Winter Penguin Paradise, in Cream Cheese

What do you get when you mix some black olives, carrots, and cream cheese?

Why, a idyllic Winter Penguin Paradise, that's what.

Yes, I seem to have too much time on my hands. But they are cute, and my husband convinced me that the idea wasn't "super lame". So I decided to try out a new appetizer, and, surprisingly enough, they came out just how they were supposed to!

First: Feet and beaks out of carrots. I found it worked best to slice the little beak-parts in half before you stuff their little penguin heads so that the olives hold them better.

Next: the olives.

I used "Super Colossal", "Colossal", and "Small". I whipped a pkg. of cream cheese in my Mr. Mixy Kitchen Aid mix master with a fiesta ranch dressing mix packet, put the cheese in a plastic baggie, and snipped off the end. To ready the olive bodies, hole side down, I cut out a little slice of olive (not going all the way through to the top). Then I piped the cheese into the olive, very easy. I don't know why I didn't take pictures of all this. Apparently I don't think my readers understand what a black olive looks like, but can't offer my wisdom when it comes to piping cheese into little bird bodies.

Roasted red pepper (from a jar) sliced into thin strips will become little scarves.

A Place to March: Tasty constructs a penguin habitat.

This was literally $2 and a lot of fun to make. I bought a thin piece of Styrofoam from Jo-Ann's (12"X36") and two pieces of 12"X12" pretty printed scrapbooking paper. The paper already had the winter scene in the background, and I just glued each piece onto Styrofoam and cut the "wall" and "floor" out and glued them together. Then I used the remaining 12"X12" piece to create the icebergs and for a couple of stand-up pieces. I dug out some stickers I had from years ago and used foam to make a sign on the "wall", a snowman, and a little red bird pop into 3-D action. I wrapped the plain Styrofoam icebergs in plastic wrap so the food wouldn't get little specks of foam on it.

For the cheese igloo:

I took a pkg. of cream cheese and a packet of fiesta ranch dressing mix and whipped it together. Then I folded in about a cup of cheddar cheese. I then molded into a brick shape and refrigerated for several hours. Then I cut into blocks, googled images of igloos, and then built one out of cheese (the best I could. admittedly, it needs some work on the design).

The finished product: