Flutter Flutter Butterfly

So we had had some amazing spring weather. Key word: had. It was 80 degrees the other week! Now it is freezing. First let me define the word freezing for you so there are no misunderstandings.

Freezing: any temperature under 65 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Yes you read that correctly. 65 degrees and under = freezing.

Bet you would never guess I was born in Boston. I don't know why but I am always cold... I also get cold very easily and I literally need to wear a million layers to retain heat. I'm always wearing my jacket, even when we are inside the house.  My husband claims that I am a cold blooded reptile and need to sit in the sun to retain heat... I wish I could come up with a better explanation than that.. but I can't. So maybe I am a lizard ;)  

Cold weather makes me irritable. You really don't want to mess with me when cold. Or when I'm hungry. I keep trying to convince David we should move to a warmer climate or state for my own sanity. It hasn't worked yet, but maybe if I post this it will help! (so kidding!... or am I? teehee) :)

So while I am freezing I decided to share this cute butterfly lunch and think of warmer weather:

The big butterfly is a ham and cheese sandwich cut with a butterfly cookie cutter. 
The wings are orange bell peppers, decorated with strawberries and cheese. 
The body and antennae are cucumber.
The small butterflies are apples and fruit leather cut with a mini butterfly cookie. 
The butterfly crackers are Pepperidge Farm Golden Butter crackers.

You can make so many versions of a butterfly sandwich--the options are endless :) I have made Eliana many butterfly sandwiches, and I just decorate the butterfly with leftover scraps from making other creative meals. Use leftover pieces of vegetables, fruits or cheeses to make unique designs on your butterfly sandwiches. It makes a cute spring themed lunch and it would be perfect if we were going to visit a butterfly garden! I may just have to remake this lunch once the weather is nicer and we actually see butterflies flying around :)

*Linking up to some amazing link parties!*

Here is what I used (or similar!):

Rainbow Party

So I'm going to apologize before you even read this post. It is a long one! Well longer than my usual posts. What can I say.. it's hard to fit so much greatness into one post! ;)

Like I mentioned in my post earlier in the month, one of the reasons I love the month of March is because it is Eliana's birthday month!  Last spring, almost immediately after her 3rd birthday, Eliana saw a picture of a rainbow layer cake (while I was browsing on Pinterest of course) and decided right then and there that she wanted a rainbow birthday party for her 4th birthday.  I was on board immediately :) Especially because I loved how colorful it would be! I also figured we'd probably do her party on a Saturday, and the Saturday after her actual birthday was going to be St. Patrick's Day! So the rainbow theme fit perfect... and it was a perfect day since Eliana's due date had been St. Patrick's Day four years earlier :)


There are so many rainbow parties out there, so I know competition is stiff. But what I wanted was simple. No printouts. No labels. No incredible amounts of candy (because seriously there are a million rainbow type candies and who is going to eat it all?!) And most of all I did not want this to be super expensive. This party was going to be small and intimate; our immediate family with only a few close friends.


So to start decorating we blew up rainbow colored balloons and put them everywhere. (sorry no good pictures of that, and plus lets be honest I am NOT a photographer at all!) We also bought streamers in all the rainbow colors and had rainbow streamer decorations everywhere.  On Eliana's actual birthday we put streamers hanging from her door frame in the colors of the rainbow. She LOVED it. and we kept it up for a week. In my husband's words, it looked like a rainbow "exploded" in the house :)

Rainbow Balloon

The Display Table with Rainbow Balloons and Rainbow Streamers

A closer look at what is on the display table:

Rainbow Vegetable Plate with ranch dip clouds

Rainbow Fruit Plate with whipped cream clouds

Rainbow Twizzlers (which are awful by the way. awful. But they sure are pretty!)

Left Side: Veggie platter, Jar filled with Skittles, rainbow Twizzlers and origami flowers (made by my husband). Simple colored party hats are lined up in the back (Red, Yellow, Green and Blue).

Right Side: rainbow Cake Balls (rainbow funfetti cake inside), Jar filled with M&Ms, fruit platter and more origami

And in the middle? The Cake. The Glorious Cake. I personally love to make cupcakes. I mean love.  And I could have easily made rainbow cupcakes, but I really thought a rainbow cake would be so much more fun, and plus that was what Eliana had asked for last spring!  But there was no way I was going to attempt my first 6 layer cake for her birthday so I enlisted help!  I asked my friend Kristen of Pixelated Crumb if she could make a 6 layer rainbow cake for Eliana's birthday. Thankfully Kristen said yes!  Visit her blog and read about it making the cake right here  (p.s. there is also a free giveaway!!). She made this amazingly gorgeous cake:

The cake was delicious. But don't stop there. Feel free to drool around the entire blog. (That's what I do in my free time). Kristen and her husband are amazing food photographers, and if you love to stare at food check it out. I mean who can make a piece of garlic look good? She can. And once you stop drooling you'll see all the amazing recipes you will need to try. Like this one, or this one (my two personal favorites.. they just happen to be sweets, but her blog is full of much more than that!).

Some pictures taken by Kristen's husband Joseph: 

Just about when you think you've had enough rainbows what else could you do to complete this rainbow party? Make homemade rainbow shirts of course.

The birthday girl was all smiles! :)

If you want a tutorial on the rainbow shirts I could do one, on a separate post of course. But only if enough of you ask for it!  Comment here on this post or email me (creativefoodblog [at] gmail [dot] com) and let me know! There is just no way I'm adding more rainbow to this post! :)

**update** DIY Rainbow Shirt tutorial is up! Check it out :)

I am officially RAINBOW-ed OUT :)



**Linking up to some amazing link parties!!! Check them out!**

Flower Pot Lunch

Well hello spring! It has been gorgeous here in MA the last days of "winter" and first days of spring. I am in love with this weather.  This has by far been the best weather year ever: barely any snow, and spring jumped into summer. I'll take it!

So as you can see I haven't posted in a while! I try to post at least once a week but life has been crazy busy over here. I have had a lot of work and papers and editing of papers (oh the joys of grad school!). Then last week was Eliana's fourth birthday!! We celebrated from Wednesday all the way through the weekend!  There was a lot of planning and organizing last week but it was all worth it. We had so much fun and the birthday girl had a blast! I hope to post later this week about her birthday celebration :)

In the celebration of this amazing spring weather I wanted to make something simple and cute... and well more importantly I wanted to use my super cute mini flower pot cutter I got for Christmas last year (everything is so much cuter in mini size!). This is what I came up with:

Potted flowers never tasted so good ;)

The flower pot is a ham and cheese sandwich. I used the bread crust on one side to make it look more like a pot (just use some kitchen scissors and cut out the pot free hand. Or you could use a similar shape cookie cutter). 

Add some green pepper stems, cantaloupe flowers (cut with a cookie cutter) and blueberry centers to make some adorable easy potted flowers.  I cut out two small flower pots out of fruit leather with my mini cookie cutter.  I added a cheese dragonfly (cut with a mini cookie cutter) which I began to color with food safe markers and Eliana decided she wanted to color the wings. I think she did a great job! :)

Eating these potted flowers made us want to plant some real flowers...sounds like a good weekend project! :)

Creative Food Supplies:

Linking up here :)

Shamrock Ice Cream Jello

 

Eliana and I decided to make Jell-O the other day. While Jell-O is nothing new, it still is fun and super easy to put together. Thinking of St. Patrick's Day we went with lime green Jell-O.  I had found a recipe for green ice cream Jell-O and decided to make it even more fun by cutting the Jell-O with a shamrock cookie cutter. Here is how it all turned out:

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Shamrock Jell-O 

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Shamrock Jell-O

Ingredients:

*2 packages of green Jell-O

*1 package knox unflavored gelatin

*4 cups boiling water

*approx 1 qt (or less) vanilla bean ice cream

Directions:

*Mix everything together (both packages of Jell-O, gelatin, and boiling water) until dissolved

*Add vanilla bean ice cream. Stir until dissolved.

*pour into a 9x13 glass dish and let it set overnight in the fridge.

*cut Jell-O with a shamrock (or any shape) cookie cutter, or just cut however you please :)

  **recipe adapted from yummly**

The ice cream will float to the top of the Jell-O creating a layered look:

So the original recipe said to go with non fat vanilla ice cream. Well as you can see I used vanilla bean ice cream. I wasn't going to buy a tub of regular vanilla ice cream! We are vanilla bean ice cream addicts in this household. If you don't want the vanilla beans floating around in your Jell-O then just use vanilla :)

The original recipe also said to measure 1 qt (less one cup) of your ice cream. Well about that.. I have a secret.... (shhhh don't tell)......I didn't actually measure the ice cream. I just scooped the ice cream into the Jell-O mixture until Eliana and I thought it was enough.  I'm lucky it came out pretty even but honestly I didn't know how it was going to turn out! Either way it would have tasted great so I don't think measuring exacts on ice cream is necessary. Of course feel free to measure away. 

I'm actually usually all about measuring in exact measurements (i love to bake, and for baking you need to be precise) but for some reason in this instance I didn't care to be exact. For a moment my precise exact perfectionist self disappeared and I just enjoyed the moment of mixing and making Jell-O with my daughter :) I think that made it taste even better :)

**Linking up to these parties**

Creative Food Supplies:

Shamrock Lunch

Happy March 1st! 

I love the month of March. It is the beginning of great weather. and I love warmer weather.... However we were blasted here in MA with snow/slush yuckiness. I guess that is what we get for having a very mild winter! I found it to be a rude awakening since we really haven't had snow. But I'm still looking forward to warmer weather :)

Most importantly March is my beautiful daughter Eliana's birthday month! She was due on St. Patrick's Day four years ago and came into the world on the 14th! So St. Patrick's Day will always have a special place in my heart.. I thought of that day for close to nine months! It also happens to be the day that her birthday party is on this year! :)

What better way to start of thinking of St. Patrick's Day and the color green than with this Shamrock Lunch:

I love the color green. I find it fresh, renewing, invigorating and relaxing.

You can rearrange this lunch to make it slightly more classy for those ombre fans: 

Ombre Green Shamrock Lunch:

Either way this lunch is too cute. And super easy.  I'm all about making things easy.

The sandwich is a ham and cheese on a spinach tortilla cut with a shamrock cookie cutter. Surrounding the sandwich are green peppers, green apples and cucumbers cut with a small shamrock cookie cutter. 

Very simple. Very easy. And yet so creative!

Creative Food Supplies:

**Linking up to these parties**