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VEGETABLE WREATH - You can make an interesting edible vegetable tray by placing cut pieces of raw brocolli around a round serving platter to form a wreath. Decorate with cherry tomatoes, cut up jicama, carrots, red peppers, yellow peppers, green peppers, any vegetables your guests will like. Serve with dip (any kind of dry onion soup mix and sour cream makes an easy holiday onion dip!)
POTATO STAMPS - While your making dinner, you can give each kid a potato with a design cut on it. A star, a triangle, a Christmas Tree, etc. Give them a small dishes of washable poster paints and let them dress up brown paper bags to make place mats.
POTATO SNOWMEN (in the microwave) For 2 snowmen, microwave 3 fairly round red or white potatoes - a small, medium and large potato - until done. (Potatoes can take anywhere from 2 - 5 minutes to microwave, so watch them carefully.)
Cut the potatoes in half and peel them. Place them cut side down on a serving dish to form 2 snowmen. Decorate them like a snowman, you can use pecan halves for feet, a carrot strip for a nose, black olive slices for eyes (and cut in half for a mouth.) This can be done beforehand, then reheated in the microwave right before serving. Before serving, you can decorate the plate with "snow" by putting dabs of sour cream at the feet of the snowmen. Parsley spears make nice Christmas trees, too.
POPCORN GARLAND. An old fashioned popcorn garland is best made with oil free popcorn (from a hot-air popper.) Using an embroidery needle and thread, sew pieces of popcorn together. For extra color, try adding gum drops or jelly beans every so often.
Candy Cane decorations - Candy canes make nice tree decorations.
CHOCOLATE DIPPING - Microwave 1 cup (6 oz.) of chocolate chips in a glass bowl, on HIGH (100% power) for 60 seconds. Stir. If the choclate is half melted, stir until the choclate melts completely. If you have more than half way to go, microwave at additional 10 to 20 second intervals, stirring until chocolate is smooth.
Wash and dry fresh fruit slices of your choice: Strawberries, pears, apples, bananas. (Leave the strawberries whole, but cut the larger fruit in thick slices - big enough to pick up and eat.)
Or try these dry foods: Dried fruits, Pretzels, Graham Crackers, Nuts, Marshmellows, Plain Cookies, etc.
Dip your fruits and foods into the chocolate, leaving approx 1/2" of the food uncovered. Place the chocolate covered items on a sheet of waxed paper and allow them to harden.
You can store chocolate covered dry foods for days in a plastic bag at room temperature. However, chocolate covered fruits are best eaten within 8 hours.
EASY GRAHAM CRACKER GINGERBREAD HOUSE. To make an easy Graham Cracker gingerbread house, you'll need 5 graham crackers per house and either store-bought frosting in a tube or the following ornamental frosting. (Caution: if the frosting you buy in a tube is intended for cakes, IT WILL NOT HARDEN. You can decorate your graham cracker house with it, but intend on eating your house soon, because it cannot be moved very easily.)
- ORNAMENTAL FROSTING
- 1/4 c butter or margarine
- 4 c sifted powdered sugar
- 2 unbeaten egg whites
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 to 2 tsp light cream
- With pastry blender, cut butter into powdered sugar until its the consistence of cornmeal. (If you don't have a hand pastry blender, a food processor -- or even a fork can work well for cutting.) Add egg whites, vanilla, and cream of tartar. Beat thoroughly. Stir in a little light cream till the frosting is juts a bit stiffer than spreading consistency. Tint frosting with a few drops of liquid food coloring, if desired. Place in pastry tube and squeeze onto graham crackers to make decorations.
Decorate the walls and roof of your gingerbread house, either let dry or be VERY careful with your walls. Later, set your graham crackers up like a house of cards, pipe frosting onto the joints to hold the house together.
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