3 Chick-Themed Easter Foods for Change-O-Phobes.

Easter Chick-themed Eats for the Change-O-Phobe// GenPink

It’s Easter! Which means I’ve been on the lookout for a new chick-themed decoration to incorporate into one of my family’s staple Easter dishes.

A little insight on my family is that we are BIG on consistency. Changing a recipe or swapping out ingredients to try something new is nothing short of frowned upon. We like our favorites and we don’t like them to change, especially for holiday meals. I think one year my mom accidentally grabbed shredded hash browns from the store instead of the diced hash browns she normally uses in our family’s favorite side dish, cheesy hash brown casserole. When she told us of the little purchase mistake, you would have thought she just told a room of kindergartners that Santa was not delivering presents anymore. Of course it was still delicious, but it was different. Gasp.

So how do you get creative without changing your recipes? Decoration and presentation of course! So, last year I decided to get creative with a way to decorate one of our side dishes & I plan on carrying this out again at this year’s Easter. So here are my 3 favorite chick-themed ways to decorate your Easter eats.

Easter Chick-themed Eats for the Change-O-Phobe// GenPink
Top Left: Chick-themed deviled eggs
Bottom left: Chick-themed cheesy potato casserole
Top Right: Chick-themed iced sugar cookies
*Photo courtesy of Bread Winners Cafe, a client of the company I work for.
Bottom right: Chick-themed sandwiches

(I threw in the bottom right chick-themed sandwich picture because I thought they were cute and seemed like an easy way to please some picky eaters but I have not actually made these….yet.)

1.Chick Deviled Eggs: Last year I volunteered to bring the deviled eggs. I had seen these made on Pinterest and just had to give them a try. Knowing my brother’s would not riot if these didn’t turn out exactly right; I wanted to experiment with the cute chick-theme idea. Here are a few tips if you decide to make these for your Easter celebration this year.
-Make sure you cut just a little off the top of the egg to make the little “hat” the chick is wearing. Set that piece aside and don’t mess with it until you put it on as the finishing touch. This piece is delicate and I had trouble ripping them in half.
-After you mix your favorite ingredients in with the yolks, refrigerate prior to piping back into the egg. If it is too warm, it will give you lots of droopy chick faces.
-Cut the ends of carrots off at an angle and then cut those in half to make the nose. Took me a while to figure out the best food to use. This held up the best and stayed in place.

2.Cheesy Potato Casserole Chick: For this year’s Easter celebration, I plan on making the cheesy potato casserole. In order to make it “chick-themed” I decided to put all my lactose intolerance issues aside and add more cheese! (I love cheese but my stomach does not. The sacrifices I make for cheese. Sigh.) Any cheesy potato casserole recipe will work for this because it’s all about the finishing touches. I wanted to bake my casserole in my 3-3/4 Quart Le Creuset oval baking dish because baby chicks are always oval shaped, of course. However, I only had a 9’ x 9’ baking dish to use, so I went the easy route and used what I had.
I then added 2 black olive halves as the eyes, 2 half-circle pieces of provolone cheese for the wings, a half-cup of crumbled cheez-its for the beak and then baby carrots for the feet! Here are a few tips if you decide to go cheese crazy and make this for your Easter celebration.
-Put all the chick-themed decorations on right before serving so your guests can see your cute creation before it melts into ooey-gooey yumminess.
-I happened to have and like provolone but you can use any cheese for the wings.
-I think an oval dish really would have made the difference in being able to tell that it was a baby chick. Here are a few places you can get an oval baking dish:

3.Chick-themed sugar cookies: One of my favorite desserts for any occasion happens to be sugar cookies. They are very easy to make and decorate like baby chicks. I always grab the Pillsbury, Create ‘n Bake refrigerated dough. It always turns out well and tastes yummy. Roll out the dough and cut out oval shapes before you bake. To create a feathered look, I get vanilla frosting and then cover the oval-shaped cookie in yellow sprinkles. I use M&M’s for the eyes and yellow gel frosting to draw on the little wings. However, if you are in a time crunch, there are a ton of local bakeries that make cute cookies and cupcakes for all occasions. The cookie pictured above is so delicious & my favorite chick theme. I may be new to the Dallas/Fort Worth area but i’m lucky enough to work with a company that has the best clients, like Bread Winners Cafe, to fulfill my sugar cookie addiction!

Happy Easter decorating!