Party food ideas for 2 / 3 year olds!

LorDar

My eldest son is 3 this w/end & I want to serve healthy food to the children at his party.

Bearing in mind there will be very few children there - 7 at most - ranging from 1year to 3 years and the visiting children are from very healthy eating families (we're not too bad - but they are very healthy). I want to serve healthy party food, but also stuff that doesn't require much prep - this is my list so far:
Apples, grapes, mini-babybel cheese, raisins, dried apricots, Glenisk frommage frais, funny-shaped sandwiches (herein lies my problem!) - oh yes and some Rice Krispie buns we're going to make tonight!

Does anyone have any recommendations for what I should put in the sandwiches? My two just usually have cheese or ham - but I don't think the visitors will eat ham & want to serve more than cheese.
Any other ideas? Especially for this age group?

Also, if anyone has any other ideas on what would be good to serve please let me know - Thanks!
Am I worrying too much? I know the children will probably end up eating nothing except the RK buns!

corkcomp

salad sandwiches are always great and they are lovely on brennans wholemeal bread (which actually doesnt taste bad) - lettuce, red onion, tomatoes, spring onion, eggs and mayo ...

anniehoo

Maybe get some dough cutters in funny shapes (stars,hearts,bears etc) will make them look like a fun thing to eat for the kids.
Cheese and grape kebabs
"Funny milk"-normal bainne with some food colouring
Boiled eggs with faces drawn on the shells (eggmen?)

LorDar

Thanks for the suggestions.
Don't think my children will eat the salad sambos - but egg is a good idea!!

I bought shaped cookie cutters - dinosaurs, stars, hearts & regular round ones - hopefully that will encourage them to eat!

anniehoo - I love the idea of drawing faces on boiled eggs, may have to also try that one!

anniehoo

LorDar wrote: »

anniehoo - I love the idea of drawing faces on boiled eggs, may have to also try that one!

You could make a game out of it...like (this may be a bit violent though) Break the face of the eggmen...throw them at a wall and see which one comes out worse..could be fun!Seein as theyre boiled there wouldnt be much mess!

Pigletlover

I'm organising a kids birthday party myself this weekend so I was looking through some old Easy Food magazines. They had traffic light sandwiches - slices of bread cut into rectangles with a ring of gherkin, cheese and halved cherry tomatoes pressed into the bread to look like traffic lights. I also seen oranges with some of the fruit scooped out and filled with jelly instead and cut into wedges.

You could make little pizzas too - minni pittas spread with tomato puree and cheese, maybe arrange the toppings to look like faces, easy to prepare in advance and will only take a few minutes in the oven on the day. As an alternative to sandwiches, the day before the party you could spread wraps with the fillings of your choice (chicken/ham/grated cheese/tomato/egg/may/whatever!), roll up and leave in the frdg overnight. To serve just cut into inch thick slices for bite size portions.

mags16

Pizzas are a great idea. I was at a child's birthday party and the mum had made pizza bases. Each child had to design their own pizza using a variety of toppings - corn, ham, cheese, anything you like. They made their pizzas look like crazy picasso type faces. The pizzas were then baked and voila, the kids had made their own dinner. And there was a prize for the best pizza.

LorDar

Well the party is over now & I think it went quite well. In the end decided to go with the easiest options - and it turned out that 2 and 3 years old aren't all that interested in food at a party, they just wanted to run around and play with balloons!!
So, served wraps with cheese and spinach, rolled up & cut into bite size pieces, and also some brown bread sandwiches with ham & used cookie cutters to make stars, hearts etc.... I displayed them all surrounded by grapes & apple slices. I also laid out a few crisps & some marshmallows.
Overall it worked well, whenever the children were taking some of the sweets they had to also take some fruit or a sandwich.

Thanks for all the suggestions - I'll keep them in mind for next year!