Food gifts for women: The Very Hungry Caterpillar activities and ideas

Food gifts for women: The Very Hungry Caterpillar activities and ideas

Looking for some The Very Hungry Caterpillar activities and ideas to add in lots of fun and learning? Here are some of our favourite ways to use one of our all time favourite story books.

Food gifts: Making Funny Food Faces

 

Making Funny Food Faces

When we got home yesterday afternoon from the school pick-up, my boys announced they had the hungrys and that they wanted to do something fun; maybe get the art supplies out. I remembered something I saw on Playschool years ago. Making funny face open sandwiches! Combining an afternoon snack and play all in one. This had the added bonus of upping their vegetable intake for the day….this is something I am slightly obsessive about. I grate, puree and hide extra vegetables in our meals all the time, anything to up the amount they eat.
To Make Funny Food Faces:

• Spread your bread generously with cream cheese or you could try peanut butter
• Have a selection of foods cut into different shapes, we used alfalfa sprouts, carrots, cherry tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber
• Let your kids make away!

There was lots of snacking on the vegetables on the platter as they made the faces and some very interesting creations were made.

The general consensus was that funny faces are delicious and lots of fun! Check out the empty platter at the end, I was surprised by how much of the veggies they ate, even my Mr almost 4 ate heaps.

Do you get your kids to play with food?

Unique food gifts: How to make an edamame stick

Unique food gifts: How to make an edamame stick 

This one is may not really be “kyaraben” food by itself, but it’s a great way to add green to your bento box.

This technique lets you put edamame together in one place without using a little cup. All you need is uncooked pasta! You can put it in the corner of bento box like in the Piggy & Gir bento, or use it as a divider like in myPortal bento.

Pasta gets soft enough to eat because the moisture from edamame in a couple of hours or when microwaved. But if you’re not sure about eating uncooked pasta, you can fry the pasta.

[edamame stick] (used in “Piggy & GIR”, “Portal” )
- edamame
- pasta

1. After boiling edamame, pop the beans out of the pods and peel the outer skin of the edamame.

2. Stick the soybeans on the uncooked pasta one by one.

Snap off the pasta on the both sides and done!

That’s it!

3. If you put #2 in a bowl of water and microwave it for a couple of minutes, the edamame stick becomes soft and bendy! Maybe you can use this as a necklace for a girl character food or have it surround other food. (be careful when you bend it. If the pasta isn’t soft enough, it might break off.)

Halloween food gift: Who's for Dinner?

Who's for Dinner?

 

It's that time of year...time for spooky food! First, let me clarify that I know some of you probably don't want to see anything about Halloween and I wouldn't say we necessarily "celebrate" Halloween but I have always amused my children with these creations during October. We don't make anything really gross or evil, just ideas I have found over the years that are cute and silly. We make most of these every year and the kids still get a kick out of them, kinda a family tradition now!

First are the three mummy meals, the English muffin pizza mummies, the hot dog mummies which are hot dogs wrapped in strips of refrigerator breadsticks and baked, and a new addition...the meat loaf mummy. This is meatloaf shaped like a mummy and then covered with strips of American cheese and returned to the oven to let the cheese melt a little bit.

A fan favorite to make is the vegetable skeleton.

A taco salad gets spook-a-fied with sour cream and black olive eyes.

This is a new find, swamp creatures made out of mac-n-cheese baked in muffin tins and sitting on cooked spinach. (will they eat the spinach??)

And finally, the grand finale, the slitherin' Stromboli! It is pizza sauce, pepperoni and cheese rolled up inside pizza dough and baked in an "s" shape. So cute and yummy too!

Food gifts for Halloween: milano ghosts

 
 Food gifts for Halloween:  milano ghosts
 On Saturday, Amelia and I made a little project for her preschool class Halloween party – Milano cookie ghosts. She had previously requested that we make a treat that she could help with. Happy to oblige, I came up with the following project, easy enough for an almost 5-year old.


Step 1: buy Milano cookies, melting white chocolate and mini chocolate chips.
Step 2: melt white chocolate in microwave.
Step 3: dip cookies halfway in chocolate and lay on wax paper.
Step 4: decorate with mini chocolate chip "eyes."

Unique food gifts: halloween candy men...

Unique food gifts:  halloween candy men...  

while we were there, my little lu fell in love with these halloween candy men.

they were too cute!

i let her buy one, and told her we would figure out just how to make them so we could make some at home.

here's what we came up with:

we put the candy in bowls so the kids could create their candy men exactly like they wanted.

the kiddos loved these halloween treats!

these would be great for teachers, kids in your sunday school class, or close friends that will be trick-or-treating at your door!

make them, they are fun!

Food gifts: Oreo Pops!

 

Oreo Pops!

 

WOW - It has been busy around here. My house sold in 4 days (I thought it would take a year or so.). We packed and moved this weekend for a quick 30 day closing. We found a great condo until our house is ready for us to move-in, which by the way is July 2011. Meanwhile, I volunteered to make these yummy Oreo pops for a teacher appreciation Sweet and Salty table. I originally saw this tutorial over at How Does She and I thought I can do this! I am so glad I took on this new recipe because it was really easy for something cute and creative. This is a great treat to add to your bag of tricks. Perfect for school parties, favors, dessert tables, treats for the neighbors, etc.

Ingredients and Materials:

Oreos (any flavor)

melting chocolate (It took me 2 bags for one package of cookies.)

sprinkles

cookie icing

wax paper

sucker sticks

small treat bags

ribbon

Here are the directions and few additional pointers!

Melt the chocolate according to the directions on the package. I used chocolate made by Wilton and I thought I would be fancy and use my double boiler. However, it was much easier to melt the chocolate in the microwave. I also only bought one bag.. BIG mistake. Since this was my first try, I overheated the chocolate and it was too thick to dip the cookies. Be sure to have a bag or 2 on hand for mistakes. Once I figured it all out, I needed 2 bags for 1 package of Oreos. Next tip - Only melt a little to place the sticks. Then, go back and melt the majority of the chocolate when you are ready to dip the Oreo suckers.

Separate the Oreos and line them on a tray. You do not want the chocolate to get cold, so having these divided helps a lot. At first, I had a hard time to get the stick to remain in the middle without breaking the cookie. Here is my trick - twist the stick with the hot melted chocolate into the Oreo cream and keep twisting. This will make a bed for the stick to lay in between the layers. I had 2 sizes of sucker sticks and the longer ones worked better for my project. If you are going to place them in a vase, container, etc. you want enough stick leftover to be visible.

Gently place the cookie on top the stick and place on the wax paper to cool.

I jumped the gun and started to dip these cookies too soon! I discovered that placing them in the refrigerator for a few hours made them nice and strong.

Dip the cookies in the yummy melted chocolate and place on a piece of wax paper.

I used cookie icing to add the green stripes.

If you want to add sprinkles, be sure to do it when the chocolate is still hot.

After the suckers have cooled, package them in small clear treat bags and seal with a ribbon. I used a white flower pot and added floral foam. I covered the top with glass beads and pushed the suckers into the foam. Voila - Oreo Cookie Pops.