Gorgeous Veggies

Sure looks aren’t everything, but let’s be honest, we all make a little snap judgment based on appearances now and then. Vegetables aren’t immune to our judgment either! Just ask kids and picky eaters everywhere. Many chefs will tell you that we eat with our eyes. That means plating can be a big part of the allure your dishes have. One quick and easy way to amp up the appearance of your dish and more importantly your vegetables is the use of a veggie bath. Yup, even veggies look better after a nice bath.

I actually learned this simple trick from the head chef at the restaurant I work at. I once asked him how we get our green beans to look so gorgeous and green and to stay that way throughout the cooking process. His answer was by using a flash bath. As a bonus this can also help preserve the crispness of your vegetables. What you do:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil

2. Have a strainer in the sink on standby, ready and waiting

3. Place your veggies (in the form you need to cook them- in other words if they need to be sliced, slice them before blanching) in the hot water for 10-15 seconds, shortly blanching them but not cooking them

4. Immediately transfer to the strainer

5. Either place veggies in a prepared ice bath for the same length of time OR for a quick and easy alternative pour cold water from the sink over your strainer full of vegetables. This will help lock in that bold, beautiful color

6. Allow the vegetables to fully cool before cooking them in your desired format (i.e. sautee, fried, steamed, etc.)

That’s it! Only 30 seconds of work to brighten up your plate. I used this technique the other night on our brussel sprouts and they looked so pretty I had to take a photo.

First Clinical

Well school is fully underway, oh homework how I’ve missed you… While my actual class load is lighter this semester, somehow it hasn’t translated into a lighter workload. That’s because this semester marks our first clinical experience. Labs are much more in depth as we now have to learn skills and incorporate them into our assessments. Here’s a sneak peak at some of the skills I’ll be mastering (literally, you have to “master” them in order to pass) this semester:

Wound Dressing Kit, Injection Kit, IV Kit

A big portion of our load this semester is our clinical experience. Two days a week we spend 8 hours on the floor. Today marked day one! I put on my scrubs, clipped on my badge and made my way to the hospital I’ve been assigned to. I currently volunteer at the same hospital so it didn’t feel unfamiliar to be there which probably helped with some of my nerves. It did feel weird to be there for a different reason though. Instead of heading to my normal ward I went with my group to the ACE unit (acute care for elders). Our clinical instructor handed us an orientation “seek and find” worksheet and left us to start seeking and finding. We all looked at one another a little lost and confused. Sooo what now? After a few minutes I decided to focus the group and got us started. Slowly we made our way through the checklist and got acquainted with our new surroundings.

Even though I was starting to feel more comfortable I still felt lost. What now? Where do we even start? Luckily I don’t have to figure out those questions until next week when I’m assigned a patient and gently nudged away by my instructor. Today was just an orientation day and we aren’t doing clinical tomorrow. So I have exactly 7 days to try and prepare as much as possible probably only to show up and still feel lost haha. You know that saying fake it till you make it? I’m pretty sure that’ll be me at first, feign confidence until I actually believe and become confident. Walking the hallways in my uniform I did know one thing: I’m doing exactly what I should be with my life right now. That’s always a good thing to feel!

Even though school and work have been keeping me busy I’ve been making an extra effort to do lots of cooking. Sunday I spent almost the entire day cooking and prepping meals for the whole week. In my opinion it was totally worth it because we’ve had home cooking all week and didn’t spend a dime on eating out. Yaaa!

One of my favorite highlights was our Sunday morning breakfast. Williams Sonoma sends out a product catalog that is sprinkled with recipes. One of them looked delicious so I adapted it a little and made it for a weekend treat.

Braekfast Skillet with Green Onion Home Fries

Here’s a link to the delicious recipe: Breakfast Skillet Recipe (I omitted the chorizo and it still turned out sooo good!)

It was the perfect dish for a cold Sunday morning. Yah its been COLD here! Moving to BC from Colorado I miss the snow all the time so I’m absolutely loving that it has been snowing and actually sticking. But the one thing I don’t love is the moisture in the air while experiencing below freezing temperatures.  Today on my way home it was pretty chilly. Just to prove it I took a photo of my car thermometer:

There is someone though that could care less how cold it is, as long as she gets to play in the snow she’s a happy camper.

 

Mile High Miracle

WOW, what a game!! If you weren’t watching the Broncos v. Steelers game yesterday you missed out on an awesome football game. I was a little nervous for the Broncos heading into a game against the Steelers as the last time these two faced off in playoffs it was at the AFC Championship during the 2005 season, and the Steelers crushed the Broncos’ playoff dreams.  Sure the Steelers were banged up by injuries but folks a W is a W, no matter how you write it. I tried finding a photo from the goold ol days with the Broncos and found this one which was a still from a TV commercial. Go Broncos!

If you didn’t get the email floating around when the Broncos played the Patriots during the regular season, here it is below. It gave me a good laugh.

Tom Brady, after living a full life, died.  When he got to heaven, God
was showing him around.  They came to a modest little house with a
faded Patriots flag in the window.  “This house is yours for eternity,
Tom” said God.  “This is very special; not everyone gets a house up
here.” Tom felt special indeed and walked up to his house.

On his way up the porch, he noticed another house just around the
corner.  It was a huge 3-story mansion with Orange and Blue sidewalks
and driveways, a 50 foot tall flagpole with an enormous Broncos logo
flag waving, a swimming pool in the shape of a horse, a Broncos logo
in every window, and a Tim Tebow jersey on the front door.

Tom looked at God and said “God, I’m not trying to be ungrateful, but
I have a question.  I was an all-pro QB, I won 3 Super Bowls, and I
even went to the Hall of Fame.”

God said “So what’s your point, Tom?”

“Well, why does Tim Tebow get a better house than me?”

God chuckled, and said “Tom, that’s not Tim’s house…it’s mine.”

Goals for 2012

My first New Year’s resolution: Don’t make New Years resolutions.

Is it just me or does it seem like everytime you make a New Year’s resolution it almost dooms you to failure? Resolutions always seem so grand and all-encompassing that they are bound to end in failure. So instead of making some big resolution instead I’ve decided to make a list of goals for 2012. So here they are, in no particular order:

1. Run my very first full-marathon. I posted earlier some of the marathons I had been looking into and finally decided on (insert drumroll…….) the San Diego Marathon. I’m a little nervous, marathons are hard on your body and nursing school keeps me so busy that it might be hard to fit all the appropriate training in but I really want to do this and I feel like 2012 is a good year to do it! I’ve already printed my training schedule (even though I don’t start until the end of January) and posted it on our fridge.

2. Get straight As throughout 2012. I came soooo close last semester! I got all As but one ugly little B+. I was literally .6 away from getting an A- in the class too. It killed me. So this year I am resolved to work just a little harder so I can pull out straight As this semester and next (and hopefully all those thereafter). I know I can do it! I went and picked up my books this week, check out this beauty of a textbook. That’s 2,028 pages of Medical-Surgical fun. Is it weird that I used wine corks to demonstrate the height? Nahh

3. Travel somewhere new! This is probably my favorite goal. 2011 was pretty uneventful when it came to travelling. I did get to see Boston (fell in love with the city) but it was for lacrosse which is never the same as vacation, and of course I visited California and Colorado, but other than that we didn’t really explore much. Here’s a few photos of places we have on the docket. Can you guess where we’re going?

4. Try rock climbing. This is something I’ve always wanted to do but have never actually gotten around to. Just north of Vancouver is an area, Squamish, that has some of the best rock climbing in the area. Look for a post about this summer!

 5. Snowboard in Whistler. Whistler has a special spot in my heart. We go quite a bit during the summer and have been once or twice in the winter. We absolutely love it up there. Even though we’ve gone in the winter I’ve never actually rode the mountains there. This winter I definitely want to put that streak to an end, dust off my snowboard and hit the slopes. Plus I really miss the snow!

OK, so there are all kinds of other little things I’d like to do this year, but those are the ones I absolutely definitely want to get done. Of course there are other things that aren’t necessarily goals but changes I want to see in myself, i.e. not be so hard and demanding of myself. I don’t want to call them resolutions though because I think its always important to be learning, growing and changing, new year or not.

Do you have any big goals for 2012? 

Happy New Year!

It’s been awful quiet on my blog the last week due to the holidays. First Matt and I headed to California to spend Christmas with my family. The trip was great and the weather matched! I hadn’t seen so much sun or felt warmth on my skin in ages- gotta love the Vancouver rain. On Christmas morning we woke up and got totally spoiled by my parents (thanks Mom!) before heading to my Aunts to celebrate Christmas with the rest of my family.

Its family tradition to enjoy homemade tamales every Christmas. Unfortunately my Grandma’s health prevented her from making them this year, so my Mom and Aunt took on the duty. Sadly they used the wrong masa and we had to go with premade tamales. Lesson learned: never use tortilla masa for tamales. Haha! Other than the missing homemade tamales it was a great Christmas!

The day after Christmas we headed to Disneyland for some fun. We were hoping for minimal crowds given our successful trip to Magic Mountain last year. Nope! It was PACKED in Disneyland. Despite the crowds we still had fun going on rides, enjoying naughty food, catching some entertainment and checking out the ever-growing California Adventure. The last time I went to the Adventure Park it was brand new and tiny. Now it has some awesome rides (Tower of Terror= so fun!), the best dining options in either park and beer and wine (something Disneyland doesn’t offer). Its worth checking out if you have time to hop over. We caught a glimpse of their new Cars addition and it looks pretty cool. We definitely want to go back when its all finished. Besides, who doesn’t want to spend a day at the most magical place on earth?

 

Once our mini vacation was over it was back to the daily grind. I’ve been trying to work extra shifts before school starts again tomorrow (that came way too fast). I rang in 2012 at work while Matt relaxed at home. We’re so exciting ha! On the plus side we didn’t spend any money on some overpriced overrated celebration somewhere.

Hope everyone had a very happy holiday season!

Ready for Christmas

Christmas is just around the corner! 3 days away to be exact. The stockings are hung, the tree is aglow, Santa’s shopping is done, and Christmas activities are fully underway.

This year our schedules were very busy leading up to Christmas but we still did our best to try and fit in a couple of fun Christmas activities. The first one was going to the Goh Ballet’s Nutcracker in Vancouver. The production featured spectacular sets, dazzling costumes and several incredibly talented dancers. Well, the whole cast was talented but three dancers in particular blew me away. For the first time the snow scene was my favorite part of the show as the choreography, costumes and set all combined to create a magical scene. If you live in Vancouver I recommend checking out the Goh’s performance next year!

Just yesterday we headed downtown and checked out Bright Nights at Stanley Park. I’m not gonna lie, it was a little disappointing… But it was still nice to see the decorations and lights. Some of it though could use some serious upgrades.

This past week I also had my work Christmas party which was a blast! Because I work in a restaurant we had a staff breakfast for our party. Our head chefs made Kahlua pancakes, hashbrowns, manned an omelette bar and all kinds of other breakfast goodness! I DEFINITELY overindulged… Oops! There were games, prize raffles and overall was a great time. I even walked away with one of the prizes- a $50 Visa gift card. Yaa! Oh and to make a good party better, we all got to wear sweats and PJs. Perfect!

In a few days we head to California to spend Christmas with my family. I can’t wait! I’m loaded on chocolates, cheer and cookies. Yup, Christmas is just around the corner

Reading Roll

Well that was fast! Two long sittings with Hunger Games and I’m done. Yah, it was that much of a page turner. If you want an easy, entertaining and overall good read I highly recommend this book.

Odds are you have probably heard about the Hunger Games as the books have amassed quite a following. If you haven’t- the story is about the nation of Panem which has emerged from what was once North America. Within Panem are twelve districts, all overseen by the Capitol.  As a reminder of their true power over the districts, the Capitol puts on the Hunger Games every year in which each district must send a male and female tribute. At the Hunger Games the tributes must fight to the death while the whole thing is aired on live TV throughout Panem.

Katniss becomes District 12′s female tribute after she volunteers herself in place of her sister. The book follows her as she enters the Hunger Games. I don’t want to say anymore and give anything good away! The book is full if twists and turns that keep you turning pages and refusing to put it down. When you do, all you want to do is turn around and pick it back up!

Since I’m on a roll I figure I may as well dive right into my next book: Water for Elephants. A bit of a different thematic genre but I’ve only heard good things about this one too, so it should be good!