Picnic ideas?

[verds]

My least favourite task in the motherhood is making picnics. Eurgh. Everyone seems to have a fancier one than us and with a toddler snapping at my heels in a tiny kitchen I always end up with cheese sarnies and Pom Bears.

But with the horror of picnic season upon us I need to up my game. Recently, I've branched out into threading spaghetti through hotdogs to make, er, hotdogs with worms coming out of them. Would any of you mumgeniuses care to share the contents of your lunchbox? Thanks!

[jonbateson]

I'm not claiming to be a mum genius but simple (read easy) exciting picnics involve many little plastic pots with different things in... Sandwiches, crisps, carrot/ cucumber/pepper sticks, hummus, sausage rolls/ little sausages/ rolled up slices of ham, basically finger food and then more little pots of fruit, cakes, whatever, it seems it's the pots (well in this house it is) that make it exciting!

[Fuschia]

Wraps

Pesto in a pot

Mozzarella

Salady stuff

Take a knife and chopping board and make wraps on the fly followed by melon sliced up

This picnic avoids the need for preprep

[bluesuperted]

I like the Warburton square brown wraps, make great, easy sarnies for little hands (cut in two).

Also, trail mix, leftover pasta including filled pasta is nice cold. Homemade pizza - make two at dinner and save one.

I really can't picture what you mean with the hotdogs and worms!!

[verds]

Ooh, hadn't thought of making wraps on the picnic - nice!

These are the spaghetti-dogs http://www.thekitchn.com/look-crazy-spaghetti-hot-dogs-87900

The secret is to insert the spaghetti raw...

[Knomester]

Fritters are perfect for picnics and really easy to make (sweetcorn fritters always go down well in our house, but we also make pea or courgette & feta, spiced carrot & quinoa and those lovely Ottolenghi leek ones). Tortilla / frittata works well too, especially with potato in for carbs.

Like others have said, little pots of whatever is to hand, or houmous with crudites and pitta to dip.

I also make mini quiches. I make a big batch of pastry, line little tins and part bake it and then freeze so that I've always got some in the freezer ready to add filling to and bake. If you don't have time to make pastry, you could buy the ready made all butter puff pastry and make mini pasties instead or filo to make samosas or feta & herb triangles.

Bluesuperted mentioned cold pasta - that would be great because you can use leftovers from the day before. Tuna pasta bake made with tuna, sweetcorn and tomato sauce doubles up really well as a pasta salad the next day. Or if you haven't had pasta, couscous cooks in a couple of minutes.

I also try and keep a bag of mini savoury scones or savoury muffins in the freezer so that there's always something like that to grab for snacks or picnics. Although sadly my freezer is completely bare at the moment - not good timing with all this sunshine!