PapayaFish

I never realized how many of my meals I eat in bowls until recently.  But looking back at my posts, I really do enjoy a good meal in a bowl.  I should really think about buying some pretty new bowls to make these meals look a little more exciting…

At least this lunch in a bowl tasted good, and boy, was it filling!

That huge bowl was filled with 3/4 c. cannelloni (white) beans, 3/4 c. brown rice & tons of leftover broccoli rabe & asparagus from last night’s dinner.  Sprinkled in parm & crushed red pepper.  It was missing a little somethin somethin, so I added about a tsp of EVOO mid-eating.  I finished off the whole bowl, but when I was done I was STUFFED.

But all the spiciness of the red pepper left me wanting something a little sweet…and lo and behold, I found this guy hiding in the bottom of the fruit basket:

Ahhh magically appearing Belgian chocolate, I love thee!  And in spirit of Cookie Friday (which I just learned about, but think is FANTASTIC), I enjoyed the last bit of the package happily.

Yes, I know that’s not a cookie   Still counts, no?

I also wanted to give a shout out to Heather at HangryPants, for her VERY inspirational post today on the joys and benefits of blogging!  Made me very proud to have started my blog and to be sticking with it.  I can only hope that at the one year anniversary of PapayaFish I will be half as successful as she has been.  Happy blogaversary Hangry Heather!!

And on a completely different note, is anyone else having absolutely no luck accessing Eat.Live.Run. today??

Happy Friday morning!

Last night before bed I made the detrimental mistake of saying “I haven’t been able to fall asleep lately.”  I jinxed myself!  I turned out the light at 10:20pm, and the last time I checked the clock, without even a WINK of sleep yet, it was 2:45am.  Ugh!  And of course I had left my book downstairs…I reread an issue of Eating Well, and at least that was entertaining for a bit.  If you’ve never read Eating Well…you should do yourself a favor and go get yourself an issue asap.  I work in advertising and am so sick of every magazine out there, but when I came across this one, I was hooked!  I actually read every back issue from the past year in 2 days

Anywho…needless to say I was a professional snoozer this morning and did a fantastic job ignoring my alarm clock.  One good thing about being a live-at-home grown-up:  mom wakes you up for work.  So you don’t get fired. Hah.

Breakfast this morning was everyday oats with a side of fruit.  How original!

It was a little bit of this:

+ A little bit of this

and allll together it looked like this:

Return of the fish tray!  The oats were just 1/4 cup Irish oats, a smashed banana, lots of cinnamon and a sprinkle of coconut.  Simple enough.  And that bowl of honeydew was JUICY SWEET out of this world good.  Fresh really good melon might be one of my favorite fruits!

Hoping today will be an easy Friday.  This girl might need a nap this afternoon!

I had such a great day at PT today!  It’s a little sad that I miss working out so much that I was extremely excited when I was told I was doing exercises in the “gym room” today!!  This was right after the physical therapist said this to me, as I was sitting with my legs straight out on the table:

“See this nice muscle here (pointing to my left thigh)…now see how you don’t have that muscle over here (pointing to my right thigh)…Yeah, you’re going to work on that.”

It made me frown.  I miss my muscles 

Backing up a little bit…

Somehow my time management skills failed me today, and I found myself scrambling to get out the door in time to go.  I blame last minute work requests, although, I should probably blame my addiction to blog reading and my not entirely necessary last minute lunch post   Oops.  On the way out the door I grabbed one slice of whole wheat bread with a Tbsp of PB on it, and the other half of my banana from this morning, on my way out the door.  And scarfed it down in the car sans camera.  Double oops! 

Besides, I’m sure you all are sick of seeing pictures of my food inside my mom’s minivan.

But lucky for you I did take some pics of dinner tonight:  broiled flounder!

It started out looking something like this:

Sprayed underneath and on top with Pam, doused in the juice of half a lemon, and sprinkled in salt, pepper & a little parsley.

I kept checking it and it kept not being done, and then all of the sudden, it was overdone! Gah!

So it fell apart a little bita lot when I tried to transfer it to the plate. But that’s just fine because it turned out it wasn’t too overdone and it still actually tasted delicious.  Just the outer edges were a little chewy.  I tried to piece it back together again for the photo…

Served that guy with a whole mouthwatering cup of whole durum wheat pasta, drizzled in a tsp olive oil & sprinkled in a tablespoon of grated parm:

How good does that look???

And on the side the meal was rounded out with some fantastic asparagus & broccoli rabe!

Twas perfecto!

Hello blogger friends!

I am in a huge rush, but wanted to get this up here quick so as to avoid an overly long after dinner post later tonight!

Lunch was delish!

I heated up another of those Morningstar Farms Spicy Blackbean veggie burgers, and threw it on an Arnold’s wholegrain sandwich thin, topped with a little lowfat plain yogurt, 1/4 of an avocado, a sliced plum tomato (not visible here..) and a little S&P>

Soo creamy!

On the side I had a little wilted leftover salad with a drizzle of yogurt & red wine vinegar.  And sprinkle oregano

Overall it was a tasty one..

And on the side I had my last gala!  Oh no..what will I have for a snack today??

Crunch crunch crunch.

Nowww I have a few quick things to finish up for work before I’m off to PT…

Enjoy your dinner’s everyone!

One of my absolute favorite oatmeal mix-ins is frozen berries.  I always buy the TJ’s Berry Medley (not the Fancy Berry Medley — this for some reason has fewer types of berries but costs more $$…does anyone know why??).  They’re soo good if you defrost them a bit to room temp, they mix into the oatmeal so well and sweeten the whole bowl.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work so well this morning.  I was all out of the TJ’s berries, so I used some Dole Frozen Berries I found in the freezer.  I don’t know WHAT was going on with these berries.  Instead of delicious sweetness, they were bitter.  Not delicious.  Alas, they were already mixed into my oats, so there they stayed, but I had to add half a smashed banana for some sweetness.  It did the trick!

I also mixed half a cup of 2% cottage cheese in there, topped with a Tbsp flax, a Tbsp coconut & 3 sliced baby strawberries from the garden!  Coconut always makes me feel festive

Anddd on a completely different note, does anyone watch Regis & Kelly??  Since I’ve been working from home the past few weeks I’ve been watching everyday, and can I just say I LOVE Kelly Ripa.  I think she is just the funniest lady ever.  She says she runs in Central Park, but I’m guessing it’s not between 5:30-7:30pm because I definitely would have seen her at some point this past year.  Once I’m back in my running shoes I’m definitely going to keep an eye out on that trail!  And probably yell her name and jump up and down if I see her.  Scary?  Probably.  Sorry in advance, Kelly Ripa.

OK, that’s enough stalker talk for the morning – back to work!

Is it crazy thunder storming anywhere else out there in blogland?  There is some out of this world lightning ALL over the skies on long island… love summer thunderstorms <3

After my late 2:30 lunch today, I didn’t need a snack in the afternoon, but then all of the sudden it was 6pm and I was starving, and dinner wasn’t until 8. Sooo evening snacktime it was!

A sliced gala, a handful of baby carrots & a Tbsp of Tribe 40spice hummus

I ran out of carrots long before I ran out of hummus…I’m never very good at rationing my dip to dippers appropriately.  So that’s when I did it…I dipped my apple in the hummus.  And OH MY GOODNESS!  Sooooooo good!!  Has anyone ever done this before?? I loved it.  Will definitely be having this snack again…who needs carrots?

Needless to say, when dinner was ready early at 7:30pm, I wasn’t really hungry, yet.  Also needless to say, I ate anyway

But I ate little portions & was full super quick.  A tiny piece of roast lamb (~3 oz) with 1/4 of a potato, onions & tomato.  And a big old pile of salad on the side.  That piece of lamb really is tiny!  It only looks so big because it’s the closest thing to the camera.  100% optical illusion.  I also drizzled a tablespoon of plain yogurt and red wine vinegar on the salad after I took this pic.

This roast lamb was HUGE, and as much as my family loves meat, there are tons of leftovers.  And the onions & tomato it’s roasted with might be my favorite thing in the world.  So expect some of this stuff incorporated into my lunch tomorrow for sure

I’m considering brushing my teeth right now before dessert. Not that I’m going to eat dessert after I brush them, but that I might not eat dessert tonight.  I’m feeling pretty full and I’m exhausted so I might just hit the hay.  Hopefully this crazy thunderstorm doesn’t keep me up!

Goodnight moon!

Gooooood afternoon!

I’ve been craving some pizza since I saw Kath’s tasty looking pie last night, so lunch today was an easy peasy choice.  Unfortunately homemade whole wheat pizza dough didn’t fit into my schedule today (although I do plan to try it soon!), so I grabbed a “kid’s size” FlatOut wrap, topped it with lots of goodies & threw it in the oven for 15 minutes.  So melty!!

On top of there we had a Tbsp tomato paste mixed with S & P, oregano & garlic powder, LOTS of sauteed spinach, a crumbled Sargento reduced fat Colby Jack cheese stick, a Tbsp shredded parm & some sauteed portobellas. 

There was something a little off about it, though.  Don’t get me wrong, overall, YUM.  But I’m really not so sure how I feel about these Flat Out wraps.  They have a definite chemical after-taste to them.  It probably has something to do with one of these.  That’s quite a long ingredient list! While I know it’s not a perfect system, it’s generally a good rule of thumb that when choosing processed foods, to choose the ones with as few ingredients as possible!  I definitely would have traded double the calories for double the flavor in this case. (And..um…in almost all other cases as well!)

I paired that with 1/4 of an avocado that really needed to be eaten & a chopped peach.  This peach was seriously disappointing.  Part of the inside was rotten, but then the rest of it wasn’t nearly ripe!  Bleh!

So I followed this plate up with this little guy straight from the garden:

And his extra-juicy little brother:

I love this little guy!  So cute!  Well…not so cute anymore in my belly

Does anyone have any delicious tasting, nutritionally sound “flat-out-like” bread they use for easy pizza??

Happy hump day!

I can’t believe I haven’t had oats in 5 days!  It feels like a lifetime.  So this morning I made a huge bowl of the good stuff

In there we had
-1/2 c. (dry) irish oats
-cooked in 1/2 c. water & 1/2 c. Almond Breeze
-a big mashed banana
-Tbsp flax
-Tbsp slivered almonds
-2 chopped dates

I love love dates and never remember to eat them!  I was looking for a good oatmeal topper this morn, and was really excited to find these.  They didn’t disappoint!

Have a good day!

I think I might have over-dosed on vegetables today.  That salad was pretty huge at lunch, and I had another big one on the side of my dinner, and now my tummy kindof hurts

Before dinner I had starry snack!

A crunchy gala with a little piece of TJ’s 72% dark.  I was feelin like dessert in the afternoon

Dinner was delicious, too.  I come from a family of carnivores, and I’ve always been a huge meat eater.  I’ve recently found myself steering towards meat-free meals.  It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just sort of happened.  Every once in a while though I could definitely use a good cheese burger!

That’s why I was SO excited to see these Laura’s Lean Beef burgers with only 160 calories in a 4 oz pattie, with no growth hormones or antibiotics!  They were pretty darn delicious, too.

Topped with a Sargento pepperjack cheese stick, a big tomato slice & TJ’s organic ketchup, on a Pepperidge Farm whole wheat flat bread. YUM YUM YUM!

On the side there is some spicy bok choy & mushrooms.  It was different & I loved it!  The kick was really in the aftertaste.

And of course that huge veggie-full salad

I was completely stuffed after all that, but I just don’t know how to end the night without something a little sweet.  And those peaches really do need to be eaten, so I had another for dessert.

Drizzled in a tsp of low-fat yogurt and a tsp of brown sugar – delightful!

Now I am SUPER satisfied stuffed.

Night world!

My lunch salad today was killer! And soo colorful!!

In that big bowl there was:

-mixed spring greens
-1/4 avocado
-chopped carrots
-chopped red bell pepper
-chopped snap peas
-alfalfa sprouts
-sauteed shitaki mushrooms
-Morningstar Farms Spicy Blackbean Burger
-Tbsp Tribe 40spice hummus
-Tbsp low-fat plain yogurt
-RWV, S & P, oregano

Soooooo good!

I think the mushrooms were my favorite part.  And this was the first time I’d had the spicy blackbean burger from Morningstar and my verdict: big thumbs up!