0 Bento #228 - Teriyaki Chicken & Blueberries

I'm going to be having a good time experimenting with these adorable little Babybels!  This one below is a little girl with a pony tail.  A little rough because I only had a pairing knife.  I need to get an X-Acto.  The eyes are sprinkles affixed with a tiny dot of cream cheese.

Bento #228 - Aidell's teriyaki chicken, caramelized onions and jasmine rice with sliced green onions, fresh blueberries, organic baby carrots, grape tomatoes, ranch dip and a Babybel cheese.  Snack - Organic pear.

3 Bento #208 - Beef Stir Fry Noodles & Veg

So we are in the middle of our third week of school!  It's a bit of an adjustment (OMG, waking up at 6ish am every morning is KILLING ME) but we are excited about what the year holds.  I volunteered to be room mom again, so I have some work cut out for me, but since I'm crazy and love all that organizational stuff (charts, calendars and to-do lists) I think I'll do okay.  Once or twice a week I let Ella get school lunch, which is amazingly healthy, for the most part.  Yesterday they had a fruit/yogurt/peanut butter plate and salad as a choice.  Love it!  Takes a little pressure off me.  

Today's lunch is delicious.  I made my Korean barbecue stir fry with carrots, bell peppers and spring onions. 

Bento #208 - Korean stir fry with noodles, organic carrots, yellow bell peppers and spring onions, frozen blackberries, and multivitamins.  Snack - Applesauce and spiced nuts.  

0 Ham, Swiss & Chive Braid (and Iceland pictures)

Today for lunch I made a really simple dish that was just minutes to put together.  If I had had some spinach or broccoli, I would have also added some.

Ingredients:

sheet of croissant dough or puff pastry
2 Tbls snipped chives
1/4 cup cubed baked ham
handful shredded Swiss cheese
pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 375.

Take a sheet of croissant dough and lay it out on your baking sheet.  Going down the long side, make some perpendicular cuts for the "braids" all the way down, but leave a solid portion in the center so that your filling can be spooned on top.  Oh if there ever was a post that needed the step-by-step photos...sorry guys!

Toss the filling ingredients lightly (I just did this with my fingers right on the chopping board) and spoon it into the center of the dough.  Start at one end and "braid" the cut pieces by alternating one side to the other, slightly overlapping.

Bake for about 12-13 minutes at 375 or until the top is nice and golden brown.  (Please excuse the scuzzy-looking pan...I call it patina!)

Okay, now for some pictures from our short stay in Iceland.  We had a marvelous 8-hour tour of the Golden Circle with GTI Tours.  Amazing, that's all I can say.  See for yourself.

Running up an extinct volcano for a rock specimen for her rock collection.

Cracks in the continental plates.  We stood on three different continental plates that day.

Sampling the glacier water.

Yes, the water really WAS this color of blue.  Like nothing I'd ever seen before.

In front of a huge waterfall.  (The rainbow is 100% real.)

Icelandic ponies.

Quaint old church.

You may be wondering if we ate there.  Why yes, we did!  However, the food was terrible, and even though I took some pictures, I won't post them.  We should have just eaten the Icelandic specialty, which is lamb (also whale, but my conscience would never let me try it.)  We instead had Italian (I was out-voted.)  Not good, but we didn't visit Iceland for the food. ;)