Oh You Fancy, Huh?

   So far I am loving my new car. My only complaint was that it didn't have cup-holders, but then BF pointed out to me where they were (oops), so now I can't even complain about that! I know most people don't think Volvos are very cool, but I love mine. And I'm not gonna lie, I feel pretty cool driving it haha. I have leather seats and a SUNROOF! Coming from my '96 Chevy Blazer piece-of-poop, I feel like I'm driving PURE LUXURY. Anyway, for some reason my CD player won't play burned CDs (it might be too old), and I love Christina and all, but you can only listen to "Durrty" so many times before you get bored with it.  So I bought this fancy piece of equipment to fulfill my musical needs...

   Also, this is totally unrelated, but I wanted to share this with all my fellow foodies out there:

MAC AND CHEESE PIZZA WITH MOZZARELLA STUFFED CRUST

    Yep, I made it.  And yep, it probably took a few years off my lifespan.  Do I regret it?  Not for one second.

Food Adventures In My Free Time

   One of the great things about being on psych is that you get evenings and weekends off.  I was lucky to be able to get Mother's Day off, so BF and I went hiking with my mom and sister.  As one of my presents for my mom, I made rosemary pineapple sorbet from scratch.  (And yes, I do in fact love putting rosemary in everything).  

My beautiful mom!

Me, mom, sister

BF, me

   This last weekend, A (my "partner in crime") and I made a delicious fondue feast for BF and Y.  It was super gluttonous, but sooooooo worth it.  I don't know if you can see in the picture, but I made some delicious rosemary watermelon lemonade from scratch with my juicer.  Like I said... rosemary all up in errrryyything!  

Medical Student By Day, Spider Wrangler By... Day Off

    Since I finished USMLE Step 1, I have been making good progress on my "To Do After Boards" list.  On Easter Sunday, I "installed" my garden for this year.  I had such a relaxing afternoon working outside in the sun by myself.  I forgot how peaceful and enjoyable gardening is.  The official line-up for 2012:

• rosemary
• basil
• green onions
• cilantro
• watermelon
• tomato
• sage
• thyme
• dill

    This year, I decided to do less veggies and more herbs, since the veggie plants don't produce as much as I would like.  At least with the herbs, I'll use them all the time.  Unfortunately, the hardware store I always get my starter plants at had a terrible selection this year, so I am actually going to try starting from seeds for a few of the items.  I've never done that before so I'm nervous, especially with my vacation coming up, the timing of watering and planting might be a little tricky.  

Starting from seeds 

     I can't remember if I ever blogged about this, but last year when I was putting in my 2011 garden, I came across a family of black widows.  They decided to take up residence underneath an unused bag of garden soil, and there were a LOT of them.  Normally, I am not too scared of spiders (in fact, I am the official "spider wrangler" of the household), but black widows just give me the heebie jeebies.  Ick!  So anyway, at the time I tried to smash them with my shovel, but I don't think I got them all, so now every time I'm out in my garden, I always keep my eyes peeled in case they have decided to return for revenge.  This year, I encountered a variety of nasty spiders, but they weren't black widows, so I wasn't scared.  I can't imagine how arachnophobes would ever manage to garden.

The Inauguration Of "Cold Hard B*#&$"

    If you read some of my earlier pre-boards posts, you might remember that I promised to reward myself with the ice-cream attachment for my KitchenAid mixer when I finished boards.  I ordered it with just enough time so that it was poetically delivered exactly while I was taking my test.  

    Once my friends and I started to get stand mixers, and we figured they are beautiful pieces of machinery that deserve names, we came up with this fun little tradition of giving them annoying/naughty/provocative names.  It started off with E's mixer, which is a beautiful Tiffany's blue color.  E got the mixer as a gift, and was super excited to use it for the first time, when she came home to find her roommate dirtying it up without even asking her if she could use it.  Her roommate's name was Robyn, so much to E's dislike, we all decided her mixer's name would from now on officially be "Robyn's Egg", since Robyn broke it in.  Next to get a mixer was C, who LOVES pink, so naturally her mixer is pink.  We tried to come up with a name to annoy her, but eventually gave up and came up with "Pink Taco" when we couldn't find one that annoyed her.  Most recently, I was the one to get a mixer, and I chose black to match the rest of my kitchen appliances.  Her name is "Black Beauty", which you can interpret as you'd like.  Finally, in anticipation of my ice cream attachment, we decided that such a big/important attachment deserved it's own name too, and the first thing that came to mind was "Cold Hard B*&$%"!

     The first batch of ice cream turned out pretty good, especially considering we had never made ice cream before.  We made 2 pints bacon/bourbon ice cream!

Meet Black Beauty and Cold Hard B*%$&

Our finished product in Baskin Robbins pint containers I conveniently had

    I probably won't get a chance to make another batch until after I get back from my trip to Peru, but next on my list to make is some sort of strawberry/rosemary sorbet/gelato concoction.  Mmmm, I'll let you know how that goes.

Spreading The Love

    Valentine's Day, to me, is a day of spreading the love, not only to a significant other (if you have one), but also to your family and friends.  To me, it is a day no different than any other day, but a good opportunity to stop and reflect on all of the wonderful relationships you have with others, and how lucky you are to have those people in your life.  

   This year, one of my friends and I decided to bake Pink Champagne Cupcakes from one of our favorite blogs: "Eats Well With Others".  They took a long time, especially after I screwed up the frosting by adding regular sugar instead of powdered sugar.  Oops!  We ended up using the messed-up frosting to make pink cookies, and we just made some pink whipped cream to top the cupcakes.  They turned out quite tasty!    

            

   We then proceeded to make homemade Valentine's Day cards for our friends (I mean, it's not like we had ANY studying we should have been doing, right?!).  We had such a good time; it was so worth missing out on a few study hours.  The absolute best part was when we surprised our friends and delivered our baked goods/cards directly to their doors.  I didn't get pictures of them all, but I managed to get a few of their reactions:

   I think our friends appreciated our Valentine's goodies, and I know we got a lot out of making and giving them.  Who says you can't have a life in med school?!

Rosemary Scones With Lemon Icing For My Partner-In-Crime's Birthday

The other day it was my friend/study buddy/partner-in-crime's birthday, so a few of us surprised her in the morning before class with cake and scones!  I made the scones, and of course I made rosemary ones with a lemon icing.  I tend to make everything with rosemary in it these days.  I got the recipe from good ol' Giada.

Was zesting the lemons and accidentally zested my finger...

Getting ready for the surprise...

SURPRISE!!!!

21 (again)!!!

Eat, Pray, Love (-Pray +Eat More) = Eat, Love, Eat More

This last week (post Quiz 6) has been FULL of wonderful cooking adventures and lovely dinners with friends.  Here are just a few highlights:

Beef/Lamb Seekh Kabobs

Bacon-wrapped mac and cheese sushi

Antelope Sliders

Bear Spring Rolls

A Wonderful Feast By a Wonderful Cook

Shrimp, Basil, Rosemary Pizza

Artichoke, Shallot, Prosciutto Pizza

Wheat Soft Pretzels

Btw I totally forgot to post that I have officially put in my garden for 2011!  Complete with green onions, basil, rosemary, oregano, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, small bell peppers, lettuce, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.  While planting everything, I had a little drama with a family of black widows who decided to make a nest on my bag of soil... Let's just say it ended in me pounding my shovel repeatedly and spraying the entire area with the hose.  Hope they don't come back!  Anyway, can't wait to see how everything does!

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

Gettin My NOM On

Spicy Seafood Stew Recipe (slightly modified from "Spicy Fish Stew" recipe in What Color Is Your Diet?)

Ingredients

• 2 cups any color bell pepper chopped
• 2 cups chopped onion
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3/4 cup sliced mushrooms
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 16 oz bag of mixed seafood (octopus, calamari, imitation crab, mussels, shrimp)
• 1/2 cup chopped green onion 
• a few dashes of tabasco sauce

Directions

Saute onions, mushrooms and bell peppers in olive oil on medium heat for ~8 min.  Add chicken broth, tomatoes, cumin, cayenne, salt, pepper and bay leaf.  (I added the seafood at this point, because some of the things in it were not cooked yet).  Cook, covered, at medium heat for 30 min.  Make sure seafood is cooked.  Adjust seasonings if needed!