An Olympic Muffin Tin Dinner!

I hadn't made the girls a muffin tin dinner for a long time and thought the closing ceremony of the Olympics was a perfect opportunity to surprise them with one! I racked my brains for what to do and decided to represent some of the sports that the girls enjoyed watching and learning about, as well as some of the classic Olympic symbols. I always balance savoury with sweet and try to include all the food groups and we always have jelly in our MTD's, it's a tradition! So we had:

• An Olympic torch made from a tortilla twisted up with yellow peppers and carrot slices as the flames
• Beach volleyball - couscous sand with a team GB flag left over from the Jubilee celebrations!
• Gold medals - cheddar discs cut with a cookie cutter and a ham number added
• Olympic ring fruit salad with black berries, blueberries,  red peach,  yellow banana and green apple
• Rythmic gymnastics ribbon baton - Strawberry fruit roll-ups coiled just so with a cocktail stick as the baton
• Diving - lemon and lime sugarfree jelly dyed blue with gel food colouring, and with a toy person (cleaned with boiling water first) embedded upside down as if they had just dived in. I managed this by putting half the jelly in and allowing it to almost set then suspending the person upside down with a pipe cleaner twisted around their legs and hooked over the edges of the cup with their head resting on the already set jelly. I finished it off with a tiny blob of plain yoghurt as a 'splash' - in a GB cup of course!

Our previouse MTD's were St Patrick's Day and St. George's Day.

A Saint Patrick's Day Muffin Tin Dinner!

I have seen MTD's or 'Muffin Tin Dinners' around for a while on other blogs but have only recently organised myself to do some!! They are better done in a silicone bake tray with six muffin compartments but I don't have those! I looked for them but you know it is when you actually want something - you never see it and when you don't want it you see loads!!!! Anyhow I used silicone muffin cases in a pie dish instead and it worked just fine!!

So from the left we have broad beans, cucumber and celery, then kiwi and grapes, the tricolour pasta (Irish flag pasta for the purposes of St. Patrick's Day!!), guacamole with a pepper rainbow and cheese cubes as the gold at the end of the rainbow, green jelly and in the centre there are apple and courgette muffins decorated with a skittles rainbow and gold balls! I had a blast doing this - it's such fun and adds a lovely element of anticipation to lunch time! The little girl I child mind ate it all and she's not very keen on new foods! Result!

Here is the Valentines MTD I made in February too!

These had , from the bottom left and going clockwise, heart shaped cheese scones (thanks Mum!), tomatoes, red jelly with berries, smoked cheese hearts with bacon bits, pretzels and pepper sticks.