Best Chicken Salad

I enjoy something cooler and easy for dinner in the hot summer. However the kiddos don't always appreciate salads and such. This recipe is THE best recipe for chicken salad I have found and even the little ones will eat it. I got this recipe from Taste of Home. I don't actually serve it in a cantaloupe ring but I'm sure that would be lovely. We eat this with some bread or croissants and maybe a nice fruit salad. So if you need a make-ahead grab out of the fridge dinner one summer night try this! For more recipes to make in these last few summer months visit

The Ultimate Recipe Swap at Life as Mom.

Best Chicken Salad

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups cubed cooked chicken
1 cup thinly sliced celery
1 cup green grapes
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoons prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 cantaloupe rings
Toasted sliced almonds

Directions: In a large bowl, combine chicken, celery, grapes and parsley. Combine the next seven ingredients; mix well. Pour over chicken mixture and toss. Chill for at least 1 hour. To serve, place 1 cup of chicken salad on each cantaloupe ring; sprinkle with almonds. Yield: 4 servings.

Forgotten Lunches

Summer is coming to a close and that can only mean one thing, school is just around the corner. Along with getting the kids ready for school with supplies and clothes I have started to think about lunches again. I came across some pics of some lunches that I had forgot about and decided to post them. So here they are-enjoy!

Last Day of School Lunch

Well here it is, the last day came and went and this is how we decided to go out this year. We have a cheese sandwich, dry salami, strawberries and apricots, chips w/ salsa and a bit of rhubarb crisp for dessert. Along with this last lunch was field day in which the boys had a great time of playing games and just having a real party of a day at school. So ends the first grade and bento type lunches until next september when there will be 2 lunches every day-yay?

Almost Done

As this week comes to an end, I have mixed feelings. I am glad to take a break from my morning routine for awhile, but I think I will actually start to miss thinking up new things to throw in a lunch. So today's lunch was ham & cheese whole wheat roll-ups, celery, pesto pasta salad, fruit salad, banana muffins and some almonds. This is probably way too much food for big P, but the leftovers work as an afterschool snack for him a lot of times. Tommorow...The Last Day!!!

Pretty Basic Lunch

This lunch needs something...more color! We have a

basic ham & cheese sandwich, grapes, peanut butter

wafers and these crunchy lentil potato curls I found

at Trader Joes. I like them a lot, not too salty and a

unique flavor. Well if I was on the ball I would have

known today was Hawaiian day at school and planned

lunch accordingly, but I found out this morning so not

even so much as a pineapple went into this lunch.

Two Lunches down 3 to go!

Today's lunch was a whole wheat tortilla filled with black beans and cheese, some carrots and celery, pub cheese(sooo good!) with crackers, a plum and cherry pie with a reminder note stuck in it.

5 Days Left!

I can't believe there are just 5 days of school left. That also means 5 school lunches left. I wanted to make sure this week had great lunches since we won't be making school lunch again for awhile. So this is day 1. Includes bagel with cream cheese, dried cherries, jam in the penguin, corn chips w/ black bean dip, kiwi and cheese cubes.

Homemade Pie

This is not the best picture. It is however the best mini

raspberry pie made by a 7 year old. This was a throw together

little pie tart that big P made for his lunch.

I thought it was adorable. This lunch also has a

turkey "sub" sandwich, crackers and

some hummus in a car shaped container.

Catch-up Lunches

I haven't posted lunches in awhile so I thought I would post
a few of the things we've been eating lately. The top lunch is
peanut butter roll-ups with some blackberries and peaches,
banana, a few chocolate chips in a fishy cutter and a couple of
mini muffins.



Next we have ham & cheese sandwiches, applesauce,
some chips, carrots, blackbeans-why not?, mini muffin,
carrots and for a treat yummy wax sodas!




Lastly this lunch includes rice balls, wasabi snack mix,
olives, broccoli, pineapple cherry picks and a homemade
energy bar.

I Should Eat this Myself

So this lunch for is for big P and I love how colorful it is! I think it's safe to say that sometimes my kids eat better than I do. Anyways this lunch includes kiwi fruit, dry salami wedges, baby bel, carrots, almonds, dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts, PB&J semi-circle sandwiches and in the green container are some dried blueberries which the boys are loving right now!

A Little Circus of Treats Lunch

So this lunch includes mini pita stuffed with peanut butter

and kiwi, yogurt with sprinkles, meat cheese rolls, crackers and skittles.

Almost done with the Easter candy-yay!

Pokemon lunch!

So here is my first attempt at a Pokemon lunch. It seems that Pokemon is quite popular with the 6,7,8 year old crowd so hopefully this will make for a special lunch treat today. Lunch includes Pikachu marshmallow peep, cheese Charmander which I found the idea from

Bento For Kidlet, cheese Pokeball, random yellow pepper star all sitting on top of a sandwich. All I seem to notice when I look at this is the giant glob of yogurt in the other large container, hmmm. Oh and I found mini persian cucumbers that are on picks with olives- look how cute!

Happy Spring Lunch

I've wanted to make this lunch for a while now. It is another great idea from

Vegan Lunch Box.
The real treat is theHoney Bee no-bakes, they are delicious!

Another Monday for Sure

Today was so totally a monday. We kind of all got up on the wrong side of the bed but thankfully it got much better as the day went on. It could have something to do with the 80 degrees and sunny-you think? Littlest P had a playdate in the morning and biggest P had one in the afternoon. We had a great dinner together and it is also the first softball game of the season tonight-all good. So grocery shopping tommorow but I managed to find enough odds and ends to make a lunch. I'm realizing ham is the only meat big P really enjoys, but not so appetizing in this photo!

Easter Eggs

So we started with these

Then we got these

And we were especially proud of this little guy!

So this is big P's easter lunch for school, I definitely liked the addition of sweet to the rice balls with the use of fruit leather but it did not stick on very well and the colors bled by lunch time. Also the ham and cream cheese roll ups don't exactly look appetizing. Middle P even had a special easter snack for kindergarten which included rice bars, marshmallow bunnies and some cheese cubes.

Panda Bear Lunch

April Fool's Day

Well, this was a fun one. I started off the day with surprising Mr. P with a little purple kool-aid in the shower head( I thought it was pretty crafty) next I had frozen the boys' cereal the night before and just added a touch more cereal and milk to the top-really funny, this was probably the best prank of the day. By dinner time they had caught on and so when I brought out the meatloaf "cake" they knew right away. I still went ahead with this dessert though. It is a grilled cheese sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy or toasted poundcake with orange frosting, ice cream with caramel topping. In the end only one retaliated on me. Big P played a joke on me by asking me to go outside with him and he had put ice cubes in my shoes, well played.

Rainy Day Bento

This doesn't really even warrant a picture except that our spring break has been cold and rainy and we have mostly been hanging out at home. This day we thought we might go to the park and bring our lunch but as it was pouring outside I thought at least we could have a sort of special lunch inside. So this is what we had: leftover chicken, ham "flower", strawberry kiwi, rolled spinach and a few baked cheddar chips. So there you have our excitement for the day, yep.

St. Patty's Day lunch

Well this is what big P had for lunch on the greenest day of the year. Contents include: Pea-nut butter sandwich(yes there is peas in the peanut butter), honeydew melon, cucumber slices a shamrock petit four and some green gatorade. The results? Big P forgot where he put his lunch when he got to school and it was lunchtime so he just bought lunch...yeah. Oh well, middle and little P enjoyed having it at home for lunch.

Happy Heart Cake

This is the cake we had for Valentines Day. It is a chocolate cake with cherry whip cream frosting. I really only needed the frosting but the others prefer to have cake with theirs-go figure. It was very good and came out pretty close to the picture. Mmmmm.

Valentine Lunch

So I tried to make an all red lunch for Valentines day-because red is big P's favorite color. Here's what I came up with: Strawberries, tomato balloons, red pepper hearts, coconut heart muffin, ham & cheese sandwich red heart jello and little pink cookie. Valentines Day is a hard one for boys you know, no matter what-it still looks girly.

Possible Pick Overload

This lunch was way too fun! Carrot "flowers", orzo spinach salad, chocolate rolls, little sausages, babybel, crackers and some oranges. Big P did not appreciate the salad in the corner. Oh well-I had to try right?

Wednesday Lunch

So this is today's lunch. Pita w/ hummus wedges, 2 falafel, sweet potatoes, tortilla chips, pea pods, baby-bel, pineapple w/ cherries and some coconut bread with chocolate chips in it. I was pretty pleased with the variety in this lunch, but the true test will be what gets eaten.

Happy Monday

So I haven't posted a lunch in a while ( or anything really) so I'm psting yesterday's and today's. Yesterday was this. Chicken salad sandwich, pickles, cheese, cottage cheese w/ pineapple, carrots, almonds and two cheesecake hershey's kiss-so good! There... thats it.

Finally

Yes I finally feel myself again. After holidays, birthday parties, house guests and even a mini vacation-I'm back. In honor of this momentous occasion, here is my latest "bento"

Felt Gingerbread houses

So we have done a lot of baking and crafts this holiday season but this is something we all enjoyed making. These are milk cartons and cone "trees"decorated with felt . The boys spent literally a good 2 hours making 8 houses and four trees. It looks so cute by their own tree in their room-just like a little village from the old Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer movies. Only 4 days to go until Christmas!!!!!

For the Neighbors

So this is what our neighbors are getting for two reasons

1. I like my neighbors

2. I just made too much stuff this year

The fun part were the peppermint icicles. candy on top, I burned three fingers(really ouch!) making them but I think they're worth it for cuteness!

Edible Crayons

So check these out! Middle P and I made these yesterday for a fun snack. They're just pretzel rods with the ends dipped in colored candy melts and wrapped with these cool labels I got from here. Gourmet Mom on the Go is extremely creative and I've used many of her ideas, check her out for yourself! They were a huge hit!

Quite possibly the last rice balls for a long time

So this morning I packed 2 rice onigiri with teriyaki sauce fish, 2 botan rice candy, a pumpkin muffin, cauliflower "trees", mango and a couple of blueberry jelly rolls. Quite random you say? Yes very, what can I say-its the end of the week almost. Big P doesn't really love the rice so much anymore. We will see what exactly gets eaten. I predict the muffin and candy-just a hunch.

Busy monday lunch

So today was pretty well organized. Big P and I made a big batch of rice balls last night, but he did'nt feel like taking them in his lunch this morning. So instead he got raspberry yogurt with granola, carrot curls with bean dip, oranges, a bagel with cream cheese, almonds, and a tiny baby ruth for dessert.

Halloween lunch

So I totally copied this idea from the Vegan Lunch Box . It is a broccoli cheese filled calzone recipe shaped into a mummy with sneaky tomato sauce to dip. This woman has super cool ideas and her recipes are great! Served with baked apple face in blueberry applesauce, carrot fingers and inside the little pumpkin I packed a gummy eyeball. I was so mad at myself-I forgot the fake spider to hide inside! Oh well, hopefully he had a good lunch! We are planning on going to a friend's house tonight for some trick or treating and fun, hopefully the rain will stop soon.

My sandwich fell on the floor

So I decided to try and make a picture bento. I used colored cream cheese for the background and ham and cheese for the mountain. The houses are carrots and the stars are cheese with black sesame seeds. Big P thought it looked like mario bros because of the stars. So when he got home from school today he informed me that he accidentally bumped his container and the sandwich fell onto the floor so he had to throw it away. Anyhow the rest of the lunch includes some potato smiley faces, ham rolled up, baby bel, strawberries and kiwi and a chocolate "spinach" brownie- so good with frosting! At least I took a picture.

Here is a picture of big P's lunch today. I was sorting gathering scraps from everywhere to try and piece together a lunch. It includes a hard boiled egg, mini cheese sandwiches, veggies, pineapple cherry pics, pumpkin muffins, cheetos and a mango pudding.

Let's hear it for Friday!

I love this day because we don't HAVE to do anything. We were a little late getting out the door this morning but we made it just fine. Today for lunch big P is having bean & tortilla roll-ups, cheese cubes, chips with salsa, banana, kiwi fruit and two pumpkin cream cheese folded sandwiches. He said he wasn't sure about cold beans so we will see what happens. I think we might try to go for a picnic lunch today if it warms up- yay for warm fall days!

First two Bento lunches

My first two Bento lunches made for big P. Top lunch is Onigiri with soy sauce, cheese and crackers, cucumber chain, peppers, edamame on picks and 2 chocolate chip cookies. Bottom lunch is Turkey and cheese sandwich, cheese crackers, grapes and a petit four. Mayonaise is in the little apple.