This is a fun and healthy activity for most any age. Kids just love playing with food.
What You Need:
* 1 large grapefruit
* 1 honeydew or canteloupe melon
* About 12-15 medium-sized strawberries, hulls removed
* Fresh pineapple, cut into slabs 1/3” thick
* 24-30 Short (~7”) bamboo skewers
* Two cookie cutters: one round, about 1-3/4” in diameter, and one flower shaped, with 4 or 5 petals, about 1-1/2” in diameter.
* Fresh mint, if available
* One decorative bowl, roughly the diameter of your grapefruit, with sides at least 2-3” high
What You Do:
- Cleaning the fruit and greens thoroughly
- Hulls strawberries, leaving the berries themselves whole
- Carve all rind off the pineapple, and cut it into large slabs, about 1/3” thick.
- Cut the melon in half, remove seeds, and gently pull the flesh out of the shell. Cut the melon into ½” slabs, as long and wide as possible.
- Use the flower cookie cutter to cut 12-15 flowers from your melon (or as much as your melon will allow). Set the leftover fruit aside for delicious fruit salad snacks. Use the round cookie cutter to cut 12-15 disks from the pineapple.
- Prepare your bowl. Start by cutting your grapefruit in half. Place one half, flesh side down and rind side up, into the bowl.
- Stick the blunt end of a pointed bamboo skewer through each of your melon flowers, lengthwise, and leave a ½” tip at the top for people to grab. Then, with the remaining skewers, stick the blunt end through the center of a round pineapple disk and then lengthwise through a strawberry, to create a fruit design that looks like a budding flower. Again, leave a ½” tip at the top for people to grab.
- Now, alternating fruit “flowers,” stick the pointed end of each skewer “stem” into the upended grapefruit rind. You will see a luscious fruit “bouquet” take shape. When you’re done, stick mint sprigs around the grapefruit as a finishing touch, and serve with pride!
