The Best Meal Ever

With me being on break, I don't have any medical stories for you, so I'm going to post about the amazing dinner I made tonight. Since seeing Julie and Julia, I've been wanting to try some of Julia Child's recipe. In the movie, Julie makes this yummy creamy mushroom chicken thing. Well, I found the recipe and made it tonight. It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I'm not kidding; hands down one of the best meals I have ever cooked. I don't have any pictures, but let me tell you that I licked my plate when we were done. Please, go out and get the ingredients to make this meal. Make sure you plan it for a night where you have some time....it takes awhile, but definitely well worth it. One bite in, Jake says "Umm you are making this again right?"

Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons

(Chicken Breasts with Mushroom and Cream)

Source: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck (Knopf, 1961)

Ingredients:

4 supremes (boneless, skinless chicken breasts)

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

Big pinch white pepper (I left this out, we hate pepper.)

5 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon minced shallot or green onion (I used shallot)

1/4 pound diced or sliced fresh mushrooms

1/8 teaspoon salt

For the sauce:

1/4 cup white or brown stock or canned beef bouillon (I used chicken stock)

1/4 cup port, Madeira or dry white vermouth (I used Madeira)

1 cup whipping cream

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons freshly minced parsley

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Rub the chicken breasts with drops of lemon juice and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Heat the butter in a heavy, oven-proof casserole, about 10 inches in diameter until it is foaming. Stir in the minced shallots or green onion and saute a moment without browning. Then stir in the mushrooms and saute lightly for a minute or two without browning. Sprinkle with salt. (With being at Jake's, my kitchen supplies are limited. I used his large metal deep skillet and put that in the oven. Just make you remember that the handle will be hot (unlike me) because you will burn yourself.)

Quickly roll the chicken in the butter mixture and lay a piece of buttered wax paper over them, cover casserole and place in hot oven. After 6 minutes, press top of chicken with your finger. If still soft, return to oven for a moment or two. When the meat is springy to the touch it is done. (Please Note: Although Julia suggests to check the chicken after only 6 minutes, I (as well as other people on the internet!) feel that this amount of time is inadequate to thoroughly cook the chicken. I cooked it for closer to 30-40 minutes. I think my final time was 42 minutes, but some of my chicken pieces were really thick. I think at 30 min, I pulled them out and cut into them to check and there was still a little pink).

Remove the chicken to a warm platter (leave mushrooms in the pot) and cover while making the sauce (2 to 3 minutes).

To make sauce, pour the stock and wine in the casserole with the cooking butter and mushrooms. Boil down quickly over high heat until liquid is syrupy. Stir in the cream and boil down again over high heat until cream has thickened slightly. Off heat, taste for seasoning, and add drops of lemon juice to taste. Pour the sauce over the chicken, sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately.

Serves 4.

What's Coming in the Next Year?

For those of you not familiar with the whole med school path, my next year will be insane. In July, I officially have to decide what I want to be when I grow up, and start applying to residency programs. Between now and then, I have to figure out which programs I want to apply to, sign up for audition rotations (I'm currently waiting to hear back from one), and take my Step 2 PE boards. This means on June 3rd, I will be in Philadelphia seeing 10 fake patients, examining them and then writing up a note. I'm not too worried about this test, but it was $1100 so I will be taking it seriously. Alright, so these audition rotations- basically it's my time to kiss ass and be a rockstar med student so that the programs realize how amazing I am and they want me to be a part of their program. I'm hoping to do 4 audition rotations...one at the end of 3rd year and three of them in the beginning of my 4th year. Ok, after I apply to all these rotations, I can be invited for an interview. So I will spend my fall flying around the country doing interviews. I'm hoping to stay in Ohio, so that wouldn't be too bad because I could drive to all the places. Just for example, I know a girl who is one year ahead of me and is going into OB/GYN...she has gone to 20 interviews this fall.....think of all those plane tickets and hotel rooms. $$$$$$$$$$$

I'm in a DO school. There is a DO match and an MD match. I can do either just one or both...I'm still deciding what to do. Anyways, if I do the DO match, next January I will rank all the programs I'm interested in. At the same time, all the programs rank the students. This company, figures out all the rankings and then does the Match. I will get a little note in February saying where I will be doing my residency (hopefully). If I don't match, then I would do something awful called the Scramble. I'm not even going to explain what it is because it's pretty much my biggest fear.

So yeah, 2010 should be super busy and expensive.

Oh yeah, we're hoping to go to Korea in June. Jake will hopefully be presenting at a conference in Seoul which means his trip would be paid for, meaning all we have to do is swing my way. We won't know until February or March though.

Merry Christmas to You!

Today was the first Christmas I've ever spent with just Jake. We didn't go see anyone else...just us. I think other people should do this every once in awhile. Maybe I just appreciate it more because Jake and I are long distance, but today was a really great day. We started the day opening presents, although there should have been nothing underneath our Christmas tree. Lesson learned...don't trust anyone except my sister. Anyways, then Jake made me breakfast. Then we played Mario, snacked a bunch, went and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel, called a bunch of family, made a nice ham dinner, and lounged around reading and watching tv. That was one hell of a run on sentence huh?

What did you do today?

Ronald McDonald House

The famous Ronald McDonald at the entrance.

The entrance.
One of the guest rooms.

A local bakery donated cupcakes for dessert.

The lobby.

A local Hallmark puts up the Christmas village each year.

The dinner counter.

The amazing kitchen!

The dining area.

One of the women I went to Brazil with asked me to come with her yesterday to cook dinner for the families staying at the Ronald McDonald house. I jumped at the chance. The Cincinnati location is just amazing. I was just shocked and how big and fantastic this place is. There are 78 rooms, with huge kitchen facilities, laundry, a library, computers, and play areas for the children. The rooms are like hotel rooms with two tempurpedic beds. There are 25 transplant rooms which are a little more like apartments due to the fact that the children have to stay at a minimum of 100 days after their transplant surgery. They have a white board in the front listing where each family is from. There were people currently there from Russia, Romania, Puerto Rico and many states across the country.

The volunteering that occurs at this location is just heartwarming. There are only 6 employees with approximately 400 volunteers who run the place. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are made by volunteers every single day! In fact, at the current time, new people can't even sign up because all the slots are full.

The group that I went with has been going for over 6 months so they really know their way around this kitchen (actually 6 kitchens in one large kitchen). Last night was casserole night, so everyone brought the ingredients for their meal and assembled and baked them at the house. Once dinner was ready, it all went out on a big warmed counter, and an announcement is made overhead that dinner is being served. Everyone comes in and gets in line to eat. I have to say that the atmosphere was happier than I expected, although most people really just kept to themselves. I am sure that this is a tough time of year for these people and it's hard to keep upbeat. One woman made up a plate and put it away for her husband who was at the hospital. They were doing shifts and she wasn't sure when he would get the chance to eat. In the past, the group has done soup night, baked potato bar, english muffin sandwiches and others.

We were all wondering what the House would be doing for Christmas. It's actually pretty amazing. In the basement, there's a room filled with toys that have been donated. Each parent can go down and pick out what they want to give their children. They can choose to have them wrapped (they are so busy some just don't have the time) or can do it themselves. On Christmas Eve, Santa will come visit the children. He will call up each family and visit with them and then give them their bag of wrapped presents.

I'm really happy that I found a way to give back this season. The group goes monthly and I am invited to come along as my schedule allows. I urge you all to check your local Ronald McDonald House (or other charity) and check to see if they need help. It really is an amazing program.

So The Nose Is Pretty Amazing....

Yes I'm aware I haven't written in awhile, but to be honest, ENT is pretty boring and no good stories until Monday...so I've spared you from reading about my non exciting days.

Ok first i just want to say that the nose is not given enough credit. I just thought it housed boogers and did things like let you breathe. Well, it's huge....I guess I mean deep. Look at the pen on your desk, and now imagine a doctor sticking the entire thing up your nose. It would fit, I promise, but you would not like it very much. I was in on a sinus surgery yesterday and just sat there amazed! With the camera up the nose, I could see a lot more. The maxillary sinuses (ones behind your cheeks) drain into your nose via a hole....well that's exactly what it is, a hole. And in this sinus surgery, they take a balloon and use a catheter to get it up there, blow up the balloon, and BAM the hole is bigger, and your sinuses can drain better. It was so cool.

Story #1- 14 year old girl gets sent straight down from family doc because her newly pierced ear cartilage is mega infected...like so swollen you can't even see the earring because it's in between the front and back of her ear. The plan is to numb her ear with some lidocaine (this is done with an injection) and then make a tiny slit with a scalpel and pull out the earring. As soon as she hears injection...she freaks out...like screaming, telling him he's not touching her, telling her mom forget it, basically carrying on worse than any 5 year old I've ever seen. Dr. M gets mad because she's wasting his time....we keep going in the room and leaving...etc. We finally get to the point where he's about to inject the lidocaine and she flips her shit. And then manages to push out the earring through a non existent hole in her ear. Basically when confronted with a needle, she was willing to do anything. I can tell you that it must have hurt like a beeotch to push that out considering when he touched her ear she started crying. Can I tell you what would have happened to me if I had acted like that at the doctor's office? Something not good.

Story #2- 8 year old girl comes in because she failed her hearing test at school and needs to be checked out. She is all dressed up in a skirt and tights and basically cute as a button. Getting a good history, Dr. M asks her if she plays any sports and can she keep up with friends while running. She says she doesn't do any sports. Her older brother (maybe 11) says, "Well hunting is a sport...she hunts." Dr. M- " Oh really? Wow! Did you get anything?" Brother- "She got a doe and a 6 point buck." Her mom- "She did it with a crossbow." Little girl shrugs her shoulders like this isn't a big deal. Like holy cow! That's just awesome.

A Bit of a Mess

The last few days have been crazy. That buttcheek spreading really threw my back and I ended up getting sent home on Thursday. I was hunched over to the side like an 80 yr old lady. It was a crazy day: one of my facilitators ended up taking me to her chiropractor (she got treated too), I was put on supplements, spent 2 hours at her house laying down, got put on a bunch of prescription medications, and have spent a lot of time on my couch. Today I had acupuncture done. My back is getting better, it's not good, but definitely better.

My next rotation was supposed to be urology....due to some affiliation difficulties that was canceled and I will be starting ENT (ear, nose, and throat) on Tuesday. I'll only be there for two weeks because of the holidays, but I'm actually pretty happy about it. This hospital is closer than where the urologist was, so my drive will be shorter. So you can all look forward to stories about boogers, ear wax, and thyroids. LOL. Seriously people, I wish you could see the size of the ear wax balls that get pulled out of ears. I know I just grossed out most of you, but it's actually pretty crazy.

Thanksgiving

Laura reading on the couch.

The take a picture of myself photo.

Jake is cutting the turkey.

Our pies.

Yummy homemade crescent rolls.

Sweet potatoes!

I have to say that Thanksgiving was a total blast. My sister and Jake joined me on Tuesday. We spent Wednesday seeing New Moon and starting to prep some of the food for Thursday. Wednesday cooking included the pumpkin pies, the dough for the crescent rolls, taco dip, and a pumpkin dip. Thursday morning I got up early to drive into town to buy a paper since Black Friday shopping is one of my favorite activities. We made the turkey, crescent rolls, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, stuffing and a caramel apple dessert. We had two mishaps- Mishap 1- I forgot to buy the cheesecloth which we use for the stuffing inside the turkey so Jake made a quick store run. Mishap 2- Laura forgot to add the butter to the caramel apple dessert- it ended up being just fine. So next year when I make this, I'll be halving the butter in the recipe.

Friday- We were in line at Sears at 3 am. Crazy? Yes yes we are. Jake bought me a treadmill though so I'm really happy. The gym here is too far away. I leave in the dark and get home in the dark and there are no street lights in my neighborhood. Plus he was nice enough to rewire the cable and move my tv in the office so I can watch tv while working out. Then after Sears we went to Dicks, Macy's, Target, and then JoAnn Fabric. Then they dropped me off at the hospital where I had to do a hernia repair and a wound debridement. They picked me up and we headed to the mall. Needless to say I was super tired and took a nap when we got home.

Saturday- Laura and I played Super Mario Bros on the Wii all day long. It was addicting and fun and reminds me of the one we played when we were little but this has better features!

Sunday- Laura left :( Jake went out with a friend to put up deerstands and four wheeling while I studied.

I Hurt My Back Spreading Buttcheeks Yesterday

Yes, this is a true story. Most people know that I have a bad back, but it's been pretty dang good lately. Yesterday is was kind of sore but still ok. In the wound clinic, this woman had a sore in between her cheeks, so I had to hold it open. This wouldn't be too bad but I was in a very awkward position. She was laying down, I was sitting behind her legs and had to twist to hold her cheeks open because the dr was directly behind the sore. Now I can barely walk. Amazing. And yes I know this story sounds hilarious. I thought my sister was going to pee her pants when I told her what I had to do. It's funny because I don't even think twice about this stuff, but to nonmedical people it sounds crazy.

Another funny penis story. This poor elderly gentleman came in with his wife because he was having prolonged rash in his groin. His wife did all the talking since she's taking care of him. Well apparently this man is incontinent and refuses to have a Foley cath kept in, so his underwear are constantly wet, keeping it a perfect place for a rash. Well his wife tried using a condom catheter (I had to look this up). She said it was difficult to use on him because "His penis is just so flacid and the directions say to slide it (catheter) down his penis but it just gets sucked up there so all you see is his head and testicles." Okaaaaaaay. Super weird moment and this honestly took a lot of self control to not smile. Then she says "Dr, what size is his penis so I know what size to buy?" I felt awful for this man. It's one thing to have the male doctor here the story, but the young female med student, that kind of stinks.

Thanksgiving- I'm going to write a post about this later.