Let’s start off with the fun things! Monday February 13th was my roommate Andrea’s birthday!!! Although I still had some commitments for my psych clerkship, I was able to grab lunch at Strong Heart’s Cafe with the birthday girl. I had a tasty sweet potato asparagus soup.

I also treated Andrea to a vegan cupcake!

Later that night, we went out to Pastabilities, one of Syracuse’s best restaurants, for a B-day celebration.

Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t cooperating and none of my food pictures are blog-post-able. I did find a pic of one of the best parts of any meal at Pastabilities, the bread!

http://acamerainthekitchen.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/pastas.jpg?w=840&h=613

All of the girls from the birthday party!

Although my Valentine’s day started out a little on the rocky side, I received these beautiful flowers from my friend Emily.

Franco also loved the flowers, but after some googling, I learned azaleas are not cat friendly. The plant is now safely out of reach

On Friday I took my psych shelf (AKA the big end of the clerkship exam). The roomie surprised me with a heart shaped Dunkin Donut to celebrate the end of another clerkship. 30 weeks of 3rd year done, 18 to go!

Another fantastic part of Friday was the arrival of Michele!!!! She drove in from Boston to spend the weekend with me AND brought me these beautiful roses!

One of the other presents from Boston, Trader Joes Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Seeds.

Yum!

As if chocolate and roses wasn’t enough of a treat, Michele also brought some of my favorite cupcakes!

Mojito, Raspberry, Chocolate chip cookie dough and Champagne flavored cupcakes.

My favorite was definitely the champagne flavored one. Not only did it have a strawberry in the middle, but the little sprinkles on top created a fizzy feeling in your mouth. So creative!

After Michele arrived, we went out to dinner with Andrea, Anna, Michael, Christopher, Bethan, Justin, Candace and Crystal for Dining week. We tried Anthony’s Pasta Bar where we were able to choose an item from each of three courses.

I started out with the Caprese- sliced tomato, fresh mozzarella & basil finished in a balsamic reduction.

Next was the Shrimp Caprino- sauteed shrimp, grape tomatoes and baby spinach tossed with goat cheese in a garlic olive oil sauce with penne.

I finished off the night with a delicious chocolate mud pie.

The next day, Michele and I had a lovely lazy Saturday that involved a trip to Wegman’s, a lifetime movie, and some yummy sushi for lunch.

Around dinner time, Sarah came over to make dinner.

RR: Maple and Mustard Glazed Chicken with Mashed Sweet Potatoes and a Berry Asparagus Salad.

Adapted from a Cooking Light recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
• 2/3 cup reduced calorie maple syrup
• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
• 3 medium garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon stone-ground mustard

Preparation:

Preheat oven 400. Heat a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil; swirl to coat. Sprinkle chicken with pepper and salt. Add chicken to pan; sauté 2 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove chicken from pan. Add broth, syrup, thyme, and garlic to pan; bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add vinegar and mustard; cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Return chicken to pan, and spoon mustard mixture over chicken. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes or until the chicken is done. Remove chicken from pan; let stand 5 minutes. Place pan over medium heat; cook mustard mixture 2 minutes or until liquid is syrupy, stirring frequently. Serve with chicken.

Michele seasoning the chicken.

Sarah and Michele in the kitchen.

The chicken just fit into the skillet.

The glaze cooking. It smelled soooo sooo good!

With dinner, Andrea, Michele, Sarah and I tried the Entwine Cabernet Sauvignon.

Chicken and mashed sweet potatoes.

Sarah was in charge of the salad and she did an amazing job. She combined greens with strawberries, asparagus, apples, blue cheese and walnuts. It was all tossed with her own dressing. Delicious! AND it went really well with the main dish!

The night ended at my friend Jess’ house with a few more friends and a little more wine. It was a great night

Overall, I had such a wonderful time with Michele this past weekend, and I wish we lived closer to each other. Luckily, in a few months I’ll hopefully be moving in with Michele and John for a month when I do my away elective in Boston In honor of my the upcoming holiday and my friendship, here’s a picture of us from back almost 3 year ago celebrating in Boston

Recipe #1: Tofu Piccata with escarole

Adapted from a Weight Watchers Receipe.

A few weeks ago, I cooked this recipe using pork tenderloin. Since I had some tofu in the fridge, I thought I would make it again. Just vegetarian it up this time.

I also added some chia seeds to flour, salt, pepper mixture that I coated the tofu with.

Another change: instead of spinach, this time I used escarole.

Although this was tasty, I definitely prefer the original recipe. The pork balanced out the tanginess of the lemon sauce a little better than the tofu.

In addition to cooking, I spent a lot of time with my psych review book.

The tofu left overs (with some steamed broccoli) was a quick mid study day meal.

Mid study day snack: chocolate covered strawberry from Nyssa.

Recipe #2: Pasta with Italian Chicken Sausage, Escarole, and Beans

Adapted from www.skinnytaste.com

I know I JUST made this recipe last week, but turns out it’s THAT good. This time, instead of crumbling the sausage, I cut the links into four pieces and chopped . This actually saved quite a bit of time.

I also used a yellow onion instead of a sweet onion.

Another simple change: I kicked up the spicy factor by doubling the amount of cayenne pepper.

The veggies.

I finished cooking just in time to watch an episode of HIMYM. Two of my favorite people made it into this picture

I need to keep this entry short, (I need to continue studying). Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get a little more blogging time in. Michele is coming up on friday (yaaaaay!!!!!), and I’m sure I’ll have lots to write about

Recipe #2: Pasta with Italian Chicken Sausage, Escarole, and Beans

Adapted from www.skinnytaste.com

I pretty much followed the recipe exactly as written. The only difference was cayenne pepper instead of red pepper flakes. It gave it a little extra kick

I first cooked the onions, garlic, salt, better and crumbled chicken sausage.

It smelled so good!

I set the sausage mixture aside, and added chicken broth and beans.

Next, I added a whole head of escarole and waited for it to cook down.

Finally I added the pasta and sausage mixture.

Finished just in time to watch the Super Bowl. Yup, that’s Kelly Clarkson in the background.

I topped it all with some grated parmesan cheese.

I also served it over some steamed veggies. That’s why you see the random rogue broccoli

Overall, this is one of my favorite recipes I have tried this year. It was surprisingly super easy and has a ton of flavor! I highly recommend trying this one out

_____________________________________________

Life update for the week for the rest of the week…

Went grocery shopping for the week. Loaded up on the usual stuff and a few of my favorite things. Has anyone else tried the blood orange chobani?? So so so good. My new favorite flavor. I’m also currently obsessed with the 3 pt skinny cow chocolates and 2 pt (yes, you heard right) Wegmans sandwich things.

Took Franco to the vet. He wasn’t very happy with me. Here he is giving me the stink eye while we were waiting to see the vet.

Aaaaannd now we are in a fight. He wouldn’t even look at me.

My child psych rotation is still as exciting as ever. I had my favorite patient chief complaint of all time. “I am Darth Vader.” There’s a whole lot more to that story that makes it alot less awesome, so I’ll just leave you with that little tid bit.

One of my many lectures this week not only involved a group sing-a-long, but us holding stuffed animals and pretending to feed them. Seeing my male classmates cradle a squirrel and a cat was pretty entertaining.

On Wednesday I sat in the lounge for an hour while my attending saw a patient who didn’t want a med student all up in their business. I have no problem with that but unfortunately I left my bag with my review book in his office and couldn’t interrupt the session. While trying to keep myself occupied I stumbled upon some leftover breakfast take-out from Panera. Win!

Didn’t really trust the food, but the coffee was still warm.

Some of my reading options: Arthritis Today and 55 Plus. Fail.

Opted for “First for Women.” I learned 97 ways to “get the paty started.” Also apparently we all should be eating African Mango seed extract to lose half of our body weight. Sure Doctor Oz…let me just take this pill and I’ll look like Heidi Klum in no time

Needless to say, it was a wasted hour. Ahhh the glamorous life of a third year med student. 75% of the time you’re working you’re ass off and the other 25% you’re completely wasting your time (but becoming remarkably good at Tiny Tour).

Finally, I tried some kick boxing classes at my zumba studio with Cynthia and Anna. Where are the pictures of us doing this you ask? Not on the internet. I was a hot mess afterwards. Those classes are HARD and they kicked my butt. I haven’t worked out like that since being on my high school track team. So many high knees, butt kicks, push ups and planks. I’m feeling muscles in my back that I didn’t know I had. Overall I got 4.5 hours of working out this week (possibly a record for third year.) It may be a little silly sometimes, but I’m totally loving this rotation.

On Saturday night I went out for sushi with Mike and Christopher. I’ve been dying to try Sakana-ya since first year, but just got around to it.

Started the night out with some wine. Guess what I was drinking?

At this restaurant, the sushi comes around on a conveyor belt. The different plates represent different prices.

First plate: steamed veggie dumplings

Second plate: veggie roll

Although these look identical, these were actually two different rolls. My stomach was feeling a little funny so I decided to just stick to the vegetarian dishes.

Finally, dessert! Green tea and strawberry mochi.

Mike, Christopher, and I finished off the night by meeting up with some friends at Blue Tusk for drinks! It’s always awesome to catch up with good friends who you haven’t seen in a while

]]> http://hippocraticoats.com/2012/02/05/recipe-resolution-week-4/feed/ 0 rah9184 IMG_4731 2.JPG IMG_4734 2.JPG IMG_4735 2.JPG IMG_4736 2.JPG IMG_4737 2.JPG IMG_4738 2.JPG IMG_4740 2.JPG IMG_4744 2.JPG IMG_4747 2.JPG IMG_4700 2.JPG IMG_4696 2.JPG IMG_4697 2.JPG IMG_1088 2.JPG IMG_1089 2.JPG IMG_1090 2.JPG IMG_1087 2.JPG pink-boxing-gloves.jpg IMG_4715 2.JPG IMG_4717 2.JPG IMG_4718 2.JPG IMG_4721 2.JPG IMG_4720 2.JPG IMG_4716 2.JPG IMG_4723 2.JPG http://hippocraticoats.com/2012/02/01/breakfast-breakdown/ http://hippocraticoats.com/2012/02/01/breakfast-breakdown/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:10:59 +0000 rah9184 https://hippocraticoats.wordpress.com/?p=1585 ]]> Today I’m going to try something a little different. This will be the first in hopefully a series of blog posts devoted to how I survived medical school. I’ve been meaning to get to this pretty much since I started the blog, but its only now, just 2.5 years into med school, that I feel I have any true advice to give. When I first was prepping to take the plunge into the crazy pool that is medical school, I scoured the internet for blogs and websites with advice for students. At that time, I didn’t really find all that much. Why you ask? Because people in med school don’t have all that much free time to do anything other than study, sleep, maybe eat and repeat. If I did find something, it was probably a website created by that person in every med school class that everyone else is thoroughly annoyed by. If you want the gunners guide to getting honors in every class, stop reading. That’s not what this is about. This will be about surviving probably the most challenging and exhausting experience of your life and still having a little bit of your sanity left intact.

The first topic I’m going to cover is clearly an important one because breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In first and second year eating breakfast really wasn’t that much of a challenge. Your schedule is a little more flexible, and I always managed to get something in my system before I headed up the hill for class. It wasn’t until I started my medicine clerkship where I had to make some changes and come up with a routine. Back in July, my alarm clock started going off at 5:30 am. That would give me just enough time to get ready and make it to the floor by 6:30. If I was lucky, I would have some time to throw something into my mouth. Unfortunately, I often didn’t have a chance to eat anything else until 12 pm when we had noon conference. That is a LONG time. I was often exhausted, and you could pretty much hear my stomach grumbling across the room.

The first part of my routine, was drinking a huge cup of iced coffee. To save time, I would brew a pot at night and stick it in the fridge once it cooled. It would stay fresh for a few days, so I made it in bulk. Another pro to drinking iced coffee is that it goes down faster. Those few minutes that you save there could potentially be super useful later on in the day. For example, when you forget your stethoscope and have to turn around once you mad it to the hospital, you’ll be thankful you didn’t spend 10 minutes sipping piping hot coffee. Not that happened to me or anything…twice

Second part of my routine was making sure I got some protein to hold me over until noon every day. The first solution I found were lean pockets. These little suckers are surprisingly filling, not all that bad for you and pretty affordable. They go for about $1.99 and take 2 minutes to heat up in the microwave.

If I ran out of lean pockets, another quick breakfast treat I would make is a microwave egg sandwich. I know what your thinking. Eggs in the microwave = gross. These really are quite tasty, fast and cheap. I would first crack one egg in a coffee mug. Next I would add a little skim milk and any spices or herbs that I had on hand. In this recent batch I added salt, pepper, dried onions and fresh thyme.

After two minutes in the microwave, I would place the egg on a sandwich thin with some laughing cow spreadable cheese. If I wanted to get real fancy, I would add a turkey sausage link (frozen after about 30 seconds in the microwave).

Final product with my favorite condiment: ketchup!

Egg Muffins

A newer breakfast was inspired by my friend Katie.

I sautéed about half of a red onion and 4 cloves of chopped garlic.

I combined all of that with 5 eggs, 1 cup of reduced fat cheddar, 2 tbsp miracle whip, 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 tsp salt/pepper, and some fresh thyme.

I lined 8 muffin tin cups with reduced fat crescent rolls.

Next, I put about 1/4 cup of the mixture in each cup and top with a turkey sausage link in each cup.

After 35 minutes in the oven at 350, here’s the finish product. If anyone is like “hey, these sound delicious, I’m going to try them,” just a quick word of warning. With the recipe above there was a TON of spillage in the oven. I wasn’t thinking about the expansion factor, and I filled those suckers right to the top. I would either A) reduce the amount of onion which takes up a ton of space or B) by more crescent rolls so that you can make a full tin. Doing the math on mine, it comes out to about 5-6 ww points per muffin (depending on how much is currently sitting on my oven floor). These can easily be reheated for a quick breakfast treat!

Another new way to get a little extra healthy fat and protein in the morning is my newest food obsession, the chia seed. I know what you’re thinking and yes, these are the things that grow in your cha-cha-cha-chia.

They’re also little nutrition powerhouses. In 1 tbsp you get 4 grams of fiber, 20 grams of protein and a whole lotta omega 3. They’re tasteless so they just add a little crunch to whatever you’re eating them on. And for my WWers, it’s only 1 point/tbsp.

One serving size is 1 tbsp which is a lot. I tend to eat several smaller servings over the course of the day.

Here they are on a sandwich thin with some almond butter and a banana.

Even though these breakfast ideas are all pretty filling, sometimes I would still be starving by 10-11am. Unfortunately, you can’t just leave rounds to go grab coffee and a snack. Luckily, med students get to wear those handy white coats with lots of pockets. And what better thing to fill them with (besides all your tools and reference materials) than snacks.

One of my favorite snacks, the Luna bar. I eat so many Luna bars, I should really buy stock in the company. My favorite flavors: Smores and Chocolate Coconut

My other favorite snack for when I really didn’t have a ton of time, shot bloks. Yes, these are the things marathoners use to complete a 3-5 hour race. They’re also a handy way to get a quick 100 calories of pure carbs. These saved me the day we rounded for 8 (you read that right) hours.

Preview to next Med School Post: A few of my favorite things

Instead, let’s think back to a warmer time of year. A time when I just had taken the Step I exam. A time when my hair was a different shade, and I had yet to step foot on the wards. After arguably the two most stressful months of my life, I was ready to NOT study for a little while. I was in need of a major party. And what better way to celebrate than a wine tour and a week in Boston?!?!

I found a groupon with a tour company called Experience! The Finger Lakes. The specific tour I decided on was called Vinifera Varieties: Wines of the Seneca Lake   Banana Belt. Two of my favorite people in the world (my mom and Michele) joined me for a day in wine country. We started off in Ithaca where we met our tour guide and boarded our tour van.

On the van, we each received a reusable Experience! The Finger Lakes water bottle. It’s always good to hydrate!

First stop: Standing Stone Vineyards. Look at that view of the lake.

We started out by taking a tour of the winery.

We even got to do a barrel tasting.

Let’s just say as cool as it was to drink from the barrel, I like my wine from the bottle.

After the tour it was time to start the tasting. We sat down at a few tables they had set up for with LOTS of bread. First lesson of the day: I LOVE gewurztraminer.

Mmm brie!

Michele taking some photos for her blog.

Some of my favorites.

Next stop: Penguin Bay Winery

Bring on the bubbly!

At this winery we not only tried a bunch of champagnes, but we also learned how to properly open a bottle. My favorite wine and cheese pairing of the day was the combination of the Swedish Hill Spumante Blush and Yancey’s Fancy Strawberry chardonnay cheese.

On to the next stop! Red Newt Cellars

Another excellent pairing but it wasn’t of the wine and cheese variety. At this winery they combined a goat cheese with herbs and honey. Holy cow this was so good I wanted to take it to Vegas and marry it!

Last stop: Damiani Wine Cellars. It was time for dessert! At this winery we paired various chocolates with wines. Yum!

The chocolates came from Hedonist Artisan Chocolates of Rochester.

After a day of fantastic wine and food, I enjoyed one last view of the lake.

All of the purchases throughout the day.

All of my purchases from the day.

After the wine tour, Michele and I headed to Boston for a week of fun times including a 4th of July celebration and lots of quality couch time. One of my favorite things we did over the course of the week was visit a little store called Kickass Cupcakes.

This place was AWESOME. The different flavors were so creative and everything looked delicious.

Michele and I couldn’t pick just one so we decided to buy a bunch and have a cupcake feast.

With our wine purchases, we also made some of Emily’s Dangerous Sangria.

And spent some quality time with Renate watching John’s 3D TV.

What better way to celebrate the boards being over than food, wine, and some of my best friends?

Theme of the week was thyme. I love cooking with fresh thyme. There’s something about those little leaves that give every dish an extra punch of flavor.

Recipe #1: Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar, Sweet onion and Thyme

Adapted from a WW recipe

On a plate, I combined flour, 1⁄2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and coated 1 pound of chicken breast.

Next, I cooked the chicken in a large skillet with 2 tsp of olive oil until golden brown.

Chicken was set aside so I could make the onion sauce.

In the same pan, I sautéed a whole sweet onion.

After about 6 minutes, I added 1 cup of reduced fat/sodium chicken broth, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp fresh thyme, and 1/4 tsp salt/pepper. The whole mixture was brought to a boil.

I let it boil until the onions were tender and added 2 tsp of butter.

Final product! I served it over brown rice…

…and with a fresh green salad.

Franco definitely loved the smell of this dish. He almost fell off the coffee table trying to get a better look at it

Recipe #2: Turkey, pumpkin and white bean chili

Originally posted by www.skinnytaste.com

My favorite new kitchen gadget: my garlic press.

God I love the crock pot. After cooking the turkey until it was white…

…I just threw the rest of the ingredients in and set it on low for 8 hours.

I only made one minor change to the original recipe by adding some fresh thyme in the crock pot and sprinkling some over the finished product. Also, instead of serving with sour cream, I had some plain yogurt in the fridge. Still not sure about the yogurt, but it did add a nice touch of cream to the chili.

Preview to next week: Hopefully I’ll be able to make those other 2 recipes. I also found some fantastic recipes using rosemary. I may have to mix those in too!

Anna started off the night with mini stuffed mushrooms, and she let me try one!

The bread was awesome! They brought it to us right out of the oven.

The best part about the bread was the mini sauce tray they brought to each one of us. The first was a garlic butter followed by olive oil and herbs and balsamic vinegar.

My entree came with the house salad which was easily the best house salad I’ve ever had. It was full of tomatoes, gorgonzola cheese, dried fruit and sunflower seeds. The salad dressing was a tangy puree with tomatoes, mushrooms and olive oil that went really well with the fruity cheesyness of the salad.

Now we all know how much I love my red wine, but I decided to mix it up and go with a white tonight (spoiler alert: I ordered seafood for my entree). I chose a Chardonnay from chile. I was excited to try something with “touches of marzipan.”

Unfortunately I couldn’t taste the almond but it still was a delicious white wine.

And finally, the main course. I ordered the Northern Italian Scampi. Yum!

As the menu says, “Large shrimp sautéed with garlic, vermouth, demi-glaze, fresh lemon and butter, and served over rice pilaf”

After dinner, Christopher snapped a few photos of the girls.

“Prom” style!

Overall the food was awesome and the service was fantastic. Our waiter Zach was particularly appreciated by Cynthia because of his speedy ginger ale service I’m definitely coming back again!

I drove out to Webster MA, Saturday morning. For some reason I thought it wouldn’t be a problem to drive through the “storm.” Big mistake. My car could definitely handle the snow (thanks to my snow tires) but the roads were terrible. Everyone (without snow tires) tended to drive very very slow, and a ride that should have taken 3 hours (from Fonda) took over 4. When I finally arrived, Em and I made a quick trip over to her local salon so she could get her hair done. After quite the adventure, we made it back to Em’s house and she started prepping for dinner.

When I wasn’t helping out, I managed to get a few good shots of the set up before the other guests arrived. Em was going for an Italian restaurant vibe. The lights were a nice touch.

Emily crafted up place card holders out of wine corks and some ribbon. She’s so crafty!

The menu was not only delicious but beautifully designed. Emily and Katie embossed them on one of their recent Craft-ernoons.

Some of the wine.

By 6 the guests had all arrived, and it was time for the festivities to start!

The view from my seat.

Vicki and me!

Vicki and Nick. I managed to snap several other fantastic photos of Vicki and Nick, but because I value my friendship with Vicki and want to keep it intact, they will not be posted

Michele, me and our amazing hostess…after we all had enjoyed a few glasses of wine.

On to the food!

First course: Lemon chevre stuffed fig wrapped in prosciutto with balsamic glace

Course two: Red pepper and portabella mushroom pizza…

….paired with herbed provolone and Dolcetta D’Alba.

Third course: Chicken and mushroom risotto and asparagus paired with pecorino romano and pinot noir.

Fourth course: Dark chocolate biscotti paired with gruyere and zinfandel

Night in Review:

Favorite individual food: It’s a tie between the herbed provolone and the pizza.

Favorite pairing: The biscotti and gruyere. I honestly didn’t expect to like this combo, but holy awesome tasting party in my mouth! These two mixed with the zinfandel were pretty incredible.

Favorite Wine: All of them! After intermission wine, they all start tasting like the best wine I ever tried

Favorite surprise: A charlie the unicorn button from Michele!

Favorite funny moment: Tie between the Vicki/Nick photo shoot and any conversation with Emily after intermission wine (part deux)

Favorite PJ pants: No contest, Nick wins with all-season satin

Favorite overall moment: Any moment I got to spread with some of my favorite people in the world (awww sappy but true!)

No wine dinner would be complete, without Emily’s famous brunch the next day. This Emily whipped up a tasty broccoli quiche and a french toast bake. I didn’t take as many pictures the next morning because post wine dinner photos are never anyone’s favorite pic. Regardless, the weekend was awesome, and I can’t wait for next year! It’s already on my google calendar!

Recipe #1: Hawaiian Curried Chicken with Pineapple Salsa

I first coarsely chopped the onions and added some of the spices.

Next I added the curry and pushed the onions to the side so I could lightly cook some chicken breast.

My favorite part, the light coconut milk. I covered and simmered for 20 minutes.

Done!

The pineapple salsa was a great touched. I served the whole mixture over some Israeli couscous. This is definitely a recipe I’ll be making again.

Recipe #2: Pork Piccata with Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

Since I usually cook with shrimp or poultry, I decided to mix it up this week and try something a little different. This was my first official time every making something with a pork tenderloin. First I cut the tenderloin into 16 slices and seasoned with a flour-salt-pepper mixture.

After pan frying the slices.

I made the sauce in the same pan so it soaked up all the leftover bits and pieces.

Mixed the capers in the sauce and the first part of the meal was done!

On to stage two, the mashed sweet potatoes.

I chopped and peeled the potatoes.

The recipe called for the garlic to be boiled right with the potatoes. It smelled delicious in my kitchen.

Final product! Overall this was pretty tasty. I’m kind of biased because chicken piccata is one of my favorite recipes. I didn’t love the spinach with the lemon and it probably would have been better with some steamed broccoli. The pork was surprisingly low in points. Only 5 for the piccata/spinach combo! The website considered the recipe quick and easy. It definitely was easy, but took more than the 20 minutes suggested. As for the second recipe, I LOVED the potatoes. I’ve never made mashed potatoes with yogurt before, and I was a little skeptical. It was actually super creamy and also pretty low in points (only 2 per serving).

Preview for next week’s recipes:

If all goes as planned, I’ll be making not 1, not 2, not even 3, but FOUR recipes. I know what you’re thinking? Who knew a med student had this much time on her hands. Just one of the joys of being on psych! I picked up the Jan/Feb issue of Cooking Light, and there’s at least 10 recipes I want to try. Next week I’ll just be trying one. I also have a recipe from a website Michele just passed along, another WW, and one I’m making up but is inspired by Katie’s recent blog post.

Off to watch the latest episode of the Vampire Diaries and pack for Emily’s.

Another one of my new year resolutions was to cook more often. It’s so easy to just rely on some type of frozen meal that I can just throw in the oven, but we all know how unhealthy that can quickly become. So my goal for 2012 is to try at least two new recipes a week. I can make them in bulk and then eat for the rest of the week!

Recipe #1: Crock-pot fiesta chicken

If I had to pick one kitchen appliance I couldn’t leave without (besides my coffee maker) it would be the crock pot. It’s so easy to just throw the ingredients into the pot and 6 hours later you have a delicious meal!

All the ingredients (sans chicken) in the pot.

Added 1.5 pounds of chicken.

The finished product. I served it over brown rice, added a little cheese and garnished with fresh cilantro. YUM.

Recipe #2: Curried coconut shrimp

After discovering my love for shrimp back in Boston, it has become a staple in my kitchen. I decided to mix it up and try a healthy version of one of my favorite dishes using lite coconut milk and one of the Wegman’s veggie blends. I also added some fresh garlic from Emily’s dad’s garden.

May not look like it, but this smelled delicious.

After adding the coconut milk and shrimp.

Scallions went in next.

Finished product over brown rice.

Another thing I was working on this week was planning a baby shower for my friend Jackie. Jackie, Cynthia and I spent 4 long weeks together during our Ob/Gyn clerkship. Jackie is due in February and Cynthia and I have been talking about planning something for way back when we were spending our nights together on the labor and delivery floor.

For favor, I decided to make little candy bottles on a stick.

This was my first time working with the melted chocolate and the molds, and it definitely took a little while before I got a rhythm down. My Aunt Judy who passed away back when I was in high school used to make these for my brother and I for almost every holiday. I remember them being one of the tastiest candies ever. Making the candies definitely brought back some great memories from my childhood.

Back to the crafting. I quickly realized a brush would make filling the molds way easier.

The melting process

Done! I wrapped them in plastic and used some cute frog and polka dot ribbon.

Throughout the week I also worked on a diaper cake for Jackie. Emily is a pro at these and she helped me with the rolling when she was up for New Years. After several trips to the Hobby Lobby this week, I finally got the cake decorate just right. Everyone who was coming to the shower chipped in a few dollars.

Another diaper cake shot.

On the day of the shower, I made my first quiche. I got this recipe off Allrecipes.com and I highly recommend it. Cooked up some onions, broccoli and mushrooms.

Add it to and egg, milk, cheese, miracle whip combo.

And placed it in a ready made pie crust. Before….

…and After. It came out great and honestly it was that bad for you.

On Sunday, the party guests started arriving. Everyone brought some type of delicious dish to share.

Anna came with her famous truffles and she made melted snowman cookies.

Definitely the cutest food item at the shower!

I borrowed this and a few other picture from my friend Lauren’s facebook page. A little blurry, but Jackie was definitely surprised.

Mommy and daddy!

Cynthia’s awesome cupcakes.

All of the tasty treats.

Caitlyn and Anna enjoying.

We had several party games planned, but the best one had to be “Guess the Do-Do” as Cynthia called it. We melted a bunch of different chocolates, stuck them in some diapers and the party guests had to guess what type of chocolate was in each diaper.

The girls hard at work.

Sarah getting an extra good smell.

Lauren, Megan and Emily comparing notes.

Cynthia announcing the anwers.

All of the party guests (minus Sarah and Suma).

I had a fantastic time! If only every weekend could be another party!

Preview to the next “Sarah’s week in review:” Emily’s 4th Annual Wine Night! Get excited!