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bananas

Enjoying the Tropical Fruits, Cayman Islands Recap Part I

by eatingbirdfood on August 11, 2009

I am one lucky lady to have my friend, Angie, invite me to travel with her to her extended family’s house on a tropical island. The whole experience was amazing! Since I have so many pictures to share (including a few food photos), I’m going to try to keep my commentary to a minimum. Enjoy the photo journal of my trip.

As soon as we landed we grabbed our rental car, dumped our luggage, put on our suits and headed to a public beach access point along 7 mile beach.

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Angie’s aunt had a homemade “island style” dinner ready for us when we returned. Dinner consisted of red beans and rice with coconut milk, corn on the cob, and fried fish. I can’t wait to recreate the red beans and rice at home. I’ll be sure to share the recipe, because this dish was delicious.

We tried going out to discover the nightlife on Friday evening, but after only two drinks we realized that we were exhausted. We went home, crashed, and woke up ready for more beach action.

Saturday morning, bright and early, we headed to the North side of the island to a beach location called RUM POINT. It was about 30 minutes away from where we were staying, but the drive along the coast was beautiful and Ang became a pro at driving on the left side of the road. I was a wuss and deemed myself co-pilot the whole trip.

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We got hungry for lunch and decided to eat at the beach side cafe. I ordered a grilled vegetable panini with a side salad. For a beach side restaurant I was shocked at how good this was. The salad was super fresh and the panini was delicious. I enjoyed every last bite.

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Back at the house I had to get photos of the fruit they had growing in their backyard. I was super jealous of one tree in particular- the AVOCADO tree that grew avocados the size of my arm.

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Who says money doesn’t grow on trees? If I had this tree in my backyard I would save a lot of $ at the grocery store.

This salad gives more insight into how huge the avocados really are. The slices were as big as slices of a cantaloupe. I was in heaven as these avocados were the smoothest, sweetest avocados I have ever tasted in my life. I might have to move to Cayman just for these (and the beach of course).

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Random fact: The Caymanians call avocados pears!

Of course, there were other tropical fruits:

Ackee- it’s official fruit of Jamaica, but is also prevalent in other tropical locations.

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Bananas. Check out that little extension with the budding flower.

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Papaya

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We were teasing Angie’s Aunt & Uncle that they would never go hungry with all that fruit in their backyard. They even had an almond tree but I didn’t get a chance to snap a picture of it.

Saturday night, Angie’s Aunt and Uncle took us to The Wharf, which was seaside with outdoor seating. Our table was right next to dock where they feed the Tarpon fish at 9:00PM. We had a great spot for the show and the fish were HUGE and very hungry.

For dinner, I ordered the Jerk spiced salmon served with grilled pineapple, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin. This dish was fabulous – the spiciness of the jerk seasonings and the sweetness of the pumpkin and sweet potatoes complemented one another well.

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The harp player serenaded us with “You look wonderful tonight” by Clapton.

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Overall, the first two days were fabulous! I’m getting ready to board my flight to Charlotte right now! I’ll be back with part II of the recap soon!!

{ 18 comments }

Leaning Tower of Bananas

by eatingbirdfood on July 31, 2009

Today was one of those mornings. I contemplated going to the gym for about 15 minutes and then I finally just made myself get my clothes on and get out the door. I actually only ended up doing a circuit of arm machines, some free weights and then walked for 10 minutes while reading Real Simple. Nothing too strenuous.

I had planned to stop by the groch on the way home to pick up some frozen blueberries for a smoothie, but I completely forgot until I was in front of my house parking. It was too hot for oatmeal so I just had a bowl of kashi go lean with a leaning tower of banana slices.

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I simply love bananas- such a versatile fruit, however I hardly ever eat just a banana plain anymore. I have 3 bananas right now but they’re all in the freezer waiting to be blended- either for a smoothie, oatmeal, or banana ice cream! Does anyone find this happening to them?

So all week I had been longing to go to Ellwood Thompson’s (a local organic market) to get their Goddess Tofu wrap. I kept talking myself out of it each day, rememebering that I had plenty of food at home in the fridge. This morning, as soon as my feet hit the floor (even before eating breakfast) I declared to no one but myself and I guess Olive, that I was going to go “out to lunch” today. This is a big treat for me, because I usually just walk home and whip something up. I save a lot of moo-lah this way, it’s healthier, and I like the food I have at home.

But today I had this:

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This wrap is the bomb. (Do people even use this term anymore?)

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Together the fruit and wrap cost me $9.00. And this my friends is why I eat at home. But in reality this wasn’t too bad, because I was only able to eat half the wrap before filling stuffed so I saved the other 1/2 for dinner.

Once back at the office things went smoothly – I primarily worked on a e-newsletter. Around 3 (my normal snack time) I popped some office popcorn. We have the mini bags, which I love.

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When getting ready to leave work a co-worker started handing out these little bags to people. I’ve never tried these, so I gladly took one. I ended up eating a few before leaving work and then fishing off the bag with the other half of my Goddess Tofu Wrap for din.

These Veggie Crisps didn’t impress me. I guess I’m just spoiled with the veggie chips from the bulk bin at Fresh Market – the ones that actual dried veggies. If you’re looking for an imitation chip just to satisfy a salt craving, these might do the trick, but otherwise they didn’t offer much in the flavor department. I probably would never buy them for myself.

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When I arrived home from work there was a package waiting for me! Inside were samples of Musselman’s new Healthy Picks Apple Sauce. The three flavors are Key Lime Cupuacu, Raspberry Acai, and Blueberry Pomegranate.

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I don’t buy apple sauce that often, but these flavors sounded too delicious to pass up. I haven’t tasted them just yet, but I can’t wait to try them all out. They’re currently getting chilly in the fridge.

On that note, I know this past week there was lots of chatter about FTC Guidelines and blogger giveawaysr/eviews. I posted my position in comments on several blogs, however just so it’s clear I’ll post what I believe here as well. First off, I like blogger reviews-I’ve learned about so many new products through other blogs and personally, I think blogger giveaways are fun. As a blogger I don’t go around looking for giveaways to enter, but if someone is giving away something I would truly like to try/have I certainly will enter. (who wouldn’t?) I also like receiving product samples and sharing my opinion. When I receive product samples I only post honest reviews about the free products I receive and I only accept products that fit with the theme of my blog and/or my lifestyle. In the past I may have forgotten once or twice to announce that something was a sample, but from here on out I will be make sure that information is disclosed

In other important news, EBF now has it’s own domain. www.eatingbirdfood.com. I don’t know why it took me so long to break down and do this, but here we are a year and 1/2 after starting my blog and I finally decided to go forward and actually buy the domain.

Isaac comes home tonight! Hooray! We are headed to Norfolk tomorrow for a wedding…. more on that later. Have a lovely weekend.

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Busy Up in Here

June 24, 2009

As most of you know I’ve been extremely busy, but with that said, I’ve still had to time to create some delicious eats. For instance, the breakfast below is what I like to call The Lean Banana Split – all the flavors of a banana spilt but with less calories, more protein and fiber, and [...]

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The new Crisper

May 13, 2009

Tuesday’s eats were v. similar to that of Monday’s. I started with the banana oats, although this time I spruced them up with a little ground flax. The variety of flaxseed I have currently is from Trader Joe’s. (Golden Roasted Flaxseeds). I don’t love the flavor/smell of the roasted seeds so I think next time [...]

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Clean Eats

May 11, 2009

I haven’t done a full days worth of food for a while so I thought today would be a good day to feature everything. I’m doing the Summer Shape up and I think I did a good job at clean eating today. I started with a simplistic breakfast this morning. 1/4 cup oat bran, 1/4 [...]

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Rainy Night

September 5, 2008

I don’t know what got into me this morning but I slept until almost 10 AM. I’m usually an early riser so it was a surprise to wake up and see the clock at 10. I decided to have a bowl of puffed wheat cereal with half of a banana mixed in. I used the [...]

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