Life updates

1. I watched a horror movie called American Mary--very twisted, very witty--on Netflix. My related recommendations include a cheesy comedy called The Cleaver Family Reunion. I'm guessing the link has something to do with hacking implements, but still, Netflix clearly needs to make a few adjustments, particularly since Zoolander was the next recommendation.

2. Powerlifter Dan Green has some great tips on fixing common errors in your sumo deadlift. The one about spreading the hips rather than dropping the butt is life-changing. Seriously, I instantly did 3 additional reps on my top set (for a total of 7 at 200) and 4 additional on my drop set (for a total of 8 at 185), with less effort than it took me last week to do nearly half that amount of work. If I ever meet that man, I owe him a few scoops of whey powder.

3. Andy and I had a plan to hike Breakneck Ridge today, it being the last day of summer and all. I even made an all-out picnic lunch, complete with blanched green beans! To my disappointment, it rained all night, and even though the weather today was perfect, we woke up and surmised that since it was still raining on the mountain, we'd go out there to a sticky, slippery mess and be miserable for half the climb. Next weekend, I hope... but I was still crushed. To comfort ourselves, we went to Smorgasburg in DUMBO, like every other white 20-something in the five boroughs. I got a seitan steak sandwich and halo halo, and Andy got a Milk Truck grilled cheese with a twist and dulce de leche doughnut. At least we still got to enjoy the amazing day from Brooklyn Bridge Park; as Andy put it, the worst thing about living in Manhattan is being unable to enjoy the skyline view from across the East River.

Side note: if anyone knows where I can get the components for halo halo, hit me up. That stuff is addictive.

Mieskeit

Let's talk about ugly.



That, ladies and gentlemen, is a monkfish. It's a moist, dense fish that, if cooked properly, has a similar texture and taste to lobster (thus it's nickname, "poor man's lobster") and is truly delicious. It's also cheaper than halibut at Fairway by nearly half, and, unfortunately, it's difficult to butcher. I foolishly assumed that because the fishmonger at the grocery was being extremely flirtatious, if I played nice instead of telling him to lay off the innuendo I'd get a good filet.

As you can see, it had a whopping great bloodline down the middle. So much for putting up with strange men behind fish counters.

The pistachio crust came out just as I anticipated, though, as did the creamed corn with green beans and tomatoes. All the flavors are, well, generic enough to pair with a variety of fishes or even meat, for those of you who are into that kind of thing.

Pistachio-crusted monkfish over creamed corn
Technique based on this article

1/2 lb monkfish filet, gray membranes removed
Dijon mustard
3 tbsp panko
2/3 cup raw pistachio meats
salt, pepper

2 large or 3 regular ears corn
1 cup chopped green beans
1/2 cup grape or cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup Greek yogurt (more or less to taste; I actually used about 1/4 cup, but I like mine a little less creamy. You can also finish this with butter.)
2 cloves garlic
salt, pepper, paprika

parsley
chives

Preheat the oven to 475 F (yes, you read that right), with a cast iron skillet or heavy grill pan in the oven during the preheating. Rinse the monkfish and pat it dry. Liberally oil one side of the filet and set it down on that surface. On the non-oiled surface, rub some mustard and sprinkle with a bit of pepper. In a food processor, pulse the pistachios, panko, and a touch of salt until it resembles coarse crumbs. Gently pat the nut mixture onto the mustardy fish. When the oven is preheated, carefully slip the filet, oil-side down, onto the preheated pan. It should cook in 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fish; cover the filet with a sheet of aluminum foil if the crust browns prematurely.

For the creamed corn: remove the kernels from the corn and put all but 1/2 cup into a food processor. Using the flat of a butter knife, "milk" the cobs into the food processor. Add 2 cloves garlic and puree. In a saucepan, cook the green beans, tomatoes, corn puree, and reserved kernels just until the green beans are tender; stir in the yogurt at the end. Season with pepper and paprika and a touch of salt.

To serve: slice the filet and lay over a mound of the creamed corn mixture. Finish the whole thing with a few grinds of sea salt and a sprinkle of chopped parsley and chives.

Plantar fasciitis

I'm loving my MICU rotation. Loving. It. Maybe loving it even more than these dachshunds love their bath.

That being said, the rounds are very, very long, and I can't help but think about this when we get back to the call room (replace nurses with PAs, since the nurses have their own stations to kick us out of). When I'm an attending*, I'm going to sit all the damn time. All. The. Time.

Other drawback: the food. Aside from the daily lunch (which, by the way, is a steady rotation of ciabatta sandwiches, pizza, and pastas, hold the salad) helpfully filched from the internal medicine noon conferences, everyone insists on bringing in delightful carb-laden snacks and breakfast items.

Including me. Hypocrisy?!? Where? I ate one at work, and then when I got home I ate more under the guise of filling them with healthful scrambled eggs.

The way I see it, I'm undoing all the hard work done the previous week, during which I made a series of delicious salads involving dressings made from pureed avocado and herbs and lemon juice.

The dressing has chives, parsley, and basil in it.

Rounds of shaved raw squash and zucchini filled with
sauteed mushrooms and raw avocado.

I included oven-baked chickpeas, but this needed
an additional crunchy element.

Not pictured: the salad with almonds, kale, apples, and an avocado-mint-parsley dressing with lemon juice and a touch of champagne vinegar.

*Creeping ever closer, by the way, at least insofar as ERAS submission is coming up in three days. Only four years of grueling residency plus (likely) two years of fellowship to go!

Rework

I'm going to tell a very embarrassing story about myself. Perhaps airing it will strip it of its humiliating power.

One day about a year ago, Andy made a comment about me lifting a ton, or 2000 pounds, over the course of a workout. This is the conversation that followed:
Don't sell me short, it's two tons!
...Hannah, how much is a ton?
One thousand pounds.
No. No, it's two thousand.
What? Oh. [beat] Oh my god, Andy, dinosaurs were really big!

He likes to reference that conversation, as you might imagine, but I also have my own "dinosaurs were really big" moments. For instance, contemplate the Hubble Deep Field images. Meditate both on its size, its relative tininess, and the fact that some of the stars in that picture were dead long before their light reached earth*. Gnarly, dude.

One of my favorite sandwiches used to be a BLT. Crisp bacon, juicy tomatoes, a tiny swipe of mayo, with the freshness of lettuce and yielding crunch of toast... Alas, vegetarianism put a stop to that. Ever since, I've been using tempeh bacon or Morningstar brand veggie bacon. Morningstar has the flavor (with a tinge of artificiality), but a weird, crumbly texture. The tempeh has neither the flavor nor the texture. Both are pretty processed, to boot. So when I saw a recipe for mushroom "bacon," I got really excited.

Damn online photo editor isn't working.

I increased the amount of both soy sauce and oil and added smoked paprika and just a touch of brown sugar. It was delicious, although I'd recommend actually buying and slicing whole fresh chantarelles and/or oyster mushrooms. The other varieties in the blend I bought didn't have nearly as nice a texture.

The bread is a homemade whole wheat and flaxseed loaf.

There's a swipe of Greek yogurt under all that veg.

Pound for pound, the price of mushroom bacon and store-bought fake bacon are approximately equivalent, although this of course depends on the season and your local farmers' market. The mushrooms win in the naturalism department. Overall, I'd say the extra work is worth it.

*On the other hand, there's really only one way to define what's true now, and that's what's true here. Shut up and feel the wonder.

Laughable, unphotographable

I either need to take some darn cooking classes or just (wo)man up and start making food that doesn't look completely unappetizing.

Andy loved this dish so much that he propped a huge plate of it on his chest and shoveled it directly into his mouth; no fork-lifting required. It's a Thai-inspired tofu and shrimp salad with plenty of vegetables and herbs, initially conceived as filling for a lettuce wrap.

Since I figured the shrimp would get sauce-logged anyway, I did them ceviche-style, marinating them in lime juice and soy sauce instead of cooking them. There was a little too much dressing overall, since due to an unfortunate ketchup-related accident (see below) I had to add a bunch more ingredients to get the taste I wanted; otherwise, this was fantastically delicious. In the future I will (in increasing order of importance) add some diced bell peppers, measure the ingredients I put in, and make much, much less dressing. If you want to use lettuce in this, fine, but it's utterly unnecessary.

1 lb tofu, cut into very small cubes and baked until just golden on the outside
1/2 lb shrimp, chopped
Fresh cilantro
Fresh basil, preferably sweet basil
Fresh mint
Fresh parsley
Scallions
3 shredded carrots
1 (large) cucumber
Coriander
Fresh minced ginger
Fresh minced garlic
Brown sugar
Lime juice & lime zest
Fish sauce
Ketchup (this was an accident [I thought it was sriracha], although chopped fresh tomatoes would have gone splendidly in this)
Sriracha (for real this time)
Soy sauce
Mirin
Tamarind
Peanuts or cashews, for garnish

Kernels of truth

I never know whether or not to post when I cook something I'm really excited about, but which comes directly from someone's blog or cookbook without significant alterations. For instance, I made this a few weeks ago. It was so moose-huggingly delicious that we ate virtually all of it in one sitting, but it felt plagiaristic to post just to say, "Oh, hi, someone else came up with a wonderful recipe requiring very little talent that I faithfully reproduced!" So when I initially saw this recipe, I was all, "Here we go again."

Never fear, however, for instantly the changes flowed in. First of all, I wanted a lighter, less coconutty broth. I added an ear of corn in addition to the husks, a jalapeno, some scallions, and extra spices in proportion to volume to the broth and boiled it down to about four cups of fresh, corn-scented goodness, then just finished it off with lime, Sriracha, and coconut milk (the combination of which turned it kind of pink). The dumpling mixture got beefed up with some ancho chilies instead of jalapeno, a little extra scallion, and sea salt.

One must trim one's cornsilk before using it to make broth.

Fresh sweet corn is one of my favorite summer foods, raw,
cooked, or anywhere in between.

Again, devoured most of the sixty (!!!) dumplings this ended up making. The recipe was time-consuming, so I could see making fritters or quenelles out of essentially the same ingredients as the dumpling filling and floating them in the broth, or making a creamed soup--strained, of course, to smooth it out--from all these ingredients*. I probably could have saved a couple bucks by using queso fresco or queso blanco instead of cotija, too.

*Actually, that sounds really good. Yet another use for fresh corn before the summer is out.

Lean, green, crunchy cuisine

Do you know what opal basil is?

Neither did I, at least not until after I bought it. The only thing I knew at the time was that at $1.50, it was less than half the price of the massive boxes of traditional basil Fairway was selling. Even the guinea pigs can't help me finish an entire box before it goes bad.

So opal basil it was, in with a bunch of greens and some raw cashews to make an herbaceous vegan spread. I just tossed the entire batch with some brown rice and baked tofu. It tasted great, but it was sort of damp and textureless. If I were smarter, I'd have put in some crunchy celery, red onion, tomatoes... anything, really. Doesn't matter, had zest.

Zesty green stuff

1 package frozen spinach, cooked according to package directions
1/4 pound raw cashews
1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley
1/2 to 1 cup packed opal basil
juice and zest of 2 limes or 1 lemon
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
Optional: 2 tablespoons grated garlic, 1 tablespoon soy sauce
salt, olive oil to taste

While the frozen spinach is still warm, macerate it and the cashews in a food processor until smooth. Allow to cool, then add the remaining ingredients and process until smooth. Add olive oil to the desired consistency, and salt to taste (keeping in mind whatever you're using the sauce for). Use in anything from a tofu and brown rice salad to regular salad dressing to sandwich spread.