Kiddie Vegetable Tray

Last Saturday oldest grandbaby and Mom were visiting.  I had a heads up that oldest grandbaby wasn't feeling much like food lately so I decided to make a dip & finger food based meal.  On the menu: chicken strips with honey, homemade potato wedges with ketchup, and a vegetable tray with ranch dressing.  The honey, ketchup and ranch dressing were in individual dipping bowls.  Kids just seem to love dipping foods so I thought this would be a good menu choice.

I seldom buy American processed cheese unless it is for a special project.  Instead we use pre-cut cheddar cheese slices or simply cut cheese slices ourselves.  The week before we hosted a large event where we served grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages resulting in a few left-overs including cheddar cheese slices.  I decided to use mini cookie cutters to cut out cheese shapes for the vegetable tray. 

Originally I planned to use three shapes but as things progressed I ended up using only the duck shape.  Cutting the cheese shapes was quite easy.  I cut one slice of cheese at a time getting 6 shapes out of each slice of cheese.  The cheese stuck in the cookie cutter but popped right out with a gentle poke.

I arranged the cheese ducks arround the rim of a serving platter.  I added cut pieces of pepperettes, sliced cucumber, baby carrots and green pepper slices.  I served individual dipping bowls of ranch dressing to go with the vegetables.  I thought the overall presentation came out nicely.  The little one aka oldest grandbaby really enjoyed the vegetable tray and dipping the vegetables.  This is the type of tray that could easily be adapted to meet the likes of the child.  I can get away with using a lot of vegetables because our grandkids love vegetables.

Oh a bigger scale this is an easy way to add a theme to any vegetable tray for entertaining.  It would be a great way to add that special touch for holiday entertaining.  This will be a presentation that I expand on!