pan rolls yesterday and shaped them into the perfect size and shape for slider sandwiches. These are so easy to pull together and they are very tasty. Essentially, for each one, all I used was some black forest ham, a slice of tomato, some JJ Stewart beer mustard sauce, slices of cheddar and havarti cheese, and lettuce from our own garden.

Of course, a bowl of the quintessential all-time favorite picnic salad – potato salad – provided a great side dish to the sliders and it’s always a hit. Just make sure to keep this salad refrigerated.

A tall pitcher of cold, refreshing lemonade proved to be a thirst-quenching drink on this hot afternoon.

Dessert was simply colorful marshmallow squares. Nice and summery as well as yummy!

And, juicy watermelon always goes great on a hot summer day and it adds such a splash of color to the table.

When it is so hot, I like to keep meal prep to the minimum and go with very simplistic foods and ones that can be prepared early in the day and refrigerated until use. This picnic menu is so easy to set up buffet style whether it is for 3-4 people or several more.

While picnics don’t necessarily require table centerpieces, they can take a picnic from mundane to wow with very little effort. Today, I simply walked to the nearest flowerbed and picked some daisies which, with their yellow centers, fit in with my summery yellow color theme. I think daisies go very well with wicker picnic baskets!