It’s the season of love, and hearts are everywhere! We have some great ideas on how to turn food you have in the house into sweet hearts for Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day or any day you want to show some love. All of these heart garnishes are simple, quick to make and look super creative and fun!
Heart-Shaped Strawberries
Directions: Slice a strawberry into thirds. Using the end pieces, take a paring knife and cut a “V” shape at the top. Sometimes this is enough to make a great heart-shape. If yours still isn’t hearty enough, use the paring knife to trim the outside edges of the strawberry into a more uniform heart.
Heart-Shaped Cherry Tomatoes
Directions: Find two cherry tomatoes that are approximately the same size and shape. The longer the cherry tomatoes are the better your heart will be. Diagonally cut away 1/4 to 1/3 of the tomato at a 45 degree angle. Combine the larger pieces with the seeded side together and pierce them with a toothpick to keep them in their heart-shape.
For extra cuteness make the toothpick look like an arrow. Here’s how to make the fletching (yeah, we didn’t realize it was called that either!). Cut a piece of white paper into a 3/4 inch square. Fold the paper in half and the cut the ends at an angle to make a parallelogram (for a feathered edge cut additional notches just before the fold). Glue your arrow end, or fletching, to the toothpick
Heart-Shaped Apples, Pears & Melons
Directions: You’ll need a heart-shaped cookie cutter for this. Cut a piece of fruit that is larger than your cookie cutter and about 1/4 inch thick. Press cookie cutter into slice of fruit, and voila, instant heart-shaped garnish! Put a bunch together on a skewer for a delicious snack to go with that cocktail.
Heart-Shaped Lemon Peel
Directions: Grab your vegetable peeler and peel a large section of lemon. Then, with a paring knife trim the edges so you have a smooth rectangle. Next, starting a half inch down from the edge you’ll want to cut the strip in half. The connected end will be the bottom of the heart, take the other two ends and connect them to be the top of the heart. Once you have the shape you like, push a toothpick through the top of the heart to hold the shape together. You can use this technique with limes, oranges and grapefruit too!
That pink cocktail looks delicious! It’s a Cranberry Gin Sour Cocktail, here’s the recipe.
