Themed foods add a special touch to snack time on St. Patrick's Day. Snacks that integrate the holiday's themes, such as rainbows, leprechauns, the color green and shamrocks, appeal to many children. Let the kids lend a hand in creating the St. Patrick's snacks to serve as entertainment at a St. Patty's Day party or gathering.
Rainbow Tortilla Bites
These bite-sized snacks combine nutritious vegetables and whole-grain tortillas for a colorful, child-friendly food. Start with a whole-grain tortilla. Spread a layer of hummus, cream cheese or low-fat vegetable dip to cover the tortilla. Chop vegetables in different colors of the rainbow. Use red peppers or tomatoes for red, orange peppers or carrots for oranges, yellow peppers or squash for yellow, green peppers or broccoli and onions, eggplant, beets or cabbage for a bluish-purple tone. Substitute other vegetables in each color as desired. Line up the vegetables in rows on the tortilla and roll it up tightly. Slice the tortilla wrap into 1-inch sections.
Leprechaun Bagels
The round shape of a bagel creates the base for a leprechaun's face in this kids' snack. Cover half of a bagel with cream cheese. Line up shredded carrots along the bottom edge to make the leprechaun's beard. Use a long piece of graham cracker placed horizontally as the base of his hat and another piece vertically above it to finish the hat. Cover it in green tinted frosting or cream cheese. Add facial features using other kids' snacks, such as marshmallows and chocolate chips for the eyes, a carrot coin for the nose and a thin slice of turkey for the mouth.
Rainbow Fruit Kabobs
For a fruity snack, cut different colored fruits into bite-sized pieces. Slide each piece of fruit onto a skewer to create a mini rainbow on a stick. Fruit ideas include watermelon or strawberries for red, mango or cantaloupe for orange, pineapple or banana for yellow, grapes or kiwi for green, blueberries for blue and grapes for purple. Another serving option is to arrange the fruit to look like a rainbow on a tray without the skewers. Add mini marshmallows at each end to represent clouds.
Shamrock Peppers with Dip
Peppers cut crosswise look like the outline of shamrocks. Cut green peppers crosswise to create edible shamrocks for snack time. Look at the green peppers from the top to get an idea of what the slices will look like. Choose peppers with grooves or indentations around them for a more prominent shamrock shape. Serve the pepper slices with dip.
Rainbow Toast
Edible paint made from milk and food coloring allows the kids to turn a piece of bread into rainbow toast. Make a bowl of milk paint for each color of the rainbow. Using new clean paintbrushes, the kids paint a stripe of each color on a piece of untoasted bread. Just a small amount of the tinted milk is needed to make sure the bread doesn't become saturated. Toast the painted bread to finish the snack.
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