How can you put together a cheap picnic dinner at the last minute? Just get a bit creative and see what you already have at hand.
The other night our family had a parent teacher get together at a local park. The instructions were to bring a picnic dinner for your own family and some extra desert to share. The picnic was on a weeknight, which meant that there would be some scrambling to do, since we also had school and work to deal with that same day. I thought that putting together a homemade picnic was probably not high on the priority list for most of the parents.
When we got to the picnic, I saw that I was right. Most of the families had brought store bought meals or fast food that was probably picked up on the way. While this is great for convenience, it is also expensive. For my family of five, it is hard to get out of even a fast food place for less than $30 for dinner and $40-$50 if we want actual nutritious food, such as fruit. I didn’t want to pay that much.
So, the day of the picnic, I looked around at what we had on hand. I had just roasted a chicken, so that was quickly turned into chicken salad. Because we were short on bread, I made some quick dough in the bread machine and formed and baked it into rolls for sandwiches.
To give us some different options, I also threw in a package of sliced cheese and a sleeve of crackers. We could do the chicken sandwich with or without cheese, or make cheese sandwiches, or have the cheese with the crackers.
To round everything out, and because I am always afraid of running out of food. I added some organic apples and pears and some chips for crunch. For desert, I just quickly made some brownies from a boxed mix and added a few M&Ms to the top for decoration (the grandparents keep us stocked with candy that I use very carefully).
For drinks, we just had water.
We had a lot of food left over for lunch the next day and didn’t spend any money on a bought dinner.