moving to fairyburger.com

I’ve been toying with this idea for the past couple months and since my preceptor happens to be on vacation this week, I decided to use it to catch up on all other aspects of my life (I’m finally moved in and can walk through my apartment without tripping over things and dying!!!).

I’ve finally gone self-hosted over at fairyburger.com! If you’d like to continue receiving notifications when there’s a new post, please head on over and subscribe there! I’m doing what I can about migrating current followers. :] Thanks for hanging out with me for the past couple weeks/months/years, and I hope to continue connecting with you over at fairyburger.com!

Recipe ReDux: Kahlua & Cream Oatmeal [sponsored]

Did you know that 99% of Americans do not meet the daily whole grain recommendations and 85% fall short of dairy recommendations? That means you and your family could be missing out on calcium, Vitamin D, potassium and fiber! Ward off that osteopenia/osteoporosis and keep your GI tract happy! (Your body will thank you for it.)

Quaker Oats and The National Dairy Council challenged me to make a ReDux members to develop creative and tasty breakfasts, snacks or side dishes featuring the power of whole grain oats with the goodness of reduced/low-fat dairy. (By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by National Dairy Council and the Quaker Oats Center of Excellence and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time.)

I adore oatmeal, and although I may or may not be very slightly lactose-intolerant, it has not stopped me from drinking the milk from Homestead Creamery. (Apparently, they sell it here too!) I very, very rarely drink alcohol (think 1 tbsp every couple years, if even, and by tablespoon, I mainly just mean Kahlua in a dessert of some sort), but my favorite “drink” is a White Russian without the vodka, which…is essentially just Kahlua & Cream. :P

My favorite way to add some protein to my oatmeal (and to give it a fluffier, creamier texture!) is to throw in an egg, and the chilled sliced bananas add a nice contrast to the hot oatmeal! You can adjust the kahlua:water/milk ratio if you’d like more than just a hint of it in your oatmeal. :] This recipe makes about two servings!

Kahlua & Cream Oatmeal

Ingredients:
-1.5 ripe bananas (1 mashed, 0.5 sliced + chilled)
-1 tsp pure vanilla extract
-1 cup old-fashioned oats
-1 cup 2% Homestead Creamery milk
-1/2 cup water
-1/4 cup Kahlua
-1 egg
-ground cinnamon, to taste
-dash of sea salt

Instructions:
1) Fill a bowl with hot water and place the egg (still in shell) in for ~1 minute.
2) Combine milk, kahlua, water, 1 mashed banana, and oatmeal into a pot on medium/low heat.
2) Crack the egg into the pot and bring the oatmeal to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer. Stir continuously until the oats soften and the liquid thickens.
3) Add the vanilla extract and sea salt.
4) Cook to desired consistency. If it’s too thin, cook it a little longer (may get somewhat mushy though). If it’s too thick, add a little more liquid.
5) Top with sliced bananas and sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

Ultimate Coffee Date – August

Hey everyone! The last (and only) one I did was back in May; I had to miss the last two coffee dates due to boards studying, but…I passed, so it was all worth it!

Coffee is rampant everywhere I go. (Luckily, hospitals/clinics/pretty much every place we go to understands that we’re all chronically sleep-deprived individuals.) I actually haven’t had any yet, but I’ve only just finished my first week of clinical rotations, so there’s definitely still time!

If we were having coffee/tea this morning, I’d just like to say that I really, really love being out in the real world and getting to interact with living human beings once more. It’s a wonderful feeling, especially after the last 2 years of somewhat-solitude from my various study hibernations. That is not to say that it’s no longer an uphill battle anymore. Life in terms of constant-book-studying is over…in a way. In its place is learning “on the job.” This is good news to me because I’m very much a kinesthetic learner; I retain information much more easily if it’s something that I can actually do (hence, why the last two years were such a struggle). My preceptor’s really great about explaining things to me, the nurses are super helpful, and the patients are really sweet. They bring in fresh vegetables and home-canned foods for the staff. :] Our break room looks like a cafe, and drug reps come in and feed us 2-3x/week!

If we were having coffee/tea this morning, despite how awesome this is, I can’t shake the feeling that I feel like I know nothing. I feel pretty incompetent–there’s so much that I feel like I should know, and I’m sure my being nervous plays into it when my preceptor asks me questions that I don’t answer correctly, even though I definitely know the answers to them. But it’s just the first week, so as long as I continue to improve, mayhaps it’ll be okay!

If we were having coffee/tea this morning, I’d tell you that even though it’s difficult, I really love this. My preceptor started sending me in to do H&P’s for patients on Wednesday, so I’ve been getting a lot of practice in and learning a lot. Not knowing the answers motivates me to look things up so I’ll never get it wrong again. I’m getting better at asking questions (something I never used to do). Even though I feel like I don’t know anything, her patients seem to really like me, so I’d like to think I’m doing something right. :] Yesterday, one of the ladies told me I would make a great doctor and also told me that I was really pretty, haha.

If we were having coffee/tea this morning, I’d tell you that I’m getting really fed up with GoogleMaps. While it’s never failed me in the past, I guess there has to be a first for everything. Whilst trying to get to the hospital, I was led to the middle of two train tracks and it told me I’d arrived. There was a car dealership on the other side of one set of tracks, and a row of very small, fairly run-down houses on the other. (I wish I were kidding about this.) I’m going to a psych clinic in a little over a week, so I figured I’d prevent myself from getting into such a predicament again. (I wasn’t late, but that was not a fun experience.)

After sending me on a narrow and frighteningly pothole-ridden road through a cemetery…

…this is where Google sent me. At a population of 12k, this town is 4x the size of the one I came from. No, Google, I am not about to believe that I’ve arrived at the medical clinic.

If we were having coffee/tea this morning, I’d tell you that…I’m famous again! (This is what I meant about #6.) Hooray hooray!

If we were having coffee/tea this morning, I’d tell you that I’m secretly envious that my preceptor’s wearing jeans/flip flops, and it makes me wonder if that means that I don’t have to dress up every day either. I am notoriously low-maintenance (to a fault). My idea of dressing up is changing out of my yoga pants/sweat pants/shorts to a dark pair of jeans and a t-shirt, so for me to put on dress pants and a nice shirt or button-down each morning is a struggle. There’s only one thing that’s not true on this list, and it’s because I don’t drink beer (or any alcohol, for that matter).

(Seriously, this is my life.)

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So there we have it! I hope everyone’s been doing well! Things that I’ve been wondering lately:

• What’s an absolute dealbreaker for you when you’re choosing your doctor? (Or something you absolutely would not tolerate with an established doctor?)
  
• What’s something your doctor has done or said to you that made you feel much more comfortable with them, and that s/he was really just there to do whatever s/he could to help you get better?
• What’s something you think your doctor could improve upon?

This linkup is hosted by fellow GGS ambassadors–Nikki, Jill & Lynda!

Foodie Friday: Caprese Salad with Roasted Beets

Welcome to our weekly Foodie Friday link up! I’m linking up with Montana from Pretty Lil Mudder, Annmarie from the Fit Foodie Mama, Emily from Whatever Floats Your Oats, and Esther from Chocolate Runner Girl to create awesome healthy recipes each week! Today’s theme is Perfect Picnic (since summer is great for enjoying picnics + the awesome weather :D ). Make sure you hop around to check out all the amazing recipes in this link up and feel free to add your recipes as well!

I’m generally not a fan of turning on my oven in the summer, but my spoils of war from my midnight raid were calling. I needed to find a use for the beets, beet greens, tomatoes, and fresh basil, so I decided to do a little twist on one of my favorite salads. However, it kinda sucks to turn on your oven just for the sake of roasting one beet, so you can either make them in bulk, or if you have any other veggies you’d like to roast, they might as well join in on the fun! (I roasted several eggplants + 2 beets. To save time while I was waiting for those to be done, I prepared the rest of the salad and also made a beet green + egg scramble.)

Caprese Salad with Roasted Beets

This (obviously) isn’t the whole recipe. I was trying to artfully arrange a small portion of it, but pretty much gave up. :x

Ingredients:
-2 large tomatoes, sliced
-1 large beet
-fresh mozzarella, shredded
-fresh basil, shredded
-generous drizzle of EVOO
-generous drizzle of red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar
-freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 375.
2) Cover beets in aluminum foil and drizzle with red wine or balsamic vinegar and EVOO. Let it hang out in the oven for ~1 hour.
3) Slice tomatoes and shred mozzarella + basil into a bowl/plate.
4) When beets are done roasting, dice them and let cool, then add to the other ingredients and mix well.
5) Sprinkle with pepper and serve!

This is the rest of it (with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and…without the beet because I hadn’t diced it yet)!

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Interested in getting to know more about any of your super-awesome co-hosts? :]

• Farrah | blog | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Montana | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Annmarie | blog | facebook | twitter | instagram | pinterest | bloglovin’
• Emily | blog | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Esther | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’

Together, our first initials could spell out E-FAME. heh heh heh.

(…Alright, I’ll show myself the door. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Next week’s theme is smoothies! Hope you’ll join us!)