Up your plant-based picnic game with these delicious, crowd-pleasing goodies. 

With summer weather and extra daylight hours here in the Southern Hemisphere, we recently spent an evening picnic-ing in the botanic gardens.

We love bringing breads, dips, falafel and veggie sticks with us, but felt like getting a little creative in the kitchen too.

Here's what we made:

Colourful Asian Salad + Sesame Miso Dressing*

Mini Spinach, Mushroom & Leek Tarts
with Walnut & Oat Crust*

Curried Zucchini, Carrot & Corn Chickpea Fritters

Fresh Fruit, dipped in Coconut Yogurt

* read on to see the recipes below

Colourful Asian Salad
+ Sesame Miso Dressing

This salad is crisp, fresh and full of flavour. It has now become a regular fixture in our household, as it pairs well with almost anything (think crispy tofu wedges, falafels, or even tacos).

Ingredients

• ⅓ purple cabbage, shredded
• ⅓ cauliflower, grated
• 2 carrots, grated
• 1 or 2 cobs of corn
• Large handful of fresh herbs (we used coriander/cilantro & mint)
• Juice of a fresh lime

Sesame Miso Dressing (based on a recipe from Botanical Cuisine's Raw Cookbook - one of our favourite cookbooks!)

• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• ¼ cup miso
• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon tamari
• 1 teaspoon finely grated ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh red chili

Place all dressing ingredients into a jar and shake vigorously. Note, you won't need all of the dressing for this salad, but trust us, you'll be glad to have it stored in the fridge.

Combine salad ingredients in a large bowl, and top with desired amount of dressing + fresh lime juice.

Mini Spinach, Mushroom & Leek Tarts
with Walnut & Oat Crust

These mini tarts are a fun take on their larger traditional counterpart, and are perfect for picnic-ing, or popping into school lunch boxes. The crust alone is delicious, so we sometimes like to double the pastry recipe and keep half as biscuits.

Ingredients:

Crust

• 1 cup rolled oats
• ½ cup stoneground wholemeal flour
• ½ cup walnuts
• 1 flax egg (*1 tbs ground flaxseed + 3 tbs water)
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 handful fresh herbs (*we used rosemary + thyme from the garden, but dried is fine too)
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tbsp water

Filling

• 1 block (350g) silken tofu
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1-2 leeks, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cups mushrooms, sliced
• 2 large handfuls spinach
• ½ cup fresh basil
• Small handful fresh thyme
• 2 tbs nutritional yeast
• A few twists of pepper

Method:

Firstly the crust..

1. Preheat oven to 180º c (350º F) & line 2 x 12 cupcake trays with paper liners.
2. Combine flaxseed & water, and leave to stand for 15 minutes.
3. Add oats to food processor and process to form a flour, then blend in remaining dry ingredients.
4. Add flaxseed mixture & olive oil, blend, then slowly add water (adding more or less as necessary).
5. Place spoonfuls of mixture into paper liners, and press down firmly.
6. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden. Set aside to cool.

Onto the tart filling..

1. Drain tofu and blend in food processor until creamy. Set aside.
2. Fry garlic, leek & mushrooms up in olive oil. Then add remaining ingredients and cook until wilted.
3. Remove pan from heat, stir in tofu mixture and season to taste.
4. Spoon mixture into cupcake trays, on top of the baked crusts.
5. Bake tarts for 30-40 minutes, until firm.
6. Allow to cool, then pack into your picnic basket.

Note: we were inspired to make these tarts by Oh She Glows' recipe.