Recipe(tried): Cream Cheese Penguins

These little guys are SO cute. My teenage daughter made them last year for our New Year's Eve party, and they were a hit. The original recipe says you can add hats and scarves with pieces of red pepper. My daughter just added faces by using a toothpick to dot on cream cheese. We arranged them up on a snowy-white plate, and joked that all we needed was a baby polar bear.

Don't be tempted to cut short the toothpicks that hold the penguins together. It's safer if people know they are in there.

Happy New Year, everyone!

CREAM CHEESE PENGUINS

18 jumbo black olives, pitted
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
18 small black olives
1 carrot

Cut a slit from top to bottom, lengthwise, into the side of each jumbo olive. Carefully insert about 1 teaspoon of cream cheese into each.

Slice the carrot into 18 rounds, 1/4 inch thick. Cut a small notch out of each slice to form feet. Save the cut-out pieces and use them to press into the center of the small olives to form beaks (cut a small slit in the olive before inserting the beak, if necessary).

Set a big olive, large hole side down, onto a carrot slice. Then set a smaller olive onto the large olive, adjusting so the beak, cream cheese chest, and notch in the carrot slice line up. Secure with a toothpick.