GETTING CRAFTY WITH FOOD

So being creative isn't limited to paper, glue and scissors. You can get your creative juices going even when preparing food and its really simple. Here are 3 ideas to get you started...

Dolphin Bananas

These little gems went down very well at my daughter's birthday party. Simply cut the banana in half and then cut a slit in the top of the banana to make a dolphin's mouth and pop a grape in there. If you have edible pen you could always draw 2 eyes on the dolphin.

Top Tip: Pop some lemon juice on the exposed part of the banana to stop it going brown. 

Snake Sandwiches

These sandwiches are my 'go to' when I am tasked with making sandwiches for the end of year nursery party for example. The kids absolutely love these and some of them even eat the cucumber! 

All you need is bread, sandwich filling, cucumber, possibly lettuce and grapes but these are optional and a cookie cutter. 

The cookie cutter needs to be roughly the same diameter as the cucumber or as close as you can get it (last time i just used a glass from the cupboard because i couldn't find my cookie cutter). Make sandwiches up as you would normally do and then use your cutter or glass to cut 2 round pieces of sandwich per sandwich. 

Once you have your pieces cut you can have a play around and see what is best for the shape of your snake. You will need one cucumber per snake. Cut the ends to use as the head and tail end. With the rest of the cucumber, cut at angles to help with the twists and curves of the snake. Your cucumbers should look like triangles.

For the mouth of the snake, cut a slit in the cucumber and cut a tongue out of what ever the filling is such as cheese or ham and slide it in the slit. Pop some grapes on as eyes using butter or cream cheese to make it stick to the cucumber. 

Add some finishing touches like cucumber or lettuce around the snake to cover the tray, this will also stop the snake from rolling around and falling apart. 

And Voila you have yourself a happy little one with snake sandwiches. 

Watermelon Monster

So for this all you need is a watermelon, but you could also add grapes for eyes or other bits of fruit and do a far better job than what I produced for my first attempt. 

All you need to do is slice a mouth into the melon and detach it from the rest of the melon. Scoop out the melon contents and chop it up into bite size pieces, remember to remove the rind. Though the rind is edible, it is quite tough and is a potential choking hazard for kiddies. Pop the bite size pieces back in the watermelon and flowing out of the mouth to look like the monster is eating the watermelon. I used the rind from the part removed for the mouth as a shark fin and attached it to the 'back' with cocktail sticks and also popped on a couple of grapes for eyes. 

My 2nd attempt at a dinosaur watermelon i decided to cut holes for eyes and then pop the grapes into the holes instead of using cocktail sticks. 

Top Tip: When using cocktail sticks, use the sharp end to pierce the rind but then take the stick out and with a clean nail cutter chop the sharp ends off both sharp ends and then pop it back in the rind. If you would prefer not to use cocktails sticks then cream cheese can be used as a 'glue'.