Hello Kitty Party Veggie Tray

It was our little girl's second Birthday last week and we were celebrating in Japan. We had tickets to the brand new LEGOLAND park for for 4 preview days so we didn't throw a party and decided instead to spread out all the fun into a Birthday Week. She loves cats so we figured a Hello Kitty Birthday party theme would be perfect. I got to work making cute Hello Kitty party food and this Hello Kitty veggie tray was one of her favorites.

Let me start by saying that we have made a lot of cute veggie trays and this one was one of the easier ones. I threw it together at dinner time (hence the poor lighting and photography) because my cauliflower was starting to turn, and we weren't going to have another day I could work it in before my girl's Birthday.

I usually would do a lot more veggies but it is not so easy to buy food in bulk in Japan when you don't have a car to transport it all. Also, cauliflower is difficult to find and I had only ONE head so I had to be really strategic about how I used it.

How to make a Hello Kitty Veggie Tray

What you need:

1-2 head of cauliflower

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

black olives

1 head broccoli

1-2 heads lettuce or kale

purple cabbage for color

Mixed veggies for sticks and snacking

wooden toothpics

1 large plate

1 medium bowl

1 small bowl

What you do:

First you want to start out by finding an image of Hello Kitty for reference.

For this tray I used 1 large plate as a base, a medium bowl to hold Hello Kitty, and a smaller bowl turned over inside the large bowl to prop her up.

Then I sliced off 3 of the cauliflower florets very carefully to save for Hello Kitty's hand and ears, making sure I was not changing the shape of the head in a way that would ruin it. This is why I recommend having more than one cauliflower on hand. Any extra pieces can be cut up and use for snacking.

Then I cut the stem off the broccoli to use for Hello Kitty's arm. I stabilized everything with bits of lettuce around the head and arm.

Next I cut out the bow and nose shapes using a sharp scissor and sliced black olives in half and shaved a little bit off the florets to get a nice shape for the ears.