Daisy and Ladybug Salad

Today is Gluten Free Baking day at our house ( I try to bake once a week) but it is SO hot! In trying to avoid turning on the oven, I decided to work on a recipe for flat bread that can be cooked on a skillet.  This is my first try, and I have to say it's not too bad. It's still not up to my standards yet, but when I make the recipe juuuuust right, I'll share it with you : )

The parts of my lunch that I'm happy to show off are the daisies and ladybugs that I made for my salad!
I made the daisies from monterey jack cheese with cheddar cheese centers. Cheese is so much easier to cut with tiny cookie cutters than cookie dough! If you haven't tried it yet, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Just use a straw or chopstick to push the cheese out of the cutter if it won't come out on its own. If you don't want to eat so much cheese, you can also make the daisies from jicima or daikon radish slices, with carrot or yellow bell pepper for the centers.

The ladybug was made from half a grape tomato. I cut circles out of nori with a small scrapbook- type punch.  The face I cut freehand - I cut sort of a football shape which fit nicely around the end of the tomato. I dampened each piece of nori with a little dab of water, and they stuck to the tomato very nicely. The eyes are cheese, which I cut with a tiny hole punch - who knew you could cut cheese with a hole punch? Well, now you know. In case you're wondering, the details of my salad took me roughly 5 minutes to create - really! Here's a close- up of the ladybug:

I'm eating my lunch right now as I type, and it's very good!

The rest of my food and exercise plans are as follows:

breakfast - 2 pieces toast with low sugar jam, 2 eggs, and 1 cup watermelon

snack - 1 banana with 1 tbsp. peanut butter, and 1 oz. dark chocolate

lunch - shown above ( the sandwich was chicken breast, 1 oz. cheese, lettuce, mustard, lite mayo)

afternoon snack - it will be a planned treat! Not sure what it will be yet, but probably something COLD!

dinner - will be grilled steak, baked potato ( cooked in the crockpot to avoid the oven), and my salad bar...

Speaking of my salad bar - I have been getting quite a few questions and comments about it, which I thank you for very much!  I plan to do a post soon showing greater details of how to make one, what the dimensions are, and where to buy the containers I used. So if you're interested, that will be coming up soon.

* Update - here is the info on my new and improved Salad Bar.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and thanks for all your kind comments!