With the upcoming holidays it’s always nice to have a fun, light and healthy recipe to add to the menu’ 🙂
Veggie platters are such a convenient idea to display while you are cooking: when the kids are hungry (exactly when you are cooking and you still need 15 minutes to finish) they are usually more inclined to eat veggies (and even enjoy them!!). Through the years I experienced that snacking veggies before lunch/dinner is such an easy way for me to give that extra serving of daily veggies to my kids 🙂
Also, with veggie platters you can really get creative and create beautiful compositions. For thanksgiving I prepared a “Turkey” veggie platter for a party (you can see it on my Instagram page) so I decided to have fun with the kids and create something for Xmas too. A Xmas tree shaped tray gave me the inspiration. It’s easier for the kids to simply fill a plate with an already defined shape rather than creating a shape with the vegetables.
I let them pick up the veggies choosing from group colors. I needed green, of course, so they could decide between broccoli, spinach, cucumbers, mixed salad and they opted for broccoli. For the yellow decorations the list was: bell peppers, yellow carrots and yellow squash. The winner was bell pepper. For the red the options were: cherry tomatoes, bell peppers and we decided for tomatoes.
Every veggie platter needs a dip: guacamole was our choice, we simply love avocado!!
Of course, hummus or ranch or tzatziki would have been great choices too 🙂
The procedure is very very simple…so simple that my Alex and Luca did everything my themselves, I was there to simply coordinate 🙂
Decide with your kids which design you are going to do. Pick up the vegetables for each part of the design. Sometimes with little kids it can be useful to draw a picture of the design or show them an image from the internet (Pinterest and Instagram are helpful, hi hi!).
Prep the vegetables for your kids (peel, wash, chop) and place them in cups all around the platter, it will be easier for them to grab the veggies from there.
And…start composing 🙂
I simply gave basic directions to my kids suggesting them where to start with and they continued from there.
I used a cookie cutter to create the top star and I also added some cheese in form of candy cane 🙂
Most important thing: have fun!!
- 1 head broccoli florets
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes
- 3 slices cheese
- 2 cups snap peas
- 1 cup fresh guacamole
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Wash and prep the veggies.
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Place them strategically next to the platter that you are going to use
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If possible, use a platter of the shape that you want to obtain. In my case, a Xmas tree.
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Start decorating using the vegetables. Cover the platter with the broccoli florets.
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Using a cookie cutter cut out a yellow star from half of the bell pepper.
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Slice the remaining half bell pepper in strips
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Decorate the broccoli tree horizontally with the bell peppers
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Add the tomatoes like Xmas balls
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Cut out the cheese using a candy cane cookie cutter and decorate the broccoli tree
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Place the snap peas all around the tree to give a tree branch look
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Choose a long container for the dip, oval shape. Fill it with the guacamole. Place it at the bottom of the tree to create the trunk.
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Enjoy!!!
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Christmas Tree Vegetable Platter – MySpecialFood.com
December 15, 2018 at 5:16 am[…] With the upcoming holidays it’s always nice to have a fun, light and healthy recipe to add to the menu’ Veggie platters are such a convenient idea to display while you are cooking: when the kids are hungry (exactly when you are cooking and you still need 15 minutes to finish) they are usually more inclined to eat veggies (and even enjoy them!!). Through the years I experienced that […] Source: Christmas Tree Vegetable Platter […]
Christmas Veggie Platter with Guacamole Dip – kid friendly recipe | find my recipes
April 26, 2019 at 2:33 am[…] Christmas Tree Vegetable Platter […]