Tomato Rose Garnish Adds Simple Elegance to Plate

Add a special touch to any dish with a simple garnish like a tomato rose bud in this picture of a Caprese salad below. One of my fans made this after watching one of my how to videos on fruit carving and vegetable garnishing. Watch the video here: Tomato Rose Bud Garnish

Apple Turtle Fruit Carving Garnish

Found this cute apple fruit garnish on YouTube and thought I would share, very easy to follow although there are no words.

Follow Chef Linny on Pinterest

Make sure you are following me on Pinterest :)

Visit Chef Linny's profile on Pinterest.

Monster High Fruit Carving

Monster High theme fruit bowl carving I did for my niece's birthday party two weeks ago.

Ariel and Flounder Watermelon Carving

This is a photo of a watermelon fruit carving I did last weekend of Ariel and Flounder in a underwater seen with the number 4 for the birthday girl.

 

 

Watermelon Carving Video Lesson - How To Make A Baby Carriage Fruit Bowl

 

Watermelon fruit bowl baby carriage, not only is it a great baby shower food idea but doubles as a table decoration too! Please subscribe to me on YouTube and share my videos to your friends.

 

Here is what the project looks like finished:

 

Holiday Fruit Carving Ideas - Snowman Fruit Bowl

It is the time of year we all start thinking about getting a little more creative and for most people the holidays are about food and family. So in that spirit I will be posting fruit carving and food art inspired projects for holiday gatherings all month! 

 

So here is my first holiday fruit carving idea which is a simple snowman fruit bowl made out of 3 mini watermelons of varying sizes. Watermelon balls for the eyes, melon wedge for the nose and blueberries for the mouth. Decorate your fruit bowl snowman with the normal snowman accessories like a top hat, a scarf and twig arms!

Carving 3D Faces Into Pumpkins

 

 

My first pumpkin of the year, I am practicing my 3D face carving skills!

Cat In The Hat Fruit Carving

This is a Cat In The Hat watermelon carving I did recently for a birthday party.

Also, thank you to everyone who voted for my Hello Kitty watermelon carving last month, I am happy to say I received 3rd place!

 

 

Fruit Carving - Hello Kitty Watermelon Carving

Did this Hello Kitty watermelon carving over the weekend for my niece's 6th birthday party:

Learn To Carve Fruit Videos

If you want to learn to carve fruit, check out my YouTube videos for some easy beginner projects:

Learn To Carve Fruit Videos

The pictures below are a couple examples of the fruit carving video lessons you will find there.

Fruit Carving Video Lesson - Apple Leaf Plate Garnish

Just posted a video on Youtube on how to make these apple leaf plate garnishes, watch the Fruit Carving Apple Leaf Lesson. While you are there, don't forget to subscribe to my channel!

Mothers Day Fruit Carving

I hope everyone had a Happy Mothers Day!

Frozen Fruit Dessert Maker - Fruit Sorbet

I want one!!

You add frozen fruit into the machine and out comes a fruit sorbet that looks like soft serve ice cream. I think this is neat because I always have leftover fruit and this would be a new way to eat it!

Fruit and Vegetable Carving For Valentine's Day

Here are two video tutorials I did last year for Valentine's Day:

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Roses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J0TnOFyboU

Vegetable Garnishes For A Romantic Salad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2LOjx5wgo

I hope they give you romantic dinner ideas!

My 3D Pumpkin Carving Experiments

Sorry I did not post my fall fruit carving pictures sooner, I just was overall not happy with my pumpkin carvings especially the 3D aspect I tried to jump into :-(

This was my most recent attempt at a 3D pumpkin carving, a spooky tree and mini jack o lantern. I payed a little more attention to the weight vs size of the pumpkin as to pick a dense feeling gourd to ensure thicker walls to work with.
It looked really good with the light in it but the photo does not do it justice.

This is something silly I did on the back of my first pumpkin after I realized the walls were to thin to do do what I originally wanted to do.




So I wanted to carve a 3D face in my pumpkin but I did not do a good job picking it out and the walls were too thin to really get enough depth.

Looking evil

The positive news is I found this great de-seeder / scraper meant for pumpkins but I think will work for honeydews and cantaloupe too! It worked so fast and easy, it really took the hassle of taking the seeds and stringy mush out!



The other great result of me carving is pumpkins seeds, I love making roasted pumpkin seeds(and I hate wasting any part of food that you can use)! This is a batch I roasted with olive oil and salt but I also make a sweet version with sugar and pumpkin pie spices.

Next year I want to get one of the speckled or striped pumpkins like the one in the lower left corner ;-)

Happy Halloween everyone!

The Great Pumpkin Search Has Ended - Pumpkin Carving To Follow!

After calling around for 2 hours trying to find a pumpkin at a local farmers market with no luck and then asking everyone I know that lives near me if they have seen a pumpkin patch .... nothing! I was completely bummed, I want to carve a pumpkin!!

The very next day, I drove past the very first farmer market that I had called and they had tons of them ... yippie!

I am hoping to carve at least one a week until Halloween, check back for pics!

I want to get one of these big boys!

Pumpkin Carving Inspiration

3 months … that is how long it has been since I posted anything on this Fruit Carving and Vegetable Carving blog (or any of my other blogs either!)! During the peak of the summer season when perfectly ripe watermelon, cantaloupes and honeydews beg to be shaped into something new and awesome … well, I was recovering from having my torn shoulder muscles sewn back together, which coupled with the post surgery therapy was a very painful couple of months!!

But enough of the negative in the past, looking forward to the fall season including the cooler weather as well as PUMPKINS TO CARVE!! I watched two shows on Food Network Sunday night that really got me itching to carve a pumpkin. First, they showed a repeat from 2010 of a “Pumpkin Challenge” that was pretty cool and I don’t remember seeing last year. Than the have a new series called “Halloween Wars” which is a four week elimination competition that has 5 teams of three people; one pumpkin carver, one sugar/candy maker and one baker. The teams have to add all three elements on to one show piece for each challenge and at the end of each episode one team is eliminated. I was pretty sure I was going like it but I really loved it! The professional carvers on the show are awesome and I love seeing their fast action techniques and what tools they use. In fact, I was surprised to see that all of the carvers used completely different tools than one another …. expensive Thai style carving knifes, run of the mill paring knifes, exacto knifes, chef knifes, etc. Of course I also enjoyed the candy and cake aspect of the challenge too but I was just excited to see great fruit carving on Food Network!!

Anyways, I have tons of ideas now all I need to do is find someone selling pumpkins this early!!

Happy Carving!

Create n Carve Event Roundup

Thanks to everyone who sent in their fruit carving pictures and vegetable carving photos in participation with this event! If anyone is interested, the July event is being hosted here: http://simplysara07.blogspot.com/2011/07/create-n-carve-fruit-and-vegetable.html

These first 4 photos are fruit, veggie and candy arrangements for a graduation party

by Qamar Khan

Watermelon Basket by Soujanya

Rose Flower with Cucumber by Soujanya

Honeydew Bunny by Soujanya

Stork by Vardhini Balasubramanian

Cantaloupe Seahorse by Rita Loccisano

Watermelon Rose by Nayna

Triple Rose by Nayna

Double Rose by Nayna

Carrot and Apple Roses by Nayna

Melon Tower by Carved Memories

Beach Scene by Melissa Eschbaugh

Watermelon Flower by Katq Sabeva

Watermelon Carving by Harika

Hello Kitty Watermelon by Selena

June Create n Carve - Fruit and Veg Event

I am very happy to be hosting the June Create n Carve Event on my blog! It was started by Nayna of Simply.Food a couple of months ago and has be getting bigger and better every month! It is not a contest, just a challenge to find something to new to carve and share the pictures. At the end of the month I am going to post all the photos on my blog. It is really fun, because you get to see the progress of your fellow bloggers and fruit carving lovers from month to month ... won't you join us? ;-)

So here is how it works ... First, find something to carve!

I have a couple step by step fruit carving and garnishing videos (to give you some basic ideas) on my YouTube channel here: Fruit Carving Videos or sign up for my email newsletter and get fruit and vegetable carving projects sent to your inbox.

Also there is a huge list on the Simply.Food blog that has tons of how to videos: http://simplysensationalfood.blogspot.com/p/fruit-and-vegetable-carving-tutorials.html


Next, post your photo on your blog, this is your entry into this event. Entries must include:
• Use of Create n Carve logo as it promotes the event
• Multiple entries and Archived entries allowed if re posted
• Link back event to both of the following pages:
http://simplysensationalfood.blogspot.com/p/simplyfood-events.html
http://learntocarvefruit.com

Last, send me an email linda@learntocarvefruit.com and make sure that it has the following:

Name:
Blog Name:
Post Name:
Post URL:
Image no larger than 300 pixels as attachment.

Hey, if you are into that Facebook thing like me, come check out the event I posted on there and click that you are attending :-)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191295140923125