Edible Center Piece
- 1 packages Lil Smokies
- 1 Summer Sausage or Beef Stick
- 1 packages each red & yellow grape tomatoes
- 1 packages Cheese (I used med. & extra sharp cheddar)
- 1 pimentos
- 1 basket
- Loosely roll each piece of bacon & place it in a mini-muffin pan.
- Gently press each one down into the pan and spread to look like a rose.
- Bake for 30 minutes in a 350 oven.
- Take the "roses" out of the pan, drain all the grease and wipe pan clean.
- Put roses back in the pan & back in the oven for another 10-15 min.
- to crisp them up all over.
- Take a smokie, and cut it length wise about half way up.
- Turn it and make another cut so one end is quartered.
- Do this twice more so you have one end of the smokie with eight "fingers".
- In a skillet over med.
- - higher heat take one smokie at a time and hold it cut end down in the pan using a circular motion until the "fingers" spread apart.
- It should look like a little octopus.
- As you finish each one put it in the cup of a mini muffin pan to help it hold it's shape.
- When you have made all the smokie flowers you want put the pan in the oven with the bacon roses just long enough to heat them through.
- Take the summer sausage and cut it in rounds about 1/8" thick.
- Use your shape cutters, centered on the meat to cut the shapes leaving a frame.
- Slice the cheese 1/8" thick and cut the same shapes as the meat.
- Then use a melon baller to make some cheese balls.
- For each skewer start with at least one tomato or cheese ball as a support piece.
- You can put more, whatever looks best to you.
- Once you have a base assembled the way you like add one of the meat pieces.
- Bacon rose, meat cutouts, smokie orchid, etc.
- Finish each smokie with a pimento.
- Take one of the cheese shapes and slide it into a corresponding meat frame.
- Then take one of the skewers and insert it into the assembled piece starting at the bottom center and going about 1/3-1/2 the way into the cheese.
- When you have all the skewers you want assembled get your basket.
- In the bottom of the basket put something to poke the skewers into that will hold them in place.
- You can use floral foam, Styrofoam, cabbage, etc.
- I used 2 medium apples as that is what I had on hand that fit.
- Now arrange your skewers just like you would flowers, poking the skewers into the base material far enough to hold them firmly.
- Be creative and make it your own.
- It can be time consuming, but I had a lot of fun making it, and my family's reaction made it well worth the time.
sausage, yellow grape tomatoes, extra sharp, pimentos, basket
Taken from cookpad.com/us/recipes/365114-edible-center-piece (may not work)