Deer Valley Picnic

The Utah Symphony did a tribute to the Beattles at Deer Valley this weekend and I was in charge of the food. Going to outdoor concerts can be a challenging food opportunity because you need to have food that will keep for the long drive, easily portable and yet still pure cusine yummy!

I chose to make pine nut and lemon orzo with salmon and sides of fresh peaches and strawberries, cheese and crackers and sparkling strawberry lemonade. I did it total Ina Garten style using individual meal containers, wine glasses and good silverware with linen napkins to make my guests feel special and it WORKED!

Pine Nut and Lemon Orzo:
From Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2008
4 cups uncooked orzo (rice-shaped pasta, about 1 1/2 pounds) - I just used 1-one pound box
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
3/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley - which I completely forgot to put into my recipe.
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted

Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting slat and fat. Drain. Combine rind, juice, salt and pepper in a large bowl. slowly add oil to juice mixture, sitrring constantly with a whisk. add pasta to juice mixture, toss to coast. Cool to room temperature. Stir in parsley and pine nuts.

I cooked three pieces of salmon with olive oil and a little bit of dried dill at 400 F for 10 minutes, let it cool and broke it into bite sized pieces and added it to the orzo.

The difficult part of this cusine picnic was the sparking strawberry lemonade. I wanted to have a fun special drink, but making this drink in the picnic arena was a little challenging. Especially because it rained on us most of the night.

I squeezed the juice of six lemons into a food processor with 6-7 frozen strawberries (they don't have to be frozen, I just had a bag of frozen strawberries) and a couple of packets of equal. Blend until smooth, put through a strainer to get all the strawberry seeds out....I of course forgot to do this, but you can learn from my mistake. I put this mixture into a twist on tupperware container so it would travel well. In a wine glass, combine 4 tablespoons of strawberry lemon mixture and add sparkling water.

We had a fantastic time despite the rain and tha fact that I forgot the battery to my camera when we got to Park City. This picture was taken with my cell phone!