Part of Your World - Ariel the Little Mermaid

Tuesday, 2/26/13 - This was actually the first gluten-free lunch I packed for her, so I had wanted to make it extra special. I've been avoiding making her an Ariel lunch, because it would mean having to paint her out on the bread (or cheese, had I chosen that instead,) and I'm not confident enough in my skills to tackle an iconic Disney character. (My Spongebob was a hot mess, and it had been easier being able to just pipe colored frosting on. Theoretically.)
But our first time trying gluten-free bread, I wanted to make it fun!

Organic raspberries and blueberries, sugar snap peas and carrots, blue corn "tort-chia" chips, Colby Jack and white cheddar cheese, GF PBJ, guacamole

Fish Tails: I couldn't NOT include the gluten-free blue corn Whale-Tail Tort-Chia Chips I'd bought for just such an occasion! I included some Wholly Guacamole from one of my 100-calorie packs for dipping (the rest went into my lunch that day - I use the 100-calorie packs because it's easy to freeze them and thaw as needed, since I don't go through a package fast enough otherwise.) My girlies loooooove guacamole, and I like this brand since it isn't too spicy for me! I used a star muffin cup instead of a round one... kind of like a starfish... maybe? (My dark blue ones came from World Market.)

Octopus' Garden: I stuck organic blueberries into organic strawberries... they look like some kind of sea creature or plant or something. Kind of. And organic sugar snap pea "seaweed," with organic carrot fishies cut with a mini fish cutter.

Floundering Around: I found a "Flounder"-looking fish cupcake pick in my collection, which was perfect. I stuck it in some alternating squares of white cheddar and Colby Jack cheeses, and put a few CoJack fish on top. (Same fish cutter as the carrots.) I pressed the cheese fish onto the stack, and they stayed in place really well. Same with the little cheese waves cut with a wave-shaped mini cutter. Pressed them down a bit and they stuck right to the box!

Yes, I know Sebastian is a hermit crab, but I don't have a hermit crab pick. But there was a lobster cupcake pick that looked very Sebastian-like! Yay!

Ariel: In this case, the small-ness of the gluten-free bread worked in my favor, as I was able to cut the bread pieces so that the break between the sandwich parts happened at the waist. And by using the mermaid cookie cutter at creative angles, I was able to get one tail and one torso from each slice, with very little waste! (Scraps went into a bag in the fridge. Gluten-free bread crumbs are hard to come by!)
I painted rough Ariel colors using my natural food colors and a cheap paintbrush (with plastic bristles to wash more easily, and prevent bacterial growth.) For this I was lazy and hadn't wanted to futz around with the little cheapie contact lens cases I keep in the fridge to mix colors and store lefovers, so I used a powdered colors kit from Chocolate Craft Kits that I found at Whole Foods. Which was probably more work, with trying to keep the jars dry while getting powder out and adding water. But whatever.

I used a cloth napkin folded up inside to try and keep everything more or less in place.

Once she got home, she ate pretty much everything but a few blueberries. I was thrilled. Sadly, they hadn't had snack at her morning school that day, so none of her teachers got to see it. Waaaaah! Good thing I have a blog to use to show off my efforts and stroke my ego!

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