Pinterest is of my favorite sites.  It is a great idea generator.  Although I’ve been using it for years, I made a rookie mistake – I let my daughter on it!  My daughter had started Kindergarten and she was excited for her first class party.  At the beginning of the year I signed up to bring  a healthy treat to the party, but honestly had no ideas.  Historically I don’t have much of a track record for combining healthy with Halloween.  My husband can attest to the year I tried to give out raisins in a ‘take one’ bucket as we weren’t going to be home to pass out candy.  He swears we came home to a bowl with more raisin boxes than when we left.  Lesson learned.  Well maybe, because clearly I signed myself to fail again.

Out of lack of ideas I turned to Pinterest.  I was showing my daughter some ideas, when the inevitable distraction occurred, leaving my daughter to her own on Pinterest.  When I came back she had the amazing idea to make fruit filled jack o’lanterns out of clementine shells.  WHAT?

I started by cutting off the top 1/4 of the clementines.  Using a melon baller, I scooped out the clementine guts and set aside.  I left the shells out on the counter to dry overnight.  I’m not certain if this step is necessary, but since I had no idea what I was doing, I took the extra step.  The morning of the party I filled the jack o’lanterns with mixes berries and sliced bananas.  Another easy idea would be grapes, but you can really use any fruit.

P.S. I took the clementine that I had scooped out and set aside and juiced it into sweet clementine juice for an a special morning treat with breakfast, which also doubled as a hidden vitamin C boost heading into cold a flu season.

This project really got me in a Halloween spirit – pun intended – so I took it one step further with making these Stuff Pepper Jack O’lanterns for dinner.  Click here for directions.

Happy Halloween!