Autumn is a wonderful time of the year when nature gives people a rich harvest of vegetables, fruits, berries. This material is not only for culinary delights, but also for the embodiment of creative ideas. Indeed, from the gifts of nature, you can create real handmade masterpieces. Crafts from vegetables can be exhibited at the autumn fair to lure customers. And advertising, as everyone knows, is the engine of trade.
Children also love to create from products. Schools often hold contests for the best DIY vegetable crafts. Works are done by both junior high school students and high school students. Of course, the works of children of different ages will significantly differ in the complexity of the compositions, but both of them can be interesting to the viewer and original.
In our article, we will consider several interesting crafts made from vegetables; both simple and complex works will be presented. We will tell mothers who cannot teach a child to eat vegetables, how to lure a baby with their effective arrangement on a plate. We will also help housewives to learn how to serve vegetables on the festive table in an original way so that they become the decoration of the entire feast.
What is carving?
The art of carving from vegetables and various fruits originated in Asian countries many centuries ago. Now carving is taught to children from 11 years old in all Asian schools. Such a popularity of this art is associated in these countries with a small variety of food. To decorate rice and vegetables, people came up with carving figures and characters from them. Crafts from vegetables visually pleased the eye of the eater.
Residents of Europe were not immediately interested in such a design of dishes, because they did not suffer from uniformity anyway. The table of the European contained not only vegetable food, there was meat, and fish, and poultry. Therefore, more recently, in connection with the development of a network of elite restaurants, culinary art and the need to attract visitors, European masters began to engage in carving.
How can I cut figures from vegetables?
To create crafts from vegetables with your own hands, use a sharp knife. There are elements that are cut with straight scissors, but it is believed that the best tool is a Thai knife. If you decide to make an ornament, cut a bouquet of flowers, then you will need special knives that have V-shaped, square or serrated blades.
In order to create thin plates of vegetables, use a vegetable cutter. When round balls are needed to create a composition, then you need to take a spoon-noisette. There are also knives that make lateral grooves on the peel. But all this will be needed if you seriously decide to do such work in large quantities, for example, if you are a cook in a restaurant.
If you just do crafts at a school exhibition or decide to decorate a child’s dish, then there is enough a sharp knife and vegetable cutter in every house. Details of voluminous crafts fasten together with toothpicks.
Kids work
Children's crafts made of vegetables are quite simple. If parents want to tell which figure can be made, then it will be enough to show the child this photo. You can verbally discuss how to perform it, but he must do the craft on his own. Many adults try to impose their help. This is a “bear service”, as the children become passive and expect their mother to do everything for them.
There is nothing complicated in this paper. The machine from the cucumber is made by cutting in the middle of the hole for the driver. Its role is played by cherry tomato, you can use radish. The eyes of the driver are made by cutting out small holes into which pieces of parsley root or onion are inserted. Black dots are usually made from pieces of olive.
The wheels are represented by slices of another cucumber, which are held on toothpicks. Instead, you can cut carrot or thick radish into circles, cut them from pumpkin or zucchini. So the work will look brighter, as there will be a variety of colors.
Mr. Potato Head
You can create a popular American toy and a cartoon character on your own and in your own kitchen. You will need one large potato, green salad pepper, several radishes, a sprig of parsley and one thin elongated potato. To hold parts using toothpicks.
In order to keep such an original craft made of vegetables in an upright position, the first thing you need to do is to emphasize the big potatoes from two halves of thin potatoes, sitting them down on the toothpicks. If the craft is still unstable, then you can cut the bottom of the vegetable, creating a flat surface. So that the product does not darken, it is sprayed with lemon juice.
Several strips are cut from green pepper and strengthened instead of ears and eyebrows. Eyes and mouth are radishes. In the photo, the nose is made of lemon, but if the whole craft should already be made of vegetables, then it can well be replaced with carrots. The character's hair is represented by a sprig of parsley inserted into the hole on the top of the head.
Pink Elephant
Since the elephant is a big animal, the craft will be quite voluminous. You will need red cabbage, beets with a long tail, four eggplant for legs. On the cabbage from the back, beets are attached to the stalk with toothpicks. Her tail serves as the trunk of an elephant. The ears of an elephant are made by bending the extreme two leaves of cabbage.
Eggplant legs are pre-processed. The top with sepals and tail is cut off. Cabbage is put on even cuts on wooden skewers. The eyes are represented by beans. Pupils can be drawn with a marker.
Fun learning
When preparing a child for school, you can not only cram letters, forcing children to read the ABCs, but also add a playful moment to learning by cutting letters from vegetables. Make them from potatoes. Letters are created voluminous. This task is for the parents of the baby. How to play with such an original alphabet, we will tell further.
Game task number 1. Using ink or carrot juice, you need to print the word spoken by my mother on paper.
Didactic game "What is gone?" A few letters are laid out on the table (up to 10). The child should look at and remember them carefully for a short period of time. Then the baby closes his eyes, and the mother hides one letter. After his eyes open, he must name what was gone. The game develops not only memory and attention, but also helps to remember letters in a playful way.
Task number 2. On the sheets of paper painted any subject picture. Under each of them, the child must print its name.
Task number 3. Collect the word from the letters on the table.
There are a lot of options for drawing up exercises, fantasize, read pedagogical literature, and diversify tasks for your child yourself.
Vegetable monkey
What if the child does not want to eat vegetables at all? No matter how you explain to him about the benefits of vitamins, nothing helps. There is a wonderful method to teach a child to eat vegetables, and even with a smile. This is carving from vegetables. Read the master class below. Such a funny monkey can make any mother, and subsequently a child of school age.
It will take cucumber, carrots, olives, corn, cherry tomatoes. Start making crafts from the head. This is cherry cut in half. Nearby on a plate are the ears and the lower part of the head from round slices of cucumber. The body is represented by a long vertical strip of cucumber. Hands, feet, tail and eyes are cut out of carrots.
Instead of palms put corn kernels. Eyes and nose - slices of olives. If you give the child as a salad vegetables in this form, then he will definitely eat everything.
Owl made of vegetables
On one dish, a lot of vegetables can be laid out on the festive feast, having decorated them in an original way. We used small sweet carrots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, salad pepper. The eyes of an owl are made of two identical glasses with a sauce in which small whole tomatoes are dipped.
The body of an owl is collected from sliced cucumbers, on both sides of which are laid small tomatoes. The paws are made of short carrots folded in rays. The tousled head is also made of sharp edges of small carrots. But the feathers of the wings - from sliced strips of salad pepper.
Bouquet of vegetables
To create such a composition, large vegetables are chosen, from which large dense circles can be cut. This is beetroot, pumpkin, celery root. The middle is made of contrasting colors. For work, use special knives for carving.
As a vase, you can use pumpkin or melon. Set cut flowers on wooden skewers that stick into the base at different angles. A sprig of fresh bay leaves add greens to a bouquet of vegetables.
Flower for dinner
You can serve beautiful vegetables not only on holidays or try for a child. It’s easy to create beauty with your own hands for a regular everyday dinner. It is enough to cut cucumbers into slices, wash the cherry tomatoes, peel the carrots and chop the radish.
It is not necessary to use celery as stalks. Many do not like him, but the green onion is more familiar to the inhabitants of our country. Use broccoli to taste.
Professional bouquet
If you are a fan of carving, we can offer a more complex bouquet consisting of chopped vegetables. Different knives will be needed. It is advisable to select vegetables that are dense. For flowers used carrots, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, pumpkin. Leaflets were cut from the skin of cucumbers and pumpkins.
Tomatoes are cut in two ways. The first - the peel is cut in a spiral, forming the shape of a rose. The second method is to cut the peel into sectors and separate them from the main to the middle. Each petal is cut along the edges by strips.
The onion is peeled and cut in half. Then the layers are separated, and each separately at the edges is decorated with triangular notches. Then the layers are folded back together with a shift by half the triangle. Round pieces of brighter vegetables - carrots or pumpkins - are inserted in the middle of the flowers. Decorate them with knife sliced cells.
Carrots and pumpkins are cut out by cylinders and each centimeter is cut into sectors. You can do the work from a single piece, or you can make a flower from several separate elements.
Cucumber is cut with a sharp knife, separating the vegetable flesh in layers. Leaflets form an elongated shape. Each element is decorated in a unique way so that the leaves look different.
Beginner Tips
Those who want to do carving for themselves, providing a beautiful and original presentation of dishes for holidays or family dinners, can give some important recommendations.
- Vegetables are best used seasonal. They are more dense and juicy. Their colors are brighter and richer than those that have been stored for a long time.
- For work, absolutely any vegetables that can be consumed fresh are suitable - tomatoes and cucumbers, carrots and beets, salad peppers of different colors and shapes, radishes, parsley root and celery. In addition to vegetables, fruits and berries can be used.
- If you create a simple table decoration that will not be eaten, then connect the potatoes and pumpkin, eggplant.
- So that the potatoes and eggplants do not darken, the slices must be wiped with lemon juice.
- For autumn crafts from vegetables, it is advisable to take dense vegetables without a soft core. Tomatoes are chosen with the least amount of seeds.
Start small with the simple options given in the article. For the performance of such work does not need special knives, which are expensive. A sharp and thin knife, scissors and a vegetable cutter will suffice. Attract to the crafts of children. It is very exciting!