Serves 3-4 people, prep time less than 20 minutes.

Healthy Recipes for Kids: Pasta Birds Nests

Healthy Pasta Birds Nests for Kids Ingredients

1/2 stick butter, softened

1 tsp garlic paste or one crushed clove of garlic

1 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp onion salt

12 oz package of spinach fettuccine noodles (or other long noodles that are either green or brown, like whole wheat noodles)

1 container of cherry tomatoes

1 package of pre-made puff pastry or can of Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations (basically unscored cresent roll dough)

You will also need a bird cookie cutter

How to Make Healthy Pasta Birds Nests for Kids

Combine the butter, garlic, basil, oregano and onion salt together, and stir into a garlic butter paste (yum.)

Next, roll out your puff pastry or crescent roll dough and cut out as many birds as you can fit (with my cookie cutter and the Pillsbury dough, I got 10 birds out of it). Place them on an ungreased nonstick cookie sheet. Spread the garlic butter on the top of the birds as shown. You won’t use all of the garlic butter, save the rest for the pasta.

Bake the birds according to the bread package directions. Check them early, as I baked mine for about 11 minutes and the package called for 13 minutes. The smaller your birds, the less time they need to bake.

Cook the spinach fettuccine according to the package directions. Drain and toss with the remaining garlic butter and salt to taste.

Place the noodles onto your plate and spread out the noodles a bit to make a well in the center. Place your cherry tomatoes and baked garlic bread birds into the “nests” and enjoy!

You may like our cute cupcake ideas, too!

Springerle Recipe	Glazed Anise Cookies	Fennel Blackberry Cookie Recipe
Pizzelle Cookies	Crisp Anise Cookies	Anise Star Cookies
Anise Pretzel Cookie Recipe	Anise Pepper Cookie Recipe	Anise Mandelbrot / Biscotti
Anise Drop Cookies	Anise Cut Outs – Bizcochitos	Anise Saviato Cookies

For more Christmas fun, check out these Christmas handprint crafts, Christmas animal coloring pages, or these Christmas word puzzles!

Be sure to check out these Thanksgiving kids crafts and these Thanksgiving coloring pages while you are in the neighborhood!

You might also like these printable Thanksgiving place cards, too!

So with the price of orange extract being so insanely high for such a tiny bottle, I decided to hunt some down at my local dollar store – and I scored! But then I used it all up, and found that they don’t sell it year-round. They only have it for November and December. So instead of going back to buying it at $4+ a bottle, I decided to make my own.

I found a few recipes online that seemed quite easy, but warned that they weren’t as strong as what you can buy in the store. So I used more orange peel (duh), and viola – orange extract that was just as strong as what I could get at my supermarket.

Make Orange Extract

Orange Extract Ingredients

Vodka – approximately 1 1/2 cups

2 oranges

Plus you will need a glass bottle (preferably with a pourer), I got mine as part of a vinegar and oil set at my local dollar store. It holds about 15 ounces of liquid.

How to Make Orange Extract

Peel two whole oranges with the channel knife part of a citrus zesting tool:

Zesting Tool

Place the orange peels into your bottle. Pour vodka over the top of them until they are fully covered, with a little extra room on top. If you use a smaller bottle, try to keep proportions the same.

Let sit in a cool dry place for at least a week, but the flavor vastly improves if you can wait one month.