My penchant for picnic was put to good use today. BF and I went hiking at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The trail up the Old Rag Mountain is 8.8mi with some challenging climbs and scrambles over rocks. The change in altitude was over 2400ft!
Obviously, while BF took care of the logistics of getting to the trail, my thoughts immediately turned to lunch. The hike was a whole day outing so of course what to eat was my main concern. Luckily, even without any advanced preparation, I put together an absolutely delicious and portable picnic for the two of us. All thanks to an utterly amazing Green Bean Salad with Fried Almonds from smitten kitchen.
BF is not a fan of vegetable but my hunch is that he has rarely been exposed to properly prepared vegetable dishes. We recently had lunch at a pub and a side dish was green beans cooked to oblivion in a pool of grease. We turned our nose up unanimously and he told me that was the way he had came to know green beans. No wonder he didn’t like them! I’m on a green bean kick recently and can’t get enough of their crunchy goodness. When smitten kitchen posted her recipe for green bean salad, I simply had to make it at the first opportunity.
This simple salad is a mix of blanched green beans, red onion lightly pickled in balsamic vinegar, shaved fennel, and olive oil fried almonds. Don’t let the simplicity fool you because the taste is anything but. Every ingredient is crunchy in its own unique way. The sweetness of the beans, the liquorice undertone of fennel, the bite of red onion, and the richness of almond all tied together by the tart sweet balsamic vinegar are absolutely amazing. Even the self-proclaimed bean-hater had seconds and couldn’t stop raving about the salad. The best part is that this salad keeps well! We enjoyed it for dinner and the leftovers were packed away in individual serving plastic containers. They practically begged to be taken outside for picnic!
To complete our brown bag lunch, I packed some sourdough rye bread from Le Pain Quotidien, Blue Ridge Dairy’s smoked mozzarella, trail mix of freeze-dried bananas + raw almonds + dark chocolate chips + dried cherries, and Fuji apples. That was a good mix of carbs and proteins to provide us with sustained energy. I have always been a huge fan of picnic. To enjoy an al fresco meal on the summit after a rigorous hike truly made everything tasted better! It was not a typical romantic picnic but I cannot imagine a better way to break bread with someone I care about with the sweeping vista underneath our feet.
Let me tell you, I earned that meal. The 4.3 mile ascent to the summit was challenging. I pushed for a good brisk pace and passed numerous hikers in front of us on the trail. Once we reached the climbing part, BF proved to be a much better climber than myself and he led the way. He had a field day taking photos of me scrambling around tentatively. Suffice to say, not my finest moment, heh. Much to my relief, the descent was significantly less technical and we made good time returning to trail head. I am most proud to say that we completed the hike in 4 hours!
I think we make a great team because we each have different strengths. It’s not always about being competitive with each other (though we do plenty of that too) but to complement one another. What an incredibly fun day enjoying the outdoors!
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