Planning for your beach day the day before lets you get a nice, early start on picking your place in the sand. This week’s Delicious Bits will help you pull the essentials together early (and who says the planning can’t be fun?), so you can minimize your effort in the morning.
Here’s the plan for the Day before you go:
Freeze your prosecco mint grapes
Prepare your chicken salad
Make deviled eggs
Create your own playlist
Grab your beach read and reading glasses
Make sure your ice packs are in the freezer
Towels, flip-flops, sunscreen, lip balm, sun hat, shades, wireless speaker
There is free parking for many of the Hilton Head area beaches. However, depending on where you’re headed, you may want to preload a parking app. In Tybee, for example, that’s Park TYB.
Beach Morning action items:
Make the sliders with your chicken salad
Pack your food items in a cooler with ice packs
Pack your beverages, including extra water and wet wipes or a fingertip towel soaked in water for cleaning sandy hands
Don your beach attire
Pack your vehicle and tee up your beach music playlist
Frozen Prosecco Grapes
Ingredients
1 Bunch Grapes
1 Bottle Prosecco
¾ C sugar
Mint leaves, muddled
Directions
Remove grapes from their stems and soak them overnight in prosecco.
The Next Day
Grab a gallon bag and fill it with ¾ cup granulated sugar and crushed mint leaves. Roll your grapes in the sugar and mint. Spread them in the bag so they are not touching. Put on a quarter sheet and slide it into your freezer overnight.
Be careful if you attempt to rush the eating of cold grapes, an ice-cream headache or toothache could ensue! Note that the grapes can easily be sliced into discs if you are risk-averse.
Chicken Salad Sliders
This chicken salad is traditional, with an added fresh crunch of water chestnuts. The hint of ginger flavor adds an extra level of umami-goodness between those small, sweet Hawaiian-style buns. Did you know those buns include pineapple juice?
What makes this recipe beach friendly is the handy size of the sliders, making it easy to accommodate varying appetites. Figure one-a-piece for “the littles” and two each for those with bigger appetites.
Ingredients
2 C cooked chicken pulled from the bone
½ C dried cranberries
1 can diced water chestnuts, drained
1 rib finely diced celery
¼ C sweet onion diced
½ C mayonnaise (Dukes is my go-to)
2 T Ginger or Honey Ginger salad dressing (Makoto-usually in the refrigerator section of produce.)
6-8 Kings Hawaiian Sweet Rolls or Sweet Slider buns
In a bowl, mix your chicken, dried cranberries, water chestnuts, celery, and onion. Separately, mix your mayonnaise and ginger dressing. Be sure your chicken is shredded in small bites, then stir in your dressing. This chicken salad can be made the night before; the flavors will meld well.
Prep your sandwiches in the morning as you are packing your cooler.
Deviled Eggs
Deviled eggs work at the beach for the same reason so many people take them to a picnic, you can eat them in two bites, and people simply love them. I have a stacked deviled egg taker that works great for transporting these in a cooler, but if you don’t have one, simply upcycle your egg carton into an egg-taker.
My recipe is traditional, except I slip in Wickles relish instead of vinegar or pickle juice and sprinkle with some apple smoked salt.
Ingredients
Six eggs, hard-boiled, peeled, and halved.
2 T mayo (Dukes for me)
2 tsp honey mustard
2 T Wickles relish
Apple smoked salt—use lightly, but this is the “secret” ingredient!
Directions
Separate the cooked yolks from the whites and mix them with the relish, mayo, and mustard. Carefully spoon the mixture back into your cooked whites and sprinkle lightly with apple smoked salt.
You can prep these the night before if you’re certain you don’t have a sneaky someone in the house looking for a midnight snack. We know how easily they disappear.
Keeping it Chill
I’m also including links here to my favorite ice packs. You wouldn’t think that ice packs would be such a big deal, but trust me, I’ve bought some inferior ones that I returned. These will last on your hottest beach day, so they are worth it. I bought three mediums, 1.5 pounds, and one small, .75 pounds. The small is suitable for a lunchbox, and you’ll probably need two mediums for a medium size cooler.
Two Whiffs of Inspo
My first whiff of inspo today is a story about Beach music. In South Carolina, this is a specific genre limited to a select set of about 45 songs. The songs also are set to a specific style of dance known as Shag, or in active tense, shagging. You’ll become familiar with Beach Music —every last song—after going to just a few Southern events.
When I worked in the corporate world of health insurance, my former boss, David, was a talented piano player and vocalist in a Shag band. He enjoyed Shag music but would admit that it can get tiring, like going on a cruise and hearing a Reggae band for the entire trip. So, while it has a passionate following, it’s not taking over the world by storm, except…
One day David showed up in my office to say that he had had a sudden spike in demand for old records his band had produced. His customers were DJs in a certain section of England who were thrilled to discover shag music and were creating a “moment” for it. The bars were filling up with people eager to shag.
Meanwhile, David repeatedly rummaged through his attic, dusting off those boxes of vinyl discs and overnighting them, wondering if the band should book an overseas tour.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that in the British Isles, “shagging” meant something specific and intimate, and perhaps curiosity was driving the temporary spike in demand.
At any rate, what happens Under the Boardwalk stays Under the Boardwalk, and it’s a great vibe to put on your Spotify playlist while you’re cruising to Burkes’ Beach or Tybee Island.
My second whiff of inspo is going to be a playlist link to My Beach Music on Spotify. Put it on while you shuffle around your kitchen in those Crocs, prepping for your beach day.
Now find your earbuds, and maybe a copy of Cheesecake Loves My Thighs and 27 other reasons cheesecake is better than men, and pack that beach basket.
Excellent!