Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Earth Day Veggie Tray

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Earth Day Veggie Tray

Here's the fun and colorful Earth Day Veggie Platter I put together this week for my Mommy Group event. I haven't written a full tutorial or recipe but soon I will and for now, you can check out my other Veggie Trays to get ideas on how to put this Earth Day Veggie Tray together...


Our Cute Food Earth Day Veggie Tray


In a nutshell, I used a standard plastic veggie tray. The "tree" is a bunch of broccoli tied together with pipe cleaners, I skewered the tree onto a chopstick which was pierced into a small cabbage. I bored the hole with a skewer, but next time I just might use a drill or hand drill with the correct size bit to make it a little easier or simply use a few round toothpicks to anchor the tree for our Earth Day Veggie Tray.

The small cabbage fit perfectly into the center hole of the plastic veggie tray, but it rolled when I traveled with it. This is the first time I didn't use styrofoam and hot glue (see the other articles above) and the first time I had a minor transport disaster. It was a little wonky once I got to the event but I was able to mess with it until it was cute again.

Maybe next time I will try it with a glued base or a little more attention to transport if I have to travel with it. 

Here's how I did the glued styrofoam base for one of my other veggie platters. This would TOTALLY work for this but as you can see from the main photo, it looked really cute with the cabbage too.


I added veggie cream cheese peppers with tiny organic tomatoes in the center. Those were a big hit. These could be easily made with the vegan cream cheese and I just tossed the cream cheese, some red and green peppers, carrots, and touch of onion to the food processor for a few pulses.


These are the trays I use and you can buy them on Amazon.



What You Need for the Earth Day Veggie Tray


Food Ingredients:
2 bunches of Curly Kale (can use 1 purple or rainbow to mix some color)
1 head of green cauliflower cut into florets
3-5 heads of broccoli (depending on size)
2 yellow bell peppers sliced into sticks
2 orange bell peppers sliced into sticks
2 red bell peppers sliced into sticks
1 package grape tomatoes
5-6 carrots sliced into sticks
1 small cabbage (for tree base)
1 bag small colorful peppers
1 tub vegan cream cheese
1 vegan veggie dip (our tzatziki recipe works great as a dip and I would double it for this)

Non-Food Items Shopping List:
Veggie tray - I use Plastic Divided Trays
round toothpicks
green pipe cleaners (chenille stems)


*IF YOU WANT TO TRAVEL WITH THIS WITHOUT SOMEONE HOLDING ONTO IT, I WOULD USE hot glue and styrofoam in the center of the tray and anchor the "tree" with toothpicks to that or lay the tree gently on its side for travel.


How to craft the Earth Day Veggie Tray:

  • peel your cabbage down to size and place in the center (or use the styrofoam and glue method in the center) 
  • Use the best broccoli head for the main tree. Get creative by using the green chenille stems and tying the other broccoli heads to the main head to get a big tree look. This is tricky! Be patient while you do this and twist and tie these pieces together. 
  • Use round toothpicks to stick grape tomatoes to the broccoli tree. 
  • Lay leaves of curly kale in the base of your veggie tray. 
  • Add handfuls of the different peppers and carrot sticks into kale so they stick outward and are easy to grab. 
  • Fill in with cut up broccoli and cauliflower in the base. 
  • Cut the tops off the mini peppers, fill we vegan cream cheese and stick a grape tomato in the center of each. Intersperse these in your base. 
  • Place dip bowl on the side and enjoy!


13 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness ... how adorable and creative! I may have to borrow this idea for Earth Day this year!

    Nice to meet you through #SITSBlogging!

    Kimberly @ Rhubarb and Honey {http://rhubarbandhoney.com/}

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  2. That is so creative and absolutely beautiful! What a neat idea. The kids would love that. My 5 year old and I are both veggie lovers. YUM YUM!

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  3. Oh I love this and will be trying to duplicate it this weekend. I think everyone will love it.

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  4. This is awesome! So creative and so adorable :)

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  6. omg so cute! I don't think I could every have to skill to do this!

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  7. This is so cool!

    commonsenseandstilettos@yahoo.com

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  8. This recipe looked so good, I copied it down. I am due to make this this coming up for Earth Day this coming month. I thank you for the share.

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  9. This is just so cute. Thank you for the idea.

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  10. This veggie tray is so creative. I love it!

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  11. I love this veggie tray! I bet making it look so cute makes it appeal to even picky eaters.

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  12. This is so cool i think it would be nice for a bbq

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Thanks for the comment!



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