A school of fish: Bunny Celebration

Friday, January 10, 2014

Bunny Celebration

What a celebration it was! Abe and Seb helped me figure out place settings. Bunny ears and bowls made cute heads, and Abe taped some of those little glass beads (you know, the ones you use inside vases) on for eyes. Cute!

We all wore our ears during dinner, of course.

Even Marigold.

Peter Rabbit dishes I got years ago, at Beatrix Potter's house (Hill Top) in England

We put out all our bunny things on the table. That tiny brown ball on the white plate at center is a whole nutmeg seed with ears drawn onto it. Seb made it to represent our bunny Nutmeg :) And the little blue plate on the lazy susan is Nutmeg's plate of parsley (this celebration was in his honor, after all)

Our menu was all bunny-themed, of course

The bunny sweet roll recipe is here. I can't believe I haven't posted the recipe for vegetable bars before! It's one of our very favorite recipes. I'll put it into a separate post too. And the carrot-and-celery soup, also one of our favorites, is as follows:

Carrot and Celery Soup

1 med. onion, chopped

1-2 c. diced carrots

1-2 c. diced celery

1/4 c. butter

1/4 c. flour

1 1/2 T. cornstarch

1/2 t. paprika

1 t. salt

dash of pepper

2 c. chicken broth

About 4 c. milk

1-2 c. grated cheddar cheese

Fresh parsley

Saute the onions, celery, and carrots in the butter until the onions are transparent. Add flour, cornstarch, paprika, salt, and pepper. Add chicken stock and cook over medium heat until vegetables are soft (about 5 minutes in pressure cooker). Puree mixture with a hand blender until only small bits of vegetable remain, or as desired. Add milk and keep heating, but don't boil. Taste to correct seasoning. Just before serving, stir in shredded cheese and parsley.

I thought these bunny salads were our masterpieces. The bunny bodies are pear halves, set on a bed of lettuce. They were inspired by a picture I saw here, but I don't think the ones pictured are very cute. Too bug-eyed and toothy! And the almond ears are too small (unless you're making Netherland Dwarf bunnies, which we weren't). So we cut our ears out of apples and stuck chocolate chips on for eyes and noses (we would have used raisins if we'd had any on hand). The tails are mini marshmallows (cottage cheese would have been cute, but again . . . we were out). And Seb made the baby carrots out of . . . baby carrots. With parsley sprigs stuck into them.

For the top of the cake, we just cut out a bunny stencil shape from paper, then sprinkled toasted coconut into it. Seb made the little carrot for the bunny to eat.