While planning July’s monthly menu at school, I wanted to include some fun and patriotic recipes for my kiddos, so I did what any one would do these days, and I check out Pinterest for some 4th of July recipe inspiration. I saw all sorts of great ideas, and decided to make Red, White and Blue Fruit Skewers with Creamy Homemade Vanilla Fruit Dip as well as some Red, White and Blue Fruit “Salad” (i use the term salad very loosely) to top my kiddos cereal at breakfast.

These fruit skewers are very easy to make, and are a great activity to do with your kids. If you’re worried about your kiddos poking themselves with skewers, or the skewers being unsafe, try using plastic drinking straws (like in the pictures below), or what I think works better than anything – bamboo chopsticks (pick them up from your favorite Chinese restaurant next time you order in).

I used “star-mallows” in place of regular marshmallows for this recipe. Around this time of year, you can find them with the rest of the marshmallows in your local grocery store. The star-mallows added an extra bit of flair to these patriotic fruit skewers, but feel free to use any kind of marshmallows you have on hand. I also used strawberries and blueberries for this recipe, but any fruits really work – use your favorites. Raspberries make a great substitution, or addition to the strawberries. Use your favorite red, white and blue fruits to make these fruit skewers unique, and your own.

Red, White and Blue Fruit Skewers and Creamy Homemade Vanilla Fruit Dip Recipe

Ingredients:

For Fruit Skewers:
plastic drinking straws or bamboo chop sticks
strawberries
blueberries
marshmallows

For Creamy Vanilla Fruit Dip:
1, 3.4oz box instant vanilla pudding
2 cups vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup whipped cream cheese
1/4-1/2 cup milk

Directions:

Start by making the fruit dip. With a whisk, combine, vanilla pudding, yogurt and cream cheese in a large bowl until well mixed. Slowly mix in milk until desired consistency – I used 1/2 cup.

To make the fruit skewers, start by prepping your fruit. I used the bamboo chopstick to poke a hole in the middle of each of my blueberries and strawberries. The bamboo chopstick was the perfect size hole for sliding my fruit on the straw. If you’re just using chopsticks, skip this step and just skewer your fruit. To prepare strawberries, cut the stem off the of top, and with a small paring knife, cut a small slice off of your strawberry (see pictures below).

The purpose of cutting a small slice off of the strawberries is so that they lay flat. If you really don’t care if your fruit skewers lay flat on a plate or not, skip this step, and just skewer the berries on your straw or chopstick.

Start assembling fruit skewers. I started and ended with a marshmallow, because it holds on the fruit, but feel free to assemble your fruit skewers however you wish! Like I mentioned above, this is a great task for kids to help with, and can be a fun 4th of July activity.