Fruit. AGAIN. That was my initial response to my longtime friend who was hosting our bi-monthly multi-family evening. Usually the host makes dinner and the other two couples bring a side dish or dessert. The worst part was that it was my own children who condemned me. The other moms were happy to let me choose to bring a dessert or a fruit side dish. However, my children love the desserts the other mom makes. (She is a dessert queen, from layered jello to cookies that melt in your mouth, her desserts are amazing). Of course, I gave in and humbly accepted fruit as my contribution.

Never stay ordinary

My mind churning, I thought, well, there has to be something interesting I can do with fruit. I turned to Pinterest and was well rewarded with both simple and intricate ideas alike. I decided to tackle the VOMITTING JACK O’ LANTERN. It seemed doable and made the best use of fruit (without waste or me asking – pretty, but how do you eat that?). The best part was how it fit so well with Halloween.

The inspiration pictures used watermelons mostly, instead of pumpkins. I thought, why? Plus, I couldn’t find any watermelons. But there, on the fake grass display at the supermarket was a cantaloupe. What a perfect jack o’ lantern fruit with its burlap-like skin, green epidermis and orange inner flesh – creepy already. (And it was on sale)

Simple is better

The “vomit” is a combination of crowd-pleasing fruit – strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mandarin oranges, and of course the inside of the cantaloupe. The only really fancy thing I did to the fruit was to make a simple syrup for the orange slices so they wouldn’t dry out in the fridge. With sports games Saturday morning, this was a make-ahead-of-time dish and I had to think about preserving the cut fruits.

Use your tools

To carve the melon, I first started by drawing my facial features with chalk (much better than pencil for many things in my humble opinion, because it’s easier to remove and doesn’t indent what you are drawing on). I used squinty eyes like the vomiting emoji because it really captures the action of…well, vomiting. I put in a triangle nose in homage to the classic jack-o’-lantern and finished with an open mouth. I knew I wanted a two-layer mouth, complete with some carved teeth because teeth make all the difference. Then I broke out the pumpkin carving tools. Turns out those tiny saws which make no sense for huge pumpkins, are perfect melons. I strayed from jack-o’-lantern carving 101 in one other way – I cut a hole in the bottom of the melon, not the top. I wanted to hide the hole, and an added bonus is that my flicking jack-o-lantern light fit perfectly.

To finish it off, I placed it at the end of a tray and formed a vomit trail with cut fruit. Voila! This was a side dish, so I placed some plastic tongs on the tray too. If it had been for an appetizer table, I probably would have stuck toothpicks in the melon’s head-like hair and had people use those to stab the fruit. I love interactive hors d’oeuvres.

CREATE IT YOURSELF

DIY Steps

1. Decide on the right spot. Take your melon of choice and decide which area will be your face and top. Turn it upside down and cut a circle with a sharp knife. TIP: Don’t cut any of the front for best effect. Keep the circle more towards the back of the melon.
2. Scoop out the insides. The cantaloupe I used was much easier to open and clean than a pumpkin. I scooped out the seeds and used a tsp to remove curls of orange flesh. TIP: if you can’t fit your hand inside, make the hole bigger, especially by cutting the orange flesh inside at an angle. Or call a child helper. I did both.
3. Create your face. Turn your melon right side up. Draw your face with a piece of chalk. Make a mistake? Take a wet paper towel or washcloth to it. Presto. TIP: Start your design with the mouth. It needs to be open and is the most important part of a vomiting melon.
4. Carve your melon. I mostly used the tiny pumpkin carving knives and they worked great. For the teeth, I used what I think is called a scraper. It has a metal loop on either end that peels away the outer layer, leaving the inner one intact. I got all tools from common stores, no specialty tools were required.
5. Assemble at the party. I brought everything with me to the party since it was at another mom’s house. It took 2 minutes to place the cantaloupe at the far end of the platter (with a strobe jack-o-lantern light inside) and then scoop fruit onto the trail in a vomit trail. TIP: If this is on an appetizer table, add toothpicks to the top as hair for snackers to take and spear their fruit. And add some to the fruit as well.

Overall, this Cantaloupe jack-o-lantern fruit platter is just the type of playful, creative dish I love for entertaining families. It was a big hit and got more than a few smiles from the crowd. #WIN