Orientation Week

The first day week of anything is always hard. 

That's why we celebrated a long week of orientation early with Mexican and margaritas.

(we did not deal with patients this week, no worries)

Post soon about Toronto and Welcome Week!

Share:

Post Tonsillectomy, Days 2-4

Just the other day I posted about getting my tonsils out, which you can read about here.
Here's a follow up of the past few days.

Day 2

Nausea.

I think it's mainly because I was taking the Hycet and didn't have much on my stomach (mostly liquid anyway and to be honest, that wasn't staying in for too long). 

So I had to take Zofran in the morning. 

Anyway, I was nauseous throughout the entire day but I managed to hang out on the first floor with my family all day and even ate two hot dogs and tater tots after they got cold and I cut them to the point that they almost didn't exist anymore. 

After I ate that, no more nausea. *does little jig*

Today's wellness rating: 7/8

Day 3

Nausea. 

x9000.

I don't think I've ever been so nauseous in my life.

I even ate and drank a little something before taking my pain meds and even though the nausea was so bad in the morning, I waited until 1pm to take Zofran trying to see if repositioning myself and ice chips would help. 

Earlier in the day, standing for too long made me dizzy and at 5pm, the mere thought of moving/looking around the room with just my eyes/turning my body or my head/sitting up made me sick to my stomach.

So Momma (bless her heart) called my doctor for me and he didn't really say all that much but to continue what I've been doing, take the Zofran and just to move super slowly.
So naturally I had a mini meltdown, but I'm trying to remain as positive as possible.
I managed to eat some cooled down macaroni and cheese and some of the soft parts of the bread my family had with their dinner before going back upstairs to lie down.

Today's wellness rating: 7

Day 4
What is life.
I slept amazingly (well... compared to the past 2 nights), however I woke up with my throat at a nice 8-9 pain level. I managed to grab a shower and drink some of a smoothie, which is an accomplishment at this point, and take my pain meds.
I am really trying to beat any nausea today away with a stick by taking the Zofran early (aka right this second) and eating before taking any pain meds.

Update: I went out with Momma, my sister and the kids and had a great time though I think I may have overdone it today. After coming home, I didn't feel well as in I felt spacey, pressure buildup in my ears and a bit sick. I went to lie down for a bit before going to eat dinner and at dinner I had 6 glasses of water and 2 glasses of Gatorade. I think that I haven't been taking in enough fluids (though I feel like I've been drinking an ocean's worth and am CONSTANTLY getting up to use the restroom in the night), which is why I've been nauseous. Also, the pressure in my ears is steadily increasing and the sides of my tongue hurt so bad that I don't feel like talking, eating, drinking or even just swallowing at this point.

Today's wellness rating: 6/7

My whole room looks like this... Chaotic clutter.

Share:

The Salad Express

Who says meal prep has to be hard or bland or boring?

I stumbled across this recipe for a Chopped Black Bean and Corn Mason Jar Salad and I just couldn't say no. I mean, how can you not love a dish that basically sounds like a Chipotle salad?

As with almost any dish, tweaking it to your taste may be required and this recipe was no different. Originally it calls for quart sized mason jars and I only have pint and a half size jars. I also forewent the cilantro from the jump. My mistake was not adjusting the ingredients accordingly. Thankfully, the salad still turned out wonderful but next time, I'm adding chicken, decreasing the corn and forgoing the avocado (sorry Mom). Additionally, I'd mix the greek yogurt and salsa before piling in the ingredients.

Though I had different size jars and discussed how I would adjust for future times I make this, below is the recipe that I followed.

Chopped Black Bean and Corn Mason Jar Salad

Ingredients
6 wide mouth quart size mason jars
1 1/4 cup of salsa
6 oz. plain greek yogurt
1 qt. cherry tomatoes, halved
1 red onion, chopped
2 cans of black beans, drained
12 oz. package of frozen corn, thawed
2 avocados, peeled and chopped
5 oz. block of pepper jack cheese, cut into small cubes
4-5 oz. chopped romaine lettuce
1/4 cup of more of chopped cilantro (optional)


Layering
Evenly distribute the ingredients in the following order into each of the 5 mason jars:
Salsa (1/4 cup per jar)
Greek yogurt (about 1 ½ tbsp per jar)
Tomatoes
Onions
Black beans
Corn
Avocado
Romaine lettuce
Cilantro (optional)


Eating
When ready to eat, pour into a bowl and mix together.

These lasted about 7 days in my fridge without any major change in taste. As expected, the flavors of the salads eaten towards the end of those 7 days had marinated but in my opinion, it was still very good!

Share:

Pizza in the Morning, Pizza in the Evenin'

Disclaimer - I am a member of BzzAgent and through this program, I receive products and/or coupons (usually for free). In return, I give my opinion on the products either by word of mouth, twitter, Facebook or sometimes.... here on my blog! *insert shocked face*

Who doesn't love pizza? I know I am a sucker for some pizza, especially when it's cheap and when it's delicious. Now, I don't have Celiac's disease,  meaning I can eat gluten without issue however when asked to review Freschetta's Gluten Free pizza, I couldn't say no. Why? Because, well... it's pizza and I also love Freschetta pizza. I tried the 4 Cheese Medley (also comes in pepperoni), which retails for $9.99 at my local Kroger.

Side note - not every store carries gluten free pizza, so check the website. 

(sorry for the sucky picture quality, haven't used this camera in forever and lighting was awful)

Now I'm a lover of thick crust pizza, but I have my moments where thin crust is calling my name. In this instance, the pizza looked and smelled like any other frozen pizza and the thin crust was screaming my name.

I put this pizza on a baking sheet and into the oven on 450 degrees for 13 minutes, right between the allotted 12-15 minute mark. When I took the pizza out, it smelled delicious but looked crispy around the edges. I like burnt food, so honestly I didn't care. It cut just like a normal pizza (I don't know what I expected it to cut like) but after taking my first bite, it did not taste like a normal pizza to me. I was none too pleased. 

The pizza was saucy - in a tomato-bell-peppery-but-no-other-spice-or-herb sense. I couldn't taste the cheese at all, but felt the chewy, slight gooeyness of it, and while the outer underside of the crust was crispy, the inner underside was still almost white. 

The pizza didn't get better as I ate more, so I doctored it up with some garlic salt and was much happier. It was still saucy and no real cheese flavor was present, but there was more spice flavor now. 

While I know of a few other people who tried this people and were in love, it just wasn't for me. t don't think I did anything wrong - I put the pizza in at the temperature it called for, within the time frame specified and simply was unhappy with the results. 

Would I recommend this pizza? Well no, probably not. It was void of any real flavor that I desire in a pizza but maybe the pepperoni version is better.

If y'all have had it before, did you like it?
Do you know anyone with a gluten allergy?

Share:

An Eye for an Eye

I made a most wondrous dish for dinner today - chicken and roasted broccoli (recipe to follow).

While that's probably a very basic dish for many of you, as it is for me, I was just trying to make something with ingredients already in my possession. 

So envision this:

You're cooking chicken, roasting broccoli, the world is grand when all of a sudden... 

*crackle pop pop pop*

... oil flies straight out of a pan onto your arm (you jump a tad) and then into your eyeball (you jump backwards into the fridge and turn dramatically like you just got slapped in the face).

Yeah, that happened.

As I'm typing this, my eye is burning and sore.

But my food was good y'all!

Anywho, on to the roasted broccoli which was DELICIOUS.

I adapted this recipe (remember, I used what I had) and came up with this:

Here are the completely scientific measurements of the ingredients I used

1 12 oz. bag of FROZEN broccoli 

½ tsp. salt

Dash of garlic powder

2 tbsp. canola oil

1/4 cup Italian breadcrumbs

3 shakes of parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 F
2. Dump frozen broccoli into a bowl, remove ice chunks but leave little broccoli crumbs.
3. Put everything into the bowl with the broccoli EXCEPT the oil and stir. 
4. Pour a tbsp. of oil into the mix and stir. Add more to your liking (just trying to cover the broccoli in deliciousness here). It's okay if everything is coated, it'll still be good, promise.
5. Grease a baking sheet or whatever you wanna put these bad boys on and proceed to dump (carefully - which is something I didn't do and ended up with broccoli crumbs everywhere) contents of bowl onto/into baking sheet/pan. Put whatever didn't stick to broccoli on top of the pieces that seem to be lacking. 
6. Put in oven.
7. Wait 15 minutes and let broccoli bake/roast. Your house will smell good. You will want to open the oven and eat immediately. Don't.
8. After 15 minutes, take out and flip broccoli over and cook another 10-15 minutes (I did 10).
9. Eat and enjoy immediately. Just don't burn yourself taking the sheet out of the oven like I did. 

Eat up!

Share:

It's the Little Things

For those of you who follow me on twitter, you may have seen my tweet the other day about desiring a donut. For those of you who don't follow me, here you go:

And while I know that donuts aren't good for you, they're nothing but air, yadda yadda. The last time I had a delicious hot donut was at least 10 years ago. 

Funny story actually.

*set scene to 2004*

So Momma dropped me off at my sister and her fiancé's apartment (hello I was 11, can't drive). It was probably 2 am, her fiancé was asleep and we were craving donuts. (SN: we have another donut story too back when she was in college… story for another day) So we look up there nearest 24 hour/open late Krispy Kreme and it was about 20 minutes away. We jump in her car, start driving and when we get there, the Hot Light was on (praise Him!). I don't and never have really eaten donuts like that but that didn't matter, we got a dozen and drove on our merry way back to her apartment.

The end.

Moral of the story, do what makes you happy.

Anyway, you know what happened when I wished upon twitter that I could go for a donut?

Yes. Hot Light = on.

The day that I went (Monday I believe), I had honestly been having a bad day, which had capped off an extremely rough and trying week and a half. I felt drained physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I missed my mom and my family and I felt alone and sad. I felt as though I had nothing left to offer and I really wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep as soon as I got home from class at 4 PM.

No one on twitter knew this. 

No one knew the story as to why I wanted the fluffy air-filled goodness of a warm donut (reminds me of very few Saturdays during my childhood when I'd come downstairs and a box of donuts was waiting for us - and no, this didn't happen often, Momma always made big weekend breakfasts).

Donuts remind me of simpler times.

Plain and simple.

And yet, someone had seen my tweet. Someone made my entire day so much better by getting me not just one, but a dozen donuts.

(I kind of wish I didn't have a dozen now that I'm writing this. There's only 3 left staring at me and that's no bueno for bathing suit season.)

It's really just the little things that can brighten my day, and anyone's day for that matter.

Do something for someone else today. 

Make someone smile.

Share:

First Fall Meal

And who said cooking for one had to be boring?

This past week has been soooo frigid in the mornings and so warm during the day, but I have just been freezing no matter what time it is. I literally get out of the shower in the morning and wrap a blanket around my towel'd self just to stay warm.

So to combat all this coolness, I decided it was time to make some chili. 

You heard me. Chili. White chili with rice and cornbread.

Your mouth watering yet? Cause mine is.

My mom has been making this chili for YEARS and I never knew it was a Publix Aprons recipe, but I'm sure glad it was because I could look it up without bugging her (too much...).

Now I'll tell you this much, I didn't make cheddar cornbread like the recipe calls for. I made regular ol' Jiffy deliciousness. Quick and easy. I also made 2 cups of Uncle Ben's original white rice. 

Scoop the rice and chili into a bowl and top the chili with some cheddar cheese. 

Eat to your heart's content. 

(P.S the recipe is linked to the word "recipe" above!)

Share:

Sunday Funday

Hey y'all!

It's been a while, I know, but I can explain!

I started nursing school! 

That's right, my life has been consumed with studying like NO other.

But enough about all the studying I've been doing.

Today, I'm making my favorite childhood dish and I am soooooo excited to share it with you all.

Chicken Casserole

2 (6 oz.) pkg Uncle Ben's long grain and wild rice (original, not the 10 minute kind)

2 cans each: cream of mushroom, celery and chicken

1 c. milk

1 c. Holland House White Cooking Wine

6 boneless chicken breast

Parmesan Cheese

Do not make the same mistake I did by making the rice first! I had to go out and buy more rice since I messed it up.

1. Butter 9x13 pan and set oven to 275 degrees.

2. Combine rice, milk, wine, and cream of 'x' into a large mixing bowl. Set aside the seasoning packets in the rice boxes for later.

3. Pour half of the rice mixture into the 9x13 and level it out. 

4. Place the the chicken on top of the rice.

5. Pour the rest of the rice mixture on top of the chicken.

6. Sprinkle both seasoning packets and parmesan cheese over the top of the casserole.

7. Place uncovered in the oven for 3 hours.

Enjoy for days!!!

Share: