10 Little Penguins Waddling Around

I think I've mentioned on here before that at work we love us a good potluck.  As I've gotten older and slightly less antisocial I have come to enjoy these little gatherings.  I love finding unique and creative foods to bring to potlucks.  It's like crafting with food!  I saw these a few months ago on The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen and have been waiting for a potluck to make these bad boys.  They're actually really easy!

A few things about these photos before we begin.  First, please excuse the circa 1972 orange tinge to all of them.  MacGyver is a bit of a florescent bulb fanatic.   Which is great for our electric bill and energy saving and all that.  Not so much for taking pictures though.  

Second, please ignore the blue (I swear, it's blue) jar full of feathers sitting in the box on the dining room chair full of wedding decorations.  Yes, I said it.  I still have wedding decorations lying about.  Boxes of them, in fact.  Anyone know of a nice farm where they can go live out their lives running free in a field?  If I find such a place, I'll have wedding decor free photos.  That are still orange.  

I love these pie plates!!  I got one for Christmas one year from my Mom, and the other at my bridal shower from my Aunt.  LOVE THEM.  In the picture I have two jars of colossal olives and two jars of medium sized olives, but I ended up only needing one jar of the smaller olives.

Olives olives olives olives.

Also, I forgot to put toothpicks in the picture.  Just pretend they're there.  If you would kindly pretend as well that I didn't forget to take a picture of everything before I started opening packages and that the cream cheese is still sealed and pretty?  Thank you.

Cut slices off the fat end of the carrots.  Try to make them even and level because these are going to be your little penguin feet.  I peeled the carrots mostly for aesthetics.  Because let's be honest, who wants to eat a penguin that looks like it has athlete's foot?  Did I just ruin these for you?  Pretend I didn't just say that.

Now cut a small sliver out of each of the little carrot discs.  These will be the noses.

Cut the tip off one corner of a Ziploc and plop the cheese on in.  I let the cream cheese soften on the counter for about an hour before I started, but that really wasn't long enough.  I blew out two Ziplocs before it was finally soft enough to pipe out easily.  Trust me on this one - cream cheese blowouts are messy.

Cut a small slit down one side of a colossal olive and pipe some cheese into the cavity.  You'll want enough in there so it fills the hole and squeezes out the front a little.  Then smooth that with your finger or a damp paper towel.  You've just made the penguin body!

This is actually not a good photo, and not just because it's orange.  I did this for the first few and then realized it's better to stick the toothpick into the body from the top down, and then poke it into the carrot.  This way you don't get cream cheese all along the length of the toothpick.  Live and learn.

Remember those slivers we cut out of the carrots?  Poke one of those into the hole of a small olive, and then slide it onto the toothpick, lining it up with the body.

How adorable are these?!  Except maybe Cyclops there in the middle.  He looks a little shifty.

I saw another site where she tied strips of green onion on for scarves.  All together now...squeee!!!!!!

What do you call a gathering of penguins?  A gaggle?  A herd?  A flock?  A colony?  Oh!  I think that's it!  A COLONY of penguins.  With onion breath.