How to Make a Gorgeous Fresh Vegetable Bouquet for Your Party

For special occasions and holiday gatherings a fresh vegetable bouquet not only makes a great centerpiece and appetizer as you wait for guests to arrive, it is a fun tasty conversation piece. Fresh vegetable Bouquets are really easy to make if you have a little bit of patience and creativity. Fresh vegetables and dips are always a hit at parties, and it is always a healthy choice.

For the base of the fresh vegetable bouquet, you can use a fabric lined food basket or any other food safe container. There are two things you can use for the cushion base to poke skewers in. Either you can use a head of cabbage that has been cut in half, and placed cut side down, or you can use a 3 large baked potatoes, freshly cooked and cooled. Both work great as cushions to poke sticks in.

Prepare your vegetable dips either from scratch, or package mixes, or store bought from the fresh deli department of your grocery store. You can also use creamy bottled dressings. Get your dip good and cold in the refrigerator.

Next, Take an assortment of vegetables you will use to create your fresh vegetable bouquet masterpiece. Black and green olives make a nice touch for the center of flowers. Celery stalks and parsley provide nice greenery as well. Rolled organic greens secured with a toothpick make great leaves. Scallions or green onion make beautiful stalks of greenery too.

You want to vary the lengths of your skewers or wooden kebab toothpicks by cutting them different lengths or pushing some deeper into the base than others. Cauliflower and cherry or grape tomatoes make lovely little blossoms. Bell peppers in a variety of colors such as yellow, orange and red, can be cut into rings or strips as outer flower shapes with a smaller vegetable stuffed inside and secured, such as a radish rose or olive or zucchini slice. Zucchini and yellow squash are tasty and firm and are easy to sculpt with a knife or small metal cookie cutter. You can cut and carve vegetables in advance and store them in ice water until you are ready to make your arrangement. Blanched asparagus make beautiful floral stems. Use shorter skewers near the perimeter of your basket or food container and longer sticks for piercing vegetables toward the center, to create an eye catching and realistic bouquet design.

The goal is to get cut up vegetables to look like wild flowers. You achieve this by cutting vegetables free hand with a pairing knife or other sharp knife you feel comfortable with, or you can use cookie cutters. Some skewers can be loaded with vegetables such as a string of fresh button mushrooms, or a stalk of pimento stuffed green olives. To fill the space between the arrangement and the inner base, you can stuff the basket or food container with fresh sugar snap peas or mini carrots or even wheat grass for effect. Some of the flowers can be created using various cheese chunks cut with cookie cutters too. You can use carrot curls or other curled vegetables to curl around chopsticks. You are only limited by your imagination.

Serve your fresh vegetable bouquet with at least 2 or 3 kinds of dips such as a ranch dip, a dill dip and a spinach dip or a sweet and zesty dip.

You can set a basket of crackers or freshly cut artisan bread next to your fresh vegetable bouquet creation too. Or you can stuff the dip into bread baskets.

Fresh Vegetable bouquets are fairly easy to make and always a party hit. Have fun with it, be relaxed when you create it and it will all be good.

Reference:

• You can also buy a Do It Yourself Veggie Kit from The Vegetable Bouquet Company. It costs just under $100 and includes everything you need except the vegetables. www.veggiebouquet.com/veggiekit.html