It is TOO hot to canoe...we ate at the picnic area, paddled around a bit, and decided it was TOO HOT. The UV rating is over 10! I'm a fair-skinned person...I burn even with SPF 45.
First, the Paddlers' Punch was so refreshing! I put fresh mint leaves in with it this morning. Definitely making some of that for the train voyage. It thawed perfectly "on time" and was ice cold. Delicious. Reminded me of Orangina (that Italian orange soda drink).
Here's a picture of the punch (I cheated and left some of the juice in the fridge overnight so I could take a picture) I took in the morning before we left (and no, we did not take that glass with us...you must be familiar with plastic "kegger" glasses--that's what we took with us).
I packed the salad and dolmatas in a divided container, one for each of us (except I had to bring extra salad for the DH--that little portion would not be enough for him). We brought some wooden toothpicks to spear the dolmatas, and a plastic fork each for the salad. (I ended up rolling my salad in the lettuce leaf...a lot of rolled food for me--didn't really plan it that way).
For the Northwoods Chicken Wraps:
2 leftover grilled chicken breasts
4 T fresh pesto (basil, parsley, arugula, toasted almonds, freshly grated romano, olive oil--I don't measure)
3 grilled baby eggplants (brushed with olive oil)
fresh garden lettuce
1 small red onion (from the garden)
I sliced the chicken breasts, tossed the strips with pesto. I let this sit overnight. In the morning, I took the wrap, put a layer of lettuce, chicken, leftover eggplant, onion, and then rolled it. I wrapped these in waxed paper to take them to the river. We brought a container of diced tomato to add when we ate our wraps--that way, the wrap didn't get soggy.
The DH's comments: These wraps are really fresh and tasty...did you only pack one for me? He liked the cake, but I think the wraps were his favorite.
The pan used for the cake is one of these pans (mine's quite old, it was my grandmother's),
Ingebretsen's Scandinavian Gifts - Almond Cake Pan - Cookware - COOKWARE - NORDIC KITCHEN. Because the cake has "cutting lines" I was able to cut slices (my pan makes 18 individual slices) 2 slices for each of us and put them in individual ziplock bags.
I achieved my goal--food that could go in the cooler, not require a lot of utensils, could be eaten while paddling around in a canoe (translate that to no table other than one's lap)and could be eaten later--and food that didn't include mayo or dairy since we could have been out on the river all day...not today--way too hot. We brought baby wipes for our hands. But otherwise, we were able to eat everything out of the container in which it was packed OR using our fingers/hands. Had I thought of it, we could've wrapped the pasta salad in lettuce leaves and not needed silverware at all!
Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I suspect we're eating up the leftovers for supper tonight.