Good Food, Good Meat, Good Lord Let's Eat

The title of this post was my daddy's trademark "blessing" before family meals when he was asked to pray. Short and sweet!
Since I've had this month and basically last month off I've had a good amount of time to cook. I sort of found, sort of created a crockpot stew recipe that I've already made twice since February and I can happily report that it tasted just as good the 2nd time around. Don't tell my mother-in-law but my husband said it was just as good as hers. That means a lot coming from him. Without further ado, here 'tis:

BEST STEW EVER

1 small package stew meat
1/3 cup flour
1 small can V8
1 can English peas
1 can corn
2 potatoes
1 small onion
Tony's, salt, pepper

Put crock pot on low. Grab a pan and put it over med-high heat on the stove. Dump a little flour, salt and pepper in a bowl and toss the stew meat in it to coat. Melt a little butter or fat of your choice in the pan. My mother would say to use Smart Balance or whatever because it's GOOD for you. Not good within reason for a fat, but actually the butter is GOOD for you. I prefer Brummel & Brown's butter-like product but that's because it says it has yogurt in it and yogurt is GOOD for you. Anyway, then saute your meat until it's all brown and mostly done, or all the way done, whichever you prefer. While the meat is browning chop your onions. I chop them real big because Kris doesn't like them and that way I can easily fish them out of his bowl. Throw them on the bottom of the crockpot. Then chop your potatoes and throw them on top. Now dump the corn and English peas on top, juice and all. Sprinkle all those veggies with a little bit of Tony's. Then throw the cooked meat on top, then the V8 on top of that. Leave it on low for 6 hours. It's so, so good. If you don't keep V8 in stock pretty sure you could use a can of tomato sauce and a little water. It's not an exact science.

This makes a dense, hearty stew. If you like yours more soup-y I suggest you put some broth or something in it but I can't guarantee it'll taste as good.

"Lett-ush"

I just ate a BLT.

And I grew the L part in my backyard.

Because I wanna be Martha.

But just a little bit sassier :)

Peds Wards and Wedding Season

My partner and I just wrapped up our 1st week of Peds Wards yesterday. For those who wonder what the heck "Peds Wards" means, it means we take care of kids that have been admitted to stay in the hospital overnight. It could be due to an infection, asthma exacerbation, or any problem which necessitates multiple tests and consults. It can be one night or multiple nights. We check on them every morning, bright and early, see how things have been going, and then make appropriate changes to their therapy or send them home. There's no clinic (hallelujah!) and most of our residents are pretty nice.

You know wedding season is getting started when you go to 2 showers in 1 weekend. Friday night I got to go to my cousin Carrie's shower. It was a small family get together with BBQ, flip flops, kids playing in the pool, and banana pudding (recipe to follow). It was nice to sit back and visit with family.

Saturday began bright and early with call. My partner and I were at the hospital at 6:30 and left the hospital at about 7:00 that night. It ended with our resident saying - "Oh yeah, I probably should have let y'all go about 2 hours ago. Go home." I hear that one a lot unfortunately. I'm really going to try to remember not to torture my M3s when I'm a resident. Not that staying there that long was torture - I got a good bit of studying done, much more than I would have at home. That's the optimistic view I guess. Came home, ate, popped 2 Benadryl, and hit the hay for a solid 12 hours. It was bliss. I really needed to catch up on some sleep. Wards is nice, but it starts early. I'd only been clocking 4-6 hrs every night for the last week. Weekends are essential for catch up!

As for today, I woke up around 10:30, cleaned a little, sipped on some coffee and caught up on tv shows and then headed to a shower at 2:00. It's for a girl who is marrying one of K's cousins and she is great! I'm super excited to have someone else my age to goof off with at family Thanksgivings, Christmases, and Easters. Plus, they're just a really fun couple. I see a lot of dinners eaten together in the future.

Since then I've been at home, listening to the rain, cutting coupons, and catching up on the 6th season of Lost. Such a productive day, ha ha. Really need to go run, but might have to take a raincheck. It's kind of nasty out there.

With that, I leave you a no-fail recipe for banana pudding. I make this often and always get compliments on it:

BANANA PUDDING

2 bananas
1 box Nilla wafers
1 large box vanilla pudding mix
2.5 cups cold milk
1 tub frozen Cool Whip
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine 2.5 cups cold milk with pudding mix. Beat for a minute or so. Let sit about 2 minutes. Add Cool Whip and sweetened condensed milk and almond and vanilla extracts. Mix it all up. Alternate layers of Nilla wafers, pudding, and bananas. Top with wafers.

P.S - Sometimes I make it with NO bananas and extra Nilla wafers. Scandalous, I know!

Easy, Healthy Banana Bread

Hey y'all. Just made this banana bread recipe and it turned out pretty decent so I thought I'd share:

Ingredients

* 1/3 c. natural applesauce
* 3/4 c. brown sugar
* 3 egg whites
* 2-3 bananas
* 1/3 c. water
* 1 2/3 c. wheat flour (I used whole wheat pancake mix - cause I didn't want a huge bag of wheat flour that I wouldn't have time to use before it went rancid...)
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp baking powder
*OPTIONAL - chocolate chips, walnuts, dried cranberries, etc... I added chocolate chips and it was pretty dang delicious. Other than that I don't think this bread has much fat/cholesterol in it at all.


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix applesauce and sugar.
3. Stir in eggs then bananas then water.
4. Stir in dry ingredients.
5. Pour mixture into a loaf pan and bake ~35 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

This bread was a tasty end to a not so awesome day on Endocrine. I just don't really "jive" with the people who have chosen to do endocrine as their careers. It's not that I don't like them or respect them. We don't fight or disagree or anything. They're just kind of... different. They definitely don't have the same sense of humor as me and my partner. I'm not sure if I've ever seen one of them laugh - ever. They do stare a lot though. Here's a few reasons Endocrine is just not jiving with me:

1. We round at 2:30 in the afternoon, mostly because our attending is semi-retired.
2. They're big THINKERS; not so much DOERS. They're very nice, but I'm more of a doer for sure.
3. Today we met to round/have a case study with our attending at 2:30. He gave us the case, we all pondered it. At one point my partner and I were discussing what hormones were secreted from the anterior pituitary vs the posterior pituitary. It was all pertinent to the question he had just asked us. At that point he says, "Girls, pay attention now..." as if we're his 5 year old great-grand children or something. (He graduated from med school 50 yrs ago, literally. He told us so.) I really had to bite my tongue.
4. After berating us for discussing the pituitary gland, he then asked me a question and when I had to think about it for a second he said, "Come on Ashley, give us an answer." Is my name Ashley? No. thankyouverymuch.
5. About 30 minutes into our case study some nice gentleman came into our room and stated that all the students were to be dismissed because of the bad weather and that only the department heads had gotten the e-mail. Our attending stated that he saw that, but didn't think it mattered. He then proceeded to keep us for the next 45 minutes before letting us go to "do whatever it is we do all day." Yeah, he said it.

Can you tell someone's made my sh*tlist???