DIY Thanksgiving Centerpiece

By guest blogger designer Mark Kintzel

During the Thanksgiving holiday, the last thing you want to deal with is fussing around with a centerpiece. Here's an elegant solution: This bouquet using fresh vegetables is simple to make, beautiful, and bountiful. And after your guests have gone home, you can pluck out the veggies and eat them!

Materials:

Two to three prewrapped bouquets of mixed flowers from your grocery store or florist. For this project I've even used four, but three is sufficient.

Vegetables to complement the flowers in your bouquets. I selected parsnips, turnips, and artichokes, vegetables that blend into this arrangement's color scheme. However, you can also use fruits, such as apples, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, and limes, to add bright colors to the table. Have some fun with it...there are no rules!

A container--the more unique and unexpected the better. I choose a tiramisu bowl.

Bamboo skewers or some other food-grade type of skewer.

Directions:

1. Add water to your container, filling it to about one inch from the rim.

2. Cut the stems of the bouquet bunches to match the size of the container.

3. Insert the flowers into the container, and arrange until you are happy with the appearance.

4. Take a bamboo skewer and poke it into the back of a vegetable. Use food-grade skewers only--note that florist picks are usually dyed green, which could contaminate the vegetables with a nasty chemical.

5. Cut the skewer to accommodate the depth of the container.

6. Insert the vegetables randomly throughout the flower arrangement.

Voilà!

For another quick Thanksgiving decorating tip from Mark, go to the Maria's Farm Country Kitchen Facebook page.

For more from Maria Rodale, go to www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com.