Food

Entertaining: Picnic at the Beach + Potato Burgers

~ Paris

With today being national picnic day, an entertaining idea I wanted to share for celebrating properly is: a picnic at the beach, complete with potato burgers!

Years ago, I decided to throw a picnic at the beach. We tend to always eat out whenever we go out of town, but there’s something so charming about bringing your own favorite snacks to enjoy al fresco. During a trip to Bodega Bay, we wandered up to the ocean side of the southern tip of the bay – Bodega Head – where we settled down in a picnic table, assembled our burgers, snacks, and drinks, and attacked our lunch before wandering north on the Sonoma coastline. It was the perfect way to end the summer, and while I adored the potato burgers we made – a throwback to a high school trip we made where we picked up potato patty burgers to snack on while visiting Alcatraz – the best part of the whole thing was enjoying our lunch with the prettiest view of the water. And the seagull posing for our photographs was just icing on the already indulgent cake {as you can see in the final picture}.

Snacks:

Potato Burgers
Potato Chips – we used plain + sour cream & onion
Shortbread Cookies
Strawberries
Apple Mango Sparkling Cider
Water

Ingredients
{Makes 1 Burger}
One Hash Brown Patty
One Potato Burger Bun
Garlic Herb Lemonaise, ~ 1 Tablespoon or to taste
Butter Lettuce, 1 Leaf
Tomatoes, sliced – 2 slices

Recipe

1. Grill your hash brown patty the morning of your picnic to keep it warm.

2. Spread the lemonaise {which is a lemony mayonnaise} on one side of the bun.

3. Top the other bun with a butter lettuce leaf, tomato slices, and the hash brown patty.

4. Top off with the other bun and serve with your favorite snacks such as chips, berries, and cookies.

5. Enjoy!


  x Paris

Homemade Potato Chips with Pink Himalayan Salt

~ Paris

I’ve always been a huge potato chip fan. I love everything about the vegetable {from French fries to baked potatoes to my morning hash browns and potato au gratin}, and definitely indulge in potato chips on a consistent basis {aka, I could never go on a low carb diet}. And while I know that store bought chips aren’t all that special, I also know that it is one of those treats that I would really miss if it wasn’t available. For years now, I have been wanting to try my hand at making homemade potato chips. The idea just seemed so simple and indulgent. I finally made it the other day as an afternoon snack, and it turned out to be the perfect little pick-me-up and they gave me a completely new opinion and perspective on potato chips. While the store bought version is so easy to get, it’s definitely worth the extra effort to make it at home. And just in case you’re wondering what our official consensus is: homemade potato chips are the slightly more indulgent version of the store bought variety. x

Ingredients:
Two Potatoes {which made enough for a snack for four people}
10 tablespoons Oil {I used sesame seed oil}
Pink Himalayan Sea Salt, to taste

Recipe:
1. Slice the potatoes. Don’t be too concerned if they aren’t equal in thickness or size.
2. Using a pastry brush, brush on the oil over all the potato slices, as equally as possible. I used about ten tablespoons of oil for two potatoes which made it very rich in flavor.
3. Sprinkle some of the pink himalayan sea salt over the potatoes to taste.
4. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. I preheated the oven to 450° degrees. The thinner slices were done after 15 minutes, while the thicker slices needed about 25.
5. Enjoy!

x Paris