This was part 2 of our Summer Camp at Hy-Vee. It was about taking care of the garden with watering and about the bug life in garden. We made butterflies, lady bugs, mud pies and a Veggie Pizza. Check out our recipes below.

Lady Bugs
Serves 6.

All you need:
6 Ritz crackers
1 (6 oz) container Laughing Cow light Swiss cheese
3 cherry tomatoes
8 black olives
Small bunch chives or cilantro
chia seeds (optional)

All you do:
1. Spread each cracker with Laughing Cow cheese and place on a plate.
2. Cut tomatoes in quarters and place 2 quarters on top of each cracker. Very finely chop 2 olives. Poke holes on tomato halves with a toothpick and fill holes with chopped olives to look like lady bug spots. Or try sprinkling some chia seeds
3. Place the remaining whole black olives on each cracker to make heads.
4. Place a few threads of chives or cilantro in each olive for antennae.

Spring Veggie Pizza
Serves 32.

All you need:
2 (8 oz each) pkg refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 (8 oz) tub Philadelphia cream cheese spread
1/2 cup Miracle Whip dressing
1 tsp dill weed
1/2 tsp onion salt
1 cup chopped sugar snap peas
1 cup quartered cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup sliced radishes
1/2 cup chopped yellow peppers
1/2 cup spiralized carrots
3 green onions, chopped

All you do:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Unroll dough; separate into four rectangles. Press onto bottom and up sides of 15-by-10-by-1-inch baking pan to form crust, firmly pressing seams and perforations together to seal.
3. Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until golden brown; cool.
4. Mix cream cheese spread, dressing, dill weed and onion salt until well blended. Spread onto crust; top with sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, radishes, yellow peppers, carrots and green onions. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before cutting to serve.

Source: kraftrecipes.com

No-Bake Mud Pies with Peanut Butter

All you need:
2 cups sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 cups oatmeal
1 tsp vanilla extract

All you do:
1. Combine sugar and cocoa in a medium saucepan. Whisk in milk. Add butter and bring to a full boil, stirring constantly.
2. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Do not let it burn.
3. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter, oatmeal and vanilla.
4. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper

Our next class is Saturday, July 25 at 10:00 am in the Club Room at Hy-Vee 84th and Holdrege. Email or call me to register!! Hope you can come. We will talk about harvesting the garden. The camp is designed for elementary age.

I wanted to share the recipe for the Garden Vegetable Muffins we made this morning in the Kids in the Garden Kitchen class. We first made spiralized zucchini noodles to put into our savory muffins with cheese and carrots. The kids also made Sand and Dirt Cups, Hungry Hummus Caterpillars and Watermelon Coolers. You can still join my next class on Saturday, June 20 at 10:00 am. Be sure to call first and register with me or customer service.

Vegetable Garden Muffins
Serves 12.

All you need:
2 cups grated or spiralized vegetables, such as zucchini, potato, sweet potato, carrot and squash. See photo for spiralized zucchini.
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1/2 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
To decorate and plant the seeds:
36 peas, divided (about 1/2 cup)
1 carrot, cut into 36 thin slices or spiralized or grated
12 small parsley stalks or broccoli
12 cherry tomatoes, halved, optional
Fresh basil leaves, optional

All you do:
1. Preheat oven 350 degrees.
2. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray.
3. In a large bowl, lightly combine vegetables, flour and cheese.
4. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, olive oil, milk and yogurt. Pour into vegetable mixture and stir until just combined.
5. Spoon evenly into the muffin tins. Top six with frozen peas and carrot slices on remaining six.
6. Bake 25 to 30 minutes.
7. When cool, insert parsley stalks into each carrot slice to represent carrot foliage.

If desired, place cherry tomatoes on each muffin before baking. After baking and cooling, insert basil to tomato-topped muffins to represent tomato leaves.

Activity: Eat and explore seeds. Sunflower seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds.