CIRCUS CAMP!

Taia attended a Circus Camp this summer. She had so much fun!

Dean and I made her this lunch. Dean had a blast making the marshmallow clown. Of course it's a CampFire brand marshmallow because they don't use Blue 1! They also have Chocolate Craft Studio food color. She also has an elephant on a ball sandwich and some grapes and blueberries with a clown pick.

Taia had the part of "Tiger jumping through the hoop in fire" in the circus on the last day. They sent a note home requesting that the tiger kids wear orange and black clothes on Friday. Dean couldn't just send her in regular clothes. So he marked off the stripe designs with painters tape and spray painted them on! The belly was added to cover the spot where we ripped off the pumpkin! Ha!

 

This is a lunch that Dean made for her. A kid made fun of it so she refused to eat it. But we thought it was adorable! (There was a lot of salami under there! :) )

We can't wait for the camps next summer!

Crack and Cheese!

There's a restaurant in Key West called Finnegan's Wake. They have the BEST Mac and Cheese that we have EVER had! EVER. The locals joke that they put crack in their cheese because you just can't get enough of it. It's THAT good. We missed it so much that we wanted to make our own mac and cheese. It's nothing like theirs. But it's our own version. Yummy.

It's nothing fancy. Like most of our meals, there's no real recipe. It's all "to taste!" 

We boiled some pasta. Put some blackening seasoning on some chicken strips and let them sit for about 25 minutes. Then cooked them on the stove top in a pan until cooked through and cut into pieces. We then mixed the hot, drained pasta with A LOT of chedder, some crazy cool spicy cheese from Sam's and monterey jack cheese. I would guess 16 oz total? We stirred 2 eggs, a bunch of random (again - your own tastes) spices and about 1/2 cup of milk together) and mixed this with the cheese and pasta mixture. Then we put it in the casserole dish, put it in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes. We then topped it with cheese, some bread crumbs, chopped tomatoes and the cooked blackened chicken and popped it back in the oven for another 8 min and then 2-4 on broil. It came out amazing! When we want leftovers, we add a little milk, stir in and reheat. MMM!! DELICIOUS!

Funky Squash Parmesan!

We found this beautiful squash at the Farmer's Market one day. The man that we got it from mentioned that he knew someone that used it similar to eggplant in Eggplant Parmesan.

Of course we took that as a challenge to make our own awesome take on Squash Parmesan!

We used a combination of seasoned bread crumbs (seasoned to your taste - we like everything super spicy...) seasoned flour and seasoned eggs.

We breaded the squash and fried it in the fancy new deep fryer that Dean got for his birthday!

Isn't that just gorgeous?!?!

We made some chicken for the non- squash lovers. (Taia was one of those and even she ate some of the "Circle chicken" and loved it!!)

Here are some pictures of the finished plates! We used regular jarred pasta sauce, added some spices to taste and topped the squash with sauce and cheese!

Taia loved her yummy dinner!

Tropical- Ish!

My bento-blogger friends have been showering me with picks lately! I'm loving it!

This lunch is really nothing super special but looks super cute because of some of my new tropical picks and Taia loved it!!

Taia had:
-grapes and blueberries
-salami with a palm tree pick
-carrots
-Trader Joe's mini toasts with vanilla and chocolate cream cheese
-cheese stick with a pineapple ring
-jellybeans in the cupcake container (I found those at Kohl's in the after Easter section for near nothing for a pretty large package. There were cupakes, ice cream and a few others!)

I can't wait to share more lunches made with my new picks with you all! We just haven't had a lot of use for bentos lately! I have a few posts in the works though!