Home Sweet Home

Well it is that time of the year. David and I are looking for a new place to move to and we would like your input. The move will be sometime next year. We are looking for somewhere that has both a pathology residency program and a job for David in mathematics education in the continental U.S (Alaska does not have a pathology program and Hawaii would just be too expensive). So give us your suggestions as many as you want. You can pick a place based on whether you want us near you or far away from you or maybe a place that you would like to visit or maybe a place that has the largest ball of stamps.

La Fiesta de Mole

Behold, our final mole dish. This is pork in chocolate mole sauce with mexican rice, stir-fried mushrooms and bell peppers, and, as per the title, canned refried beans. For those of you who are truly deluded and think that we have any skill at cooking, this was the first (out of four or five) mexican rice recipes that we've tried that have been decent. If you're wondering whether canned refried beans are as good as making them yourself, they're not, but they also don't take three hours to make.

Comfort Food

This is black pepper chicken with rice and minted peas and potatoes. Technically the recipe calls for mung beans instead of peas, but we don't keep mung beans around. This is one of our favorite meals to make because it is really easy. David says, "It's tasty." I am fairly certain it was with a period and not an exclamation mark at the end. We made this a couple of days ago, so you can see it holds up fairly well to reheating.

Ultimate Driving Machine

So what do people do when they are unbelievably sick of studying? Why, they test-drive BMWs, of course!

I don't quite understand the logic behind this particular promotion - I drive a BMW, someone gives money to cancer research in the name of yet a third person. But... who am I to complain?

Anyway, this picture is from inside the SUV. It's hard to take pictures in there, which means it was a great car for me... not much light gets in. Also, you can't tell at all from the picture, but the steering wheel has about 10 buttons in it. Finally, you can't tell from the picture, but I did shave that morning. There's also a nice little screen that displays various information - GPS style stuff, information about the radio, and... a viewer for the nice little camera mounted on the rear so you can see behind you. Anyway, luxury SUVs are a little complicated - lots of buttons. I'm a fan.


And THIS is a Z4 roadster. In a word, it is: fast. The one problem with this car was that the steering wheel had this big, unlabeled buttons on it and I like pressing buttons. Unfortunately, not even a sporty BMW likes going 45 mph in first gear. So I didn't push those buttons anymore.

Top Three Surgeries

Since I am now done with third year, woohoo, I am ready to come out with my top three surgeries list. One is from Ob/Gyn and the other two are from Surgery. So here it goes. Do not get too excited though, after all there are no pictures so you do not get to see them.

Coming in at number three is the abdominal myomectomy from Ob/Gyn. The myomectomy is done to remove leiomyomas also know as fibroids and as fireballs by some. The fibroids are most commonly located in the wall of the uterus, although they can also grow into the uterus or grow off of the uterus like a polyp. In order to do the surgery, a tourniquet was tied around the uterus to cut off the blood supply since fibroids tend to be pretty bloody. Then the uterus was palpated to locate the fibroids and we sliced open the uterus layer by layer. The fibroid then kind of popped out after some adhesions were removed. After all of the fibroids were removed, the uterus was then sewn up with three layers of sutures. The last one was a baseball stitch. I wanted to tell the lady that she had baseball stitches on her uterus, because I would want to know that, but I figured it was not really my place. After that, the tourniquet was released and we watched the uterus to make sure there was not any bleeding. Then she was sewn back up and she should be able to have a child.

At number two is the coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG pronounced cabbage like the stuff in sauerkraut). This could easily be substituted with a valve replacement or pacemaker placement. The coolest part is that they use little sutures and sew on to the heart. So why do a CABG? A CABG is done when the arteries on the outside of your heart are not so good. They are filled with plaques and no longer have blood flowing through them and the heart can no longer get the nutrients it needs to keep pumping, which is kind of important. When three or more of these arteries are clogged or your left main one is, a CABG is in order. There are some other reasons also. Because the current arteries are bad, replacement ones need to be found and these are called grafts. One can use internal mammary artery which is conveniently located in the chest or the saphenous vein from the leg which has to have the valves removed with a cool little instrument (a rod with a hook). Prior to the suturing, the patient goes on a cardiopulmonary bypass machine where the blood shockingly enough bypasses the heart and lungs and circulation is maintained throughout the body. At this time the grafts are sewn on the heart downstream of the clogs in the bad arteries. The cardiopulmonary bypass machine is turned off blood goes back through the heart and it begins pumping. Then the other end of the grafts are sewn into the aorta while the heart is beating, too cool. By the way if you ever have a chance to see one, the best place to stand is at the head of the bed with the anesthesiologist. If you are a giant like me, then a step stool or two might be needed.

So what could possibly top the CABG and come in first place on my list??? Well, I have to say this one has some favoritism involved because I actually got to do a lot during this surgery, woohoo. This one was also on cardiothoracic surgery. So coming in at number one is the thoracotomy(chest incision) with decortication and wedge resection. Decortication is the removal of an infected fibrous rind from around the lung. This was the part I got to help with. I am trying to think of something that would be similar. Well, something that is close but not quite would be if you were peeling an orange and wanting to do it very gently so as to not tear any part of the orange while taking of the peel. You would always want to maintain that thin membrane that keeps the orange juice inside. With the lung that membrane would be the pleura. It was a slow process, but one worthwhile since it helps preserve lung function. We used retractors and a little cotton thing which I cannot remember the name of to gently separate the pleura from the rind. We also did a wedge resection which is the removal of a part of the lung which was too infected to keep by using a staple gun. The staple gun works by putting the area that you want stapled into it and then it releases about 45 staples all at once and the wedge comes off. I think there is something more to it, but I cannot remember because the stapler works so quickly.

So that is it the top three surgeries according to me. I considered doing the top smells of third year, but there were some pretty bad ones and I did not really want to reminisce about them.

Scrumptious Sausage Sub

So my back has been hurting a lot, so Julie thought we should use some serious medicine - Italian Sausage. The Scrumptious Sausage Sub is a mixture of Italian sausage, ground beef, bell peppers, mushrooms, tomato sauce, herbs, and bread crumbs stuffed into a french loaf. As a cure for back pain, it is only moderately successful, but as a cure for an empty tummy, it can't be beat.

Actually, since we modified the original recipe so much, we figured it wouldn't be violating any copyright laws if we reposted our recipe, so here it is:

INGREDIENTS
1 pound sweet Italian sausage
1 pound ground beef
2 bell peppers (red, yellow, and/or orange), sliced
8 oz button mushrooms (or 12 oz), sliced
a jar of tomato sauce (like Ragu or Prego or whatever)
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic powder (or 4 cloves, finely diced)
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
8 oz shredded mozzarella
2 small loaves French bread (18 inches long or so)

DIRECTIONS
1. Slice off the top of the French loaves and hollow out the insides. Tear removed bread into small pieces.
2. Brown the sausage and beef, drain the fat, but reserve a little
3. Fry the bell peppers and mushrooms in reserved fat (and garlic cloves, if using)
4. Combine meat, vegetables, tomato sauce, seasonings, bread crumbs, and parmesan cheese, heat and stir until thoroughly mixed and thick. {When you part the red sea, it stays parted}
5. Allow the meat mixture to cool.
6. Preheat oven to 350° F
7. Butter the insides of the French loaf and the inside of the top piece.
8. Stuff the French loaves, cover each with 4 oz mozzarella, and then put the top piece on top.
9. Wrap in aluminum foil.
10. Bake for 1 hour.

NOTES:
* If you like onions, fry up half a small onion (white or yellow, whatever) with the peppers and mushrooms... but be careful, it's easy to have too much onion
* Freezes well for at least a couple weeks. Do NOT thaw, but rather take straight from freezer to 400°F oven for 30 minutes, followed by 30-45 minutes at 350°F.

Marvin

Tonight we decided to cook from our new pastry cookbook. We made a fish named Marvin out of puff pastry and stuffed with salmon, rice, and mushrooms. I think he turned out pretty good, but you can decide for yourself. While it was interesting to make once, probably not worth making a second time. In case you can't tell from the picture, those are puff pastry circles on the back that are supposed to be scales and he is supposed to have an eye, but David did something with it. By the way Marvin was tasty.

Below is the finished meal with a side of sweet and sour vegetables which were quite tasty. That recipe was from our Thai cookbook and it used fish sauce instead of vinegar.

To finish it off we made a desert from our pastry cookbook. It was a pear that had been poached in water with vanilla, mint, orange rind, and sugar. It was then stuffed with a walnut, brown sugar, and butter concoction. This was then set on top of a piece of puff pastry baked and then drizzled with a chocolate sauce. The chocolate sauce was horrible to make because it would not thicken, although it finally did. David ate one and thought that it was good.