A colorful food mural inspired by the book Maybe Something Beautiful.

This month’s theme for Family Dinner Book Club is Creativity, and our lead book is Maybe Something Beautiful by F. Isabel Campoy. Here you’ll find a menu that can be prepared with the help of your children, as well as festive table decorations. Head over to Growing Book by Book for a full reading list of books about Honesty. Then visit Sunny Day Family for family activity ideas. We invite you to share a picture from your dinner with us anytime during the month on our Family Dinner Book Club Facebook or Instagram page!

Maybe Something Beautiful is a lovely and colorful book about a little girl who brings art to her neighborhood and gets everyone involved in the painting of a mural. This book is based on a true story, which I think makes it even more inspiring.

I wanted to use food as art since this book is all about art. It is also all about community, and what better way to marry the two than with a big food mural?! My dream for this month’s Family Dinner Book Club is that you have a big neighborhood party with lots of food, lots of color, and lots of community.

We vacationed recently with my best friend’s family and it was the perfect time to set out my mural. The kids loved watching me create it as much as they loved eating it! The littlest ones could barely be kept away before I had a chance to photograph it all.

Let’s talk about everything we see here! The rainbow is made of all fruit. You absolutely could do a mix of fruits and vegetables, or a vegetable-only rainbow. I stuck with fruit because I knew it would for sure all be eaten, and I incorporated vegetables into the mural in a different way.

Fruit Rainbow! Here is a list of the various fruits you can use for each color of the rainbow. They are not all pictured because I was not able to find each one. What you have access to will depend on the time of year and your location.

Red: strawberries, watermelon, cherries, raspberries, apples, plums, pomegranates.
Orange: cantaloupe, oranges, papaya, apricots
Yellow: pineapple, mango, bananas, star fruit, pears, lemons, apples
Green: kiwi, honeydew melon, grapes, limes, pears,
Blue: blueberries, blackberries, elderberries
Purple: grapes, plums

How to assemble a rainbow fruit salad. I used white butcher paper and lightly sketched a wavy rainbow shape using a pencil. There are 6 colors in the rainbow, so keep that in mind when sketching your stripes or arches. You can sketch a “normal” rainbow shape, you can sketch a circle, a wavy partial arch as I did here. The sky’s the limit! A star shaped fruit rainbow would be pretty cool.

Next, prep your fruits. Wash and dry everything, chop the fruits you want chopped, peel and section oranges, remove grapes from stems or portion them into smaller sections, remove pits if desired. I like a variety of sizes and textures. So I left some of the pineapple in the peel with the stem. I peeled and sectioned some oranges, but left others whole, I chopped some mango and left some as sectioned halves, etc. The more variety you have, the more appealing your finished piece will be.

Hummus Sun. Set out a bowl of hummus and surround it with pita bread wedges and bell pepper wedges.
Flowers. Baked Corn Dog Bites (recipe below) surround dipping cups of mustard and ketchup, with sugar snap pea stems.
Butterflies. Slice salami in half, then flip the halves and overlap the rounded edges to create the wings. A strip of carrot finishes the body.
Birds. Bake chocolate chip cookies and then use a pairing knife to make bird shapes. A bird-shaped cookie cutter would be even easier.

Maybe Something Beautiful
Family Dinner Book Club
Menu
Rainbow Fruit Salad
Hummus
-serve with pita and bell peppers
Baked Corn Dog Bites (recipe below)
Salami Butterflies
Chocolate Chip Cookie Birds

Yield: 3 dozen

Baked Corn Dog Bites Recipe

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Print

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 3 hot dogs

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400F and grease a mini muffin pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs well, then whisk in the milk, butter, and honey.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix to combine well.
5. Fill the mini muffin cups halfway up with batter. There will be enough batter to make about 1 1/2 batches.
6. Cut the hot dogs into 1/2 inch rounds and place 1 round into the center of each muffin.
7. Bake until the cornbread is golden brown and a wooden pick inserted comes out clean, about 12-15 minutes.