Muffin Tin Monday - Olympic Edition

Have I mentioned yet how excited The Muffin is about the Olympics?  She is loving it - we've been taping little bits of sports she likes the sound of (gymnastics, equestrian dressage, diving), so that she can see them at a reasonable hour of the day, plus she's seen a few swimming races etc live, just before bedtime.  Every day she wants to check out the medal tally to see how all the countries are doing, and she's thrilled whenever Australia wins a medal (of any colour, which I'm pleased about).

So last week she had the following three weeks of Muffin Tin Monday all planned out.
Last week's theme was The Olympics:

Top Row(ish):  The Olympic Rings:  Blue (yoghurt with a little of it tinted blue and piped on in a ring shape);  Black (nori, surrounding the middle bit of cheese from the yellow ring);  Red (the cheek of an apple with the centre of the skin cut out);  Yellow (cheese);  Green (peas, supported by a buttered rice cake).

Bottom Row:  Gold Medal (see this post for how to make one);  Chicken & rice;  Olympic Torch (the torch is cheese, and the flame is made out of very thinly sliced carrot - this was The Muffin's idea).

The After Shot:

She didn't like the rice.  This was a flavoured rice that I bought in the hopes she would eat it because there was a very cute elephant on the front of the packet.  Well.  She tried it because there was a very cute elephant on the front of the packet, but apparently very cute packets do not sufficiently affect the flavour of the contents.  She did eat five peas (which was all I expected, really), and I knew in advance that she wouldn't touch the nori, I just couldn't think of anything else I could do in a hurry that was black.  So although there were a few leftovers, I do still consider this tin a success.

Now, on to This Week's Tin!  The theme The Muffin chose for this week is Countries.  I was a bit worried about this theme, because I was concerned I was going to end up having to cook six different meals in one night, in order to represent each country's cuisine.  In the end though, it wasn't too bad at all.  The dumplings steamed happily over the pasta water, and the chorizo was part of what Husband and I were having for dinner.  So the only thing I spent any time making especially for this was the (very quick and easy!) pasta sauce. 

To make the flags, I simply printed them out and stuck them onto toothpicks.  Here's what I came up with:

Top Row:  Bread & Vegemite, plus a few slices of Granny Smith apple (representing Australia - did you know the Granny Smith was first produced in NSW in Australia?  I didn't - see, MTM is educational!!;  Chorizo sausage (representing Spain);  Macaron (representing France).

Bottom Row:  Two steamed dumplings (representing China);  Ravioli with a tomato-based sauce and parmesan cheese (representing Italy);  Yoghurt with Maple syrup (representing Canada - I could have used a pikelet as the vehicle for the maple syrup I guess, but I thought there were already enough carbs in this meal, and no dairy.  So yoghurt won, despite not being particularly Canadian).

The After Shot:

'Nuff said.  She loved this meal.  The chorizo was a bit hot for her on its own though.

What did everyone else do for Muffin Tin Monday?  Find out over at The Muffin Tin Mom's blog!