August Goal Review

1. Only put $300 of my paycheck in my checking account each payday. I did pretty well with this. I'm a little over 1/3 of the way to my goal in my emergency fund, over halfway to the amount I want in my regular savings, and every little bit that I can add to my down payment is awesome. I've been moving money around whenever I think about it, but I need to be better about being on top of it.
   
2. Seriously look for an apartment. I did not do this, because I've decided that I would rather buy a house! It's a huge decision, but I've been unable to find an apartment that has everything I want for a price I can afford. I'm going to paying a lot more in rent to get what I want and I would much rather being a mortgage than rent. I'm really excited about going house hunting!
   
3. Try one new recipe each week. I've done really well with this! I set this goal because I was getting complacent with my menu planning and then is really helping me keep our dinners fresh and interesting.
   
4. Get up 15 minutes early every day for my quiet time. I've failed miserably at this goal. I tried very hard at the beginning of the month, but it's very clear that I'm not a morning person. I've been doing my devotions at night, but not journaling like I had planned. I'm going to keep trying, because it takes 28 days to make a good habit and this would be a really good habit for me.
   
5. Clean out my closet. Oops. I actually forgot I set this goal until right now. I guess we know what I'll be doing over Labor Day...
   

Do you set goals? How did you do this month?

Mini Muffins That Taste Like Doughnuts

I've made this recipe before, and even though I liked the way they tasted, I thought they needed a little something else. I decided that my residents at work needed a little pick me up and these muffins would be just the thing. But instead of a dozen regular muffins, I made mini muffins! I also added a few things to recipe to try and improve the flavor a little.


Mini Doughnut Muffins – makes 48

½ cup butter

¼ cup vegetable oil

½ cup granulated sugar

⅓ cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ - ½ teaspoon cinnamon, to taste

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 2/3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

1 cup whole milk

Topping:

5 tablespoons butter

5-6 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease your mini muffin pans.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter, vegetable oil, and sugars till smooth.  Add the eggs, beating to combine.  Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, the desired amount of cinnamon, salt, and vanilla.  Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined.

Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared pan, filling the cups nearly full.  Bake the muffins for 9 to 11 minutes, or until they're a pale golden brown and a tester comes out clean.  Allow them to cool for a couple of minutes, or until you can handle them.

While the muffins are cooling, melt the butter for the topping.  Put the cinnamon sugar on a piece of wax paper or in a small bowl.  When the muffins are cool enough to handle (but not cooled completely!), dip each muffin into the melted butter, coating all sides.  Roll in cinnamon sugar.  Place on wire rack and allow to cool completely before storing.  Repeat with remaining muffins.  These are best eaten warm!

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday.

Menu Plan Monday

On this weekend's menu:

Friday: Everyone on their own

Saturday: Chicken and Artichokes in White Wine Sauce served over pasta, salad (bumped from last week)

Sunday: Grilled pork tenderloin, grilled vegetables with green sauce, rice pilaf

This week I've planned: 

Monday: Pasta with Eggplant and Pesto

Tuesday: Beef Stroganoff (new and I'm rewriting the recipe to better suit our tastes)

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Pasta with Sauce

What's on your menu this week?  Visit I'm an Organizing Junkie for hundreds of menu plans and recipe ideas! Have a great week!

Don't forget to leave your bread questions here or email them to me at lizy1285 (at) gmail (dot) com with Bread Q&A in the subject line!

Does Using the Medical Library Make You a Bad Doctor?

Recently, I've had a lot of questions from people about my job.  Most are generally interested (or confused) in what I do, others seem to think that what I do is somehow wrong.  They seem to be under the impression that doctors shouldn't be using the medical library because they should already know everything about medicine (or something like that).  

I would just like to clear the air and say that not only is that assumption wrong, it is ridiculous.  Do you know absolutely everything there is to know about a specific topic?  I didn't think so.  If we don't hold ourselves to this same ideal, then why should we expect our doctors to?

I understand why people think that by using the library you are basically admitting to being a bad doctor.  Because it means you are admitting you don't know the answer.  Some doctors are like that; they refuse to admit they don't know or that they aren't sure.  Answer me this: would you rather have a doctor that double checked the facts before he did your surgery or just simply guessed once he opened you up?

Yeah, I thought so.

See, that's my purpose.  My job is provide physicians (and nurses/administrators/whoever) with the most up to date and accurate information I can find so that they don't have to guess.  Or, sometimes even worse, do the search themselves.  

So when a doctor called earlier this week asking about some complications after a surgery, I didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that she didn't know what she was talking about.  She had already diagnosed the patient, but since someone's life was at stake, she wanted to double check her treatment plan before proceeding.  Because someone's life was at stake.

That's really the key in medical librarianship.  More often than not, when I do a search there is a patient whose life is going to be directly impacted by the information I provide to the physician.  It is crucial to remember that while I may not have physical contact with patients, my job touches their lives.  And my job is to pull together accurate information so physicians can make the best possible diagnosis and treatment plans they can.  

What do you think?  Do you think that a doctor who uses the library is a bad doctor?

Food Waste Friday

Wait, how is it Friday already?  Didn't I just blog about food waste?  

Not that I'm not glad it's Friday or anything.  I am glad it's Friday; very glad in fact.  It means I get to sleep for two days without the alarm clock scaring me half to death in the morning.  

But it just seems like the weeks are going by strangely fast.  Does anyone else feel like that?

Anyway...food waste.

There are some potatoes left over from last Saturday in the fridge that I'm afraid just aren't going to get eaten.  There are also some suspicious looking green onions that probably deserve a trip to the trash can.  

Last Sunday I tried a new blueberry muffin recipe; they were decent, but not something I'd ever make again.  Actually they were sort of tasteless, but I didn't want to be rude.  The recipe made 16 muffins and no one was really on a mission to eat them since they just didn't taste all that great.  

But I've been bravely eating two every morning, until this morning that is.  This morning, one had mold on it and when I found one that wasn't molding, the blueberries had gone bad.  So 6 muffins went into the trash.

I was unaware that blueberries go bad so fast.  Should I have just eaten them faster or should they have been stored in the fridge?  The freezer?

How did you do this week?  Don't forget to visit The Frugal Girl for more on Food Waste Friday. 

Twenty Things You Didn't Know About Me (And Probably Wish You Still Didn't)

Remember a couple of years ago when the thing to do on Facebook was post a note with a list of things people didn't know about you?

I was playing around yesterday and came across the note I had written for my "16 Things".  I thought it would be fun repost it here, with a few additions and some changes.  

Enjoy! 

1. I have random attacks of OCD that make me alphabetize things, put things in straight lines, or write long lists immediately. 

2. I am excessively wordy.  It is impossible for me to write concisely.  I had a major problems with this in college when my professors wanted 4-6 page papers and I would give them 8 pages at a minimum.  

3. I sing really, really loud in the car, even in traffic, when I know people are looking at me.

4. I sing show tunes in the shower and practice my Oscar acceptance speech.  You know, just in case.

5. More than anything in the world, I want to be a stay-at-home mom.  

6. If I can't be a stay-at-home mom, then I want to own my own independent bookstore and encourage people to shop locally.

7. If numbers 5 and 6 don't work out, then I'll have to actually write more than 2 chapters of a romance novel and then get it published.  

8. If I don't talk to my mom at least once a day, it feels like something is wrong.

9. I almost never take pictures, but I almost always have my camera.

10. I've been known to start and finish two books in a day.

11. I am socially awkward - anyone who knows me in the least has witnessed at least one example of this.

12. I cannot spell at all.  If spell check didn't exist, I would be in serious trouble.

13. I collect recipes from magazines and blogs like it's my job.  I have two binders and a folder stuffed full of recipes that I may never get around to making.

14. I refuse to eat anything that has coconut on it, in it, or near it.  I don't even like to talk about coconut.

15. My greatest fear is that I will grow up to be a crazy cat lady.

16. It irritates me when people who have only been blogging for 3 months have more followers and commenters than I do.  What am I doing wrong?

17. My favorite part of the day is sitting down with an excessively full Google Reader and reading about other peoples' lives.

18. I hope to be on Jeopardy one day.

19. I am unable to be on time.  I'm either early or late, but never on time.

20. I am terrified of heights.  I had a mini meltdown on top of the Empire State building, I refuse to ride roller coasters, and I can't sit in the upper decks on a football stadium because I'm convinced I'm going to fall.  

Clearly I'm strange and should probably be seeking therapy.  Instead, I think I'll stay here and share my eccentricities with you.  

If you feel the need to share 20 things about yourself on your blog, please do so and then put your link in the comments!  Or just share a few things in the comments.  

You know, so I'll feel better about number 16. 

The Perfect Roast Chicken

If I could be anyone on the Food Network, I would be Ina Garten.  

I know you're probably surprised that I don't want to be Paula Deen given my love of butter, but really, when it comes down to it, I would trade my love of butter for a house in the Hamptons and an all white kitchen with that amazing gas range in a heartbeat.  Not that Ina doesn't love her butter, because she does.  And I do adore Paula; I just want to be Ina.  

That makes sense right?  

Whatever. 

Ina Garten's Perfect Roast Chicken recipe from her first Barefoot Contessa cookbook IS the perfect roast chicken (in my humble opinion at least).  It's perfectly cooked, never too dry; the skin is amazingly crispy and it tastes so so so good.  

Have you ever heard of Engagement Chicken?  Glamour Magazine started it all, and over the years this recipe I'm about to share with you has become THE engagement chicken recipe.  If cooked correctly and served with the appropriate side dishes (I think risotto or mashed potatoes make excellent sides), this chicken has the power to do amazing things (I think), even garner marriage proposals.  :)  

Roast Chicken 

1 4-5 pound whole roasting chicken

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 head of garlic, cut in half (remove some of the loose outer skin, but not all)

1 lemon, cut in half

1 small bunch of thyme 

1 large onion, sliced thickly 

Special tools:

Kitchen twine or dental floss (NOT the flavored kind)

Roasting pan

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Place chicken in sink; remove giblets from the cavity.  Rinse the chicken inside and out thoroughly and pat dry.  Transfer to a roasting pan that has been greased.  Brush all sides of the chicken (be sure to get under the legs and wings and in all the crevices) with the melted butter and sprinkle with desired amount of salt and pepper.  Sprinkle the cavity with salt and pepper as well.  

Stuff the cavity with both halves of the lemon, both halves of the garlic, and all of the thyme.  I like to spread the thyme out a little so it's not all bunched up in one place.  Sprinkle the top of the cavity with salt and pepper again.  Truss the chicken (or do it the easy way and just tie the legs together) using the kitchen twine or dental floss.  Check to make sure you don't need any more salt and pepper.  Arrange the onion slices closely around the chicken in the roasting pan.

Roast the chicken in the oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until a thermometer placed between the leg and thigh registers 185 degrees and the juices run clear.  Remove the chicken from the pan and discard the twine, the onions, and everything from the cavity.  Slice the chicken on a large platter or a cutting board and serve!

Tasty Tuesday, A New Feature, and Bread Q&A

For the past two weeks, I've been participating in Tasty Tuesday over at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.  I hope that you've stopped by and taken a look at some of the wonderful recipes that get posted every week.  This week I'm sharing my recipe for Easy Fruit Cobbler as sort of a tribute to then end of the summer fruit season.  If you haven't already, be sure to take a look at the recipe because it's super easy and super delicious!

I've added a new feature to this blog - a recipe index!  Since I've posted over 30 recipes, I thought an index might be useful in locating some of your favorite recipes.  Right now the recipes are divided into 4 categories (main dishes, sides, pasta, and baked goods) and are arranged according to how they were posted (newest first).  Hopefully, I'll be able to alphabetize them at some point.  I hope you like this new feature.

Lately I've been getting some questions about bread.  What types of flour/yeast, how to store, why didn't my bread rise, etc.  I'd like to do a question and answer post with some of your questions about bread!  So if you have a question about baking your own bread, please leave it in the comments or email it to me at lizy1285 (at) gmail (dot) com.  If you email me, be sure to put Bread Q&A in the subject line. 

I'm excited about all the new stuff I have going on around here! I hope you are as well.  Don't forget to leave me your bread questions and I'll be answering them sometime next week!

Menu Plan Monday

I'm trying out lots of new recipes this week! I'm glad that I made one of my August goals to try at least one new recipe a week because it's really keeping me motivated to change up my menu. Everything so far has been really successful so I'm optimistic that this week will be the same!

There is still a good bit of meat left in the freezer so I'm incorporating it into the menu plan for the week. I was able to get a 4.5 pound chicken on sale for $1.19 a pound (under $6 total) so we enjoyed an awesome roasted chicken Sunday night. The leftover chicken makes great sandwiches when you spread the bread with a little basil mayonnaise.

This weekend we ate:

Friday: Shrimp, Sun-Dried Tomato, and Asparagus Over Pasta (new recipe)

Saturday: Steak with Shallot Cherry Sauce (new recipe), roasted potatoes, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes

Sunday: Ina Garten's Perfect Roast Chicken (from the original Barefoot Contessa cookbook), Risotto with Peas, French Bread

The week I have planned:

Monday: Homemade pizza, salad

Tuesday: Leftovers

Wednesday: Cheddar Turkey Casserole

Thursday: Chicken and Artichokes in White Wine Sauce served over rice or pasta

I hope everyone has a great week! Don't forget to check out Menu Plan Monday for more great menu ideas!

Why I Make My Own Bread

Whenever I eat a sandwich in front of people, someone is bound to ask "what kind of bread is that?" When I respond, "homemade", I usually get funny looks. Usually the next question (accompanied by an incredulous look) is "why do you make your bread?" I have a host of responses in my arsenal, and while my answers seem to satisfy most, the occasional person is still dumbfounded that I would devote so much time and effort in to making my own bread.

I don't believe that everyone should make their own bread. I don't think it makes you a better person, nor do I think it makes you a bad wife, mother, daughter, cook, etc if you don't. There are lots of really great brands of store bought bread out there; many that can be purchased for a reasonable price. I just happen to want to make my own bread; it's a personal thing. I would never presume to judge a person who didn't make their own bread. I choose to because it's what I want to do.

So in case you are interested in why I choose to make my own bread, here are my reasons.

1. I think it's healthier. Before I started baking bread, I never looked at a bread ingredient list. I mean, what could possibly be on it? Water, flour, maybe a little sweetener? About a year ago I glanced at the ingredient list of the bread I was currently buying and was stunned by the number of ingredients. 23. 23 ingredients for bread. BREAD! I was stunned. I know that many of those are preservatives put in so the bread will last longer, but 23 ingredients seemed to go way overboard. When I realized that I didn't know what half of those ingredients were, I realized that I didn't want to put that in my body. The bread I know make for sandwiches has 7 ingredients, and they are all ingredients I can pronounce.
   
2. I like the process of making bread. Call me crazy, but I find the mixing and the kneading and the punching (especially the punching) to be very soothing. I enjoy spending lots of time in the kitchen and the several hours I devote to baking every week are very happy times for me. Because making bread requires some downtime, I usually bake several other things such as muffins or desserts to enjoy throughout the week. The bonus is that I only have to dirty up the kitchen once!
   
3. Homemade bread just tastes better. I bet if someone did a taste test between a piece of store bought sandwich bread and homemade sandwich bread, the homemade version would win every time. Nothing tastes as good as piece of bread fresh from the oven. I've made a lot of different kinds of bread over the past year and homemade bread always tastes fresher and more delicious than store bought.
   

Again, these are my reasons. I know that baking bread isn't for everyone. Baking bread takes time and energy that some people just don't have or don't choose to give to making their own bread. And that's fine.

I also don't think homemade bread is necessarily cheaper than store bought. While I save money by buying yeast in bulk and not using recipes that call for expensive ingredients, I do buy higher-end flour. Plus making bread uses up personal resources like time, energy, and electricity. When added together, I seriously doubt homemade bread is that much cheaper.

All that aside, I don't think anything can beat the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house. I love making my own bread, but I especially love to eat it!

Do you make your own bread? Why or why not?

Food Waste Friday

No food waste this week!  We've all been pretty diligent in watching what's in the fridge this week.  Everyone's had leftovers for lunch at least once this week, and (so far) no whole ingredients have gone bad.

As always, there are things to watch out for, but I planned this weekend and next week's menus around the food that we have in the fridge, freezer, and pantry. 

How did you do this week?  Any food waste?

Food Waste Friday is sponsored by The Frugal Girl.

Recipe: M&M Party Cookies

This recipe came out of my mother's recipe box.  I consider this box the go-to place for the best desserts from the 70s and 80s.  She probably hasn't cleaned it out in years, so every time I go digging in there, I find something new.  

These cookies are a favorite of mine, not just because the recipe came from some named Cookie.  Cookie's cookies actually taste really good. 

As much as I wanted to, naming this recipe "Cookie's Cookies" would have been a bit much for me.  So I stuck to their original name of "M&M Party Cookies".  The original recipe calls for shortening, but I have a problem putting a cup of shortening in a cookie batter.  So I replaced it with butter.  

Because butter makes everything better.

What does it say about me that I have no problems putting a cup of butter in anything? 

M&M Party Cookies - 2-3 dozen cookies depending on size

2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla 

1 cup M&Ms

Preheat oven to 375.  Line cookies sheets with parchment or spray with baking spray.

Sift together flour, soda, and salt in a bowl; set aside.  Cream together butter and both sugars until creamy (about 3 minutes) with an electric mixer.  Beat in eggs until well blended.  Beat in vanilla.  Add flour mixture in three increments (to prevent making a mess), beating until just combined.  Mix in candy with a rubber spatula.  

Drop by rounded tablespoons (or more for bigger cookies) onto prepared baking sheets.  Be careful not to overcrowd as the cookies will spread.  Bake for 9-11 minutes or until edges are brown.  

Cook's Notes: Sometimes I mix about 3/4 cup of candy into the batter and then press 3-4 pieces onto each cookie before they go into the oven.  The candies crack a little and it adds a nice effect.  Chocolate chips, nuts, or reese's pieces make for great additions to this recipe.  

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday

An Adventurous Weekend

I had big plans this weekend.  Well, big plans if big plans can be translated to mean cleaning, ironing, and baking.  Ahem.  Those are big plans in my book. 

But my big plans were interrupted/canceled by my good friend, the lightning storm.

Yes, Friday night we had a major summer storm complete with heavy thunder, lots of lightning, a freaked out cat, super humidity, and very little rain.  Welcome to summer in Alabama.

But let me start at the beginning.  As I mentioned earlier, my dad had a tooth extracted and an implant put in its place on Friday.  Now, bless him, but being a man, my dad isn't the best patient.  He likes to try and do more than he really should.  He actually did pretty well, stayed relaxed and rested, until everything hit the fan.  

Thursday, as per our usual agenda, Mom and I planned the menu and wrote the grocery list for the upcoming weekend and week.  We planned carefully for Dad's tooth and made sure there were plenty of soft foods he could eat.  I went grocery shopping Friday afternoon and cooked dinner (risotto and shrimp).  We settled down for a nice quiet evening. 

I was reading (big shock I know), Mom was watching tv, and Dad had fallen asleep thanks to some pain medication when the storm hit.  There was a huge crack of thunder and burst of lightning that had me jumping in my chair and the cat streaking downstairs to hide.  The thunder seemed especially loud, as if it was right on top of us and was accompanied by a crack that didn't quiet seem normal.  But we didn't think much of it and went back to our activities. 

I went to the back of the house shortly after to check on Dad and heard a weird noise coming from what sounded like outside.  I alerted my mom and we investigated quietly.  Mom determined that the noise must be coming from the sprinkler and that the valve needed to be switched off.  Well, we didn't know where the valve switch was so I had to wake up my dad.

Which resulted in mass hysteria. 

Dad shot up out the bed and goes running outside (in his pain medicine-induced state and in his pjs I might add) to discover that lightning had struck the ground somewhere and water was now spewing fast and mighty out of the main water pipe that goes into the house and creating a river out of our driveway. 

Did I also mention that it was raining?

We ended up having to shut the water off from the street which meant we spent the better part of Friday night and most of Saturday without water.  (Have you ever been without water but still had electricity?  What a strange adventure that was.)  The plan was to go to bed, get up Saturday morning, and Dad and I would repair the broken pipe.  Great plan, except that it rained for 5 straight hours on Saturday. 

FYI...it is very difficult to fix a broken pipe that is buried in a hole full of water while it is raining. 

Saturday afternoon found us ankle deep in mud attempting to repair the broken pipe.  A temporary fix has been made, but now we are waiting on something permanent.  I am not one for getting dirty so I was not pleased when it became my job to scoop the mud out of the hole so the pipe could be replaced.  No fun at all.  Nothing felt as good as that shower did after we were able to turn the water back on Saturday evening. 

Sunday brought us the news that not only had the storm damaged the pipe, it had also some how fried our router.  The internet was down on Saturday, but Dad thought he had gotten it fixed.  But instead of internet, we ended up with a fried router that had be replaced.  Thank goodness for warranties. 

I finally got around to baking and ironing (which was part of my big weekend plans) on Sunday afternoon, but we still need breakfast foods, dinner rolls, and I really need to run the vacuum.  But thanks to Mr. Great Big Summer Storm, it will all have to get done another time.

So that was my weekend.  How was yours?

Menu Plan Monday

On Friday my dad had oral surgery to extract and implant a new tooth (he's fine now).  But, he needs to eat soft foods this week and our menu plan reflects that.  In addition to the surgery, our weekend was quite adventurous (more on that later) which lead to a last minute Saturday evening menu involving me ordering pizza.  On the menu for this weekend:

Friday: Risotto with peas, sauteed shrimp
Saturday: Grilled salmon, rice pilaf, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers - Ordered pizza instead :)
Sunday: Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, peas - grilled the salmon instead and put the chicken in the freezer

This week we will be eating:
Monday: Cauliflower Gratin, Squash Casserole, green beans
Tuesday: Mushroom-Spinach Toss
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Breakfast casserole, biscuits, fruit

Breakfasts involve eating the massive amounts of cereal we have and maybe some muffins if I get around to baking any.  Lunches are sandwiches and leftovers as needed.  Dessert is M&M cookies (recipe coming soon!). 

What's on your menu for this week?

Menu Plan Monday is sponsored by I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Food Waste Friday...Sigh

I haven't been keeping a very close eye on our food waste recently.  That was probably why I had to throw away the stale tortillas last week.  That's also why we had so much food waste this week. 

Last Saturday, when we made hamburgers, Mom made the gross discovery that half of the lettuce had gone bad.  She was able to salvage some of it, but about half of it went into the trash as a soggy brown mess.  Dad roasted a turkey breast last Sunday (he makes the BEST turkey) and found that a lot of the celery had gone bad.  Celery is one of those things that goes bad often around our house.  We buy it because we need it in a recipe or for a salad, but we never eat it all.  I need to start eating Ants on a Log again.  Yum!

We also made broccoli salad last weekend and usually it lasts a while, but for some reason, it went bad really quickly.  I took some for lunch on Monday, and found that it tasted off.  I wasn't sick, but I didn't feel comfortable eating it again the next day.  Into the trash it went.  Joining it was some cilantro.  Big sigh.  I just never use it all before it goes bad.  Does anyone know if you can freeze it? 

I have some parsley and some bananas that are in danger of being lost over the weekend.  I see banana muffins in our future!  And potentially scrambled eggs with parsley tomorrow for breakfast.

How did you do on food waste this week?  Hop over to The Frugal Girl for more woes of waste.

Recipe: Corn Casserole

This recipe comes from my cousin, Jenn, who first brought it to Thanksgiving about 5 years ago.  It's been on our holiday table ever since. 

I think this is another one of those Southern recipes that everyone has their own version of.  I did some poking around on Tasty Kitchen and on AllRecipes, and the number of recipes for basically the same dish is astounding.  A lot of people call this corn pudding or corn souffle.  We just call it corn casserole.  Whatever you call it, it's delicious.

Corn Casserole - 8-10 servings

1 box (8.5 oz) corn muffin/cornbread mix (Jiffy is the best)

1 can (15 oz) whole niblet corn, drained

1 can (15 oz) creamed corn

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) melted butter

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9x13 casserole dish (see note). 

Mix together all ingredients except the cheese and pour into prepared dish.  Bake for 40 minutes.  Remove from oven and top with cheese.  Return to oven and bake for 5-7 minutes or until cheese is melted.  Serve to a crowd of people who don't have a problem with unhealthy foods. 

Note: We typically make this in a 9x13 inch dish, but it's fairly thin.  I think that you could make in a slightly smaller dish, such as an oval 3 quart dish or a 12x8 pan, and have a thicker casserole.  Just watch your cooking time and adjust it as needed. 

Photo Credit

 This post has been linked to Side Dish Showdown: Thanksgiving

Recipe: Chocolate Pistachio Bundt Cake

This is my very first Tasty Tuesday post! If you are new, welcome! Please stay awhile and look around! I hope you enjoy my blog! 

I was super skeptical about this recipe when Mom brought it home from the lake.  Chocolate syrup IN a cake?  Pistachio pudding mix?  I couldn't imagine it would be good, even though Mom kept repeating that it was excellent.  I really should learn to trust her.  Especially when it comes to chocolate.  Mom is always right when it comes to chocolate.  Always. 

Anyway, don't let the ingredients through you off.  I've never had pistachio pudding, but this cake didn't taste like the nut at all.  Nor did it taste of orange juice, despite having a 1/2 cup in it.  We made this cake according to the directions, except we couldn't find a 3 oz box of the pudding mix, so we bought three small boxes (I think they were 1 oz each).  The cake was really green, more so than Mom remembered, so we may just add 2 boxes next time.  We used Jello brand pistachio instant pudding for future reference.  We also decided that 1/2 cup chocolate syrup would be fine; 3/4 cup felt like too much.  I found a different recipe online that called for 1/2 cup, so next time we try it, we'll use 1/2 cup.

Chocolate Pistachio Bundt Cake

1 pkg. yellow cake mix (about 18 oz.)
1 pkg. instant pistachio pudding mix (3 oz.)
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 - 3/4 cup chocolate syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a bundt pan.* 

Combine all ingredients except syrup in a large bowl and mix 2 minutes on medium speed with an electric mixer.  Pour 3/4 of the batter into the prepared pan.  Add chocolate syrup to the remaining batter; mix well.  Then pour into pan.  Do not stir or marble; this will happen on its own.  


Bake for 50-60 minutes or until tester comes out clean.  


*A bundt pan is really necessary for this dish, although I imagine a tube pan can be substituted.  You would just lose the pretty look.  

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday.

Menu Plan Monday and Other Things

I took a much needed vacation from life this weekend (which explains my absence from blogging).  I've done this before, and this weekend I needed to rest up to prepare for the week.  This week begins the month long process of moving my library to another part of the hospital.  Today and tomorrow movers are disassembling half my library shelving, moving it to my newly refurbished storage unit, and reassembling it.  Next week my journals that have been in offsite storage since February will be returned to me (yay!) and I can put them back where they belong.  I'm hoping the two weeks after that will have me physically moving the rest of the library to it's new location.  If I remember my camera, I'll post some pictures!

I didn't blog about food waste on Friday, but we did have some.  We wasted some tortillas that had gone stale from when we had chicken fajitas a few weeks ago.  We're having steak fajitas this week, but I'm planning on using the leftover tortillas in turkey roll-ups for lunch to keep them from going to waste.  How did you do this week?  Don't forget to visit The Frugal Girl for more on Food Waste Friday. 

So anyway, I think I have a pretty good menu planned for this week.  In my attempt to try a new recipe every week, I'll be baking the Blueberry Crumb Cake I found over at The Pioneer Woman either today or tomorrow; I'm sure it will be great for breakfast.

We are eating from the freezer this week.  My parents had great luck at the last warehouse sale at one of our local grocery stores, but there is a ton of steak, chicken, and pork left.  So all of our meat (except for a turkey breast that was on sale) will come from the freezer. 

This weekend we ate:
Friday: Mom and Dad - Chicken fingers and mashed potatoes; Elizabeth - out with a friend
Saturday: Hamburgers, Broccoli Salad, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, Chocolate-Pistachio Bundt Cake (new recipe this week!)
Sunday: Mini Thanksgiving in August - Turkey breast, Corn Casserole (recipe coming soon!), Green Bean Casserole

This week we will be eating:
Monday: Pasta and Vegetables in Lemon-Parmesan Sauce
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Steak fajitas (if you have a good recipe please share!), Mexican rice, chips and guacamole
Thursday: Grilled chicken and sausages, campfire potatoes, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes

"Librarians Rule": An Affirmation for Librarians

Whenever I'm feeling down or depressed about my job or when I feel like I'm not valued by my users and coworkers, I always turn to my favorite blog post about the awesomeness of librarians.  "Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian" is the perfect pick-me-up for a day when I'm feeling unappreciated. 

I think my favorite passage is 

"Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule."

Because librarians do rule.  We know this; our patrons know this (or they would if they actually thought about it).  But sometimes we just need a little reminder.  So next time you are feeling a little undervalued or not getting any respect, check this out.  And remind yourself that librarians rule!

Recipe: Orange Oatmeal Muffins

This is a recipe I got from Weight Watches last year when I lost about 25 pounds.  I made them this past weekend again because, when I found the recipe, I couldn't remember if I had made them before or not.  I've made a few changes based on the ingredients I had on hand and based on taste.  

Warning: these are not very sweet muffins and have a tendency to be dry.  I like them heated up a little and spread with butter (or in my case Smart Balance).  When made according to this recipe, there are 3 points in each muffin.  I have no clue how many are in my version. 

Orange Oatmeal Muffins - makes 9 muffins

1 1/2 cups baking mix (suggested Bisquick Heart Smart)

3/4 cup quick cooking oats

1/2 cup fat-free or 1% milk

1/3 cup sugar

1 large egg, beaten

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

1/2 tablespoon orange zest (from about 1/2 an orange)

Extra sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400.  Grease a muffin tin or line with paper liners.*  Combine baking mix, oats, milk, sugar, egg, juice, and zest by hand in a large bowl.  Mix only until just moistened.  Divide batter evenly among 9 muffin tins.  Sprinkle each cup with 1/8 teaspoon of sugar.  Bake 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  

*Note: I use a standard 12 cup muffin tin greased with cooking spray.  Because this recipe only makes 9 muffins, I fill the remaining 3 with a few teaspoons of water to keep the pan from scorching.  

A Day in the Life of a Medical Librarian

Last Monday was round 5 of Library Day in the Life, which is an opportunity for librarians around the world to share what they do on a daily basis.  Obviously, I'm a bit late to the party, but I did tweet about my day last Monday using the hashtag #libday5.  So if you follow LibrarianLizy on Twitter, this may be a repeat performance for you.

I think that Library Day in the Life is super interesting and as Lauren suggested, a great way for students to find out what a librarian really does all day.  There aren't that many solo hospital librarians out there (I am one of three in my city) so I thought that some of you might find it interesting to see what I actually do all day.  For those of you who don't care, well, just come back tomorrow when I have a recipe to share. 

8:00 (or there abouts): arrive at my desk, turn on the computer, see if I have any new messages (I don't) and open my office window.  

8:10-9:00: check both email accounts, respond to necessary emails, check FaceBook and Twitter on my phone, write and link up Menu Plan Monday, greet the various doctors who walk past my window, and begin an email exchange with my counterpart at our sister hospital. 

9:00: Weed through my Google Reader, collect recipes from other peoples' MPM posts, play around online.  

9:15: A resident comes in to ask about a CD-ROM program which turns into an actual issue because the program no longer works.  I hunt around looking for a new one, find that it's outrageously expensive, and email our surgery coordinator to find out if someone else will pay for it.  

9:45: Discover it's Library Day in the Life, begin following it on Twitter, and notice that the humidity in my office may rival the humidity outside.

10:00-12:00: Finally break down and continue updating the library's policies and procedures.  This is a very unfun task, but necessary as the they haven't been updated since 2001.  It's very quiet in the library, but that's fairly typical lately.  I think it has something to do with it being oppressively hot outside (why I'm not sure, but I'm convinced they're related).   

12:00: I eat lunch at my desk (leftovers from the weekend) and read a book I brought from home.  I eat at my desk because I usually get the most requests when the residents are at lunch.  I like to hang around from 11:00-1:00 just in case.  Today, though, no requests.

12:30: A shipment of books arrives!  I unpack it excitedly and set them aside to be cataloged later in the afternoon.  These are books I ordered the day I found out my book budget is as large as it is, so I'm really excited to have some nice new books.

1:00: The librarian from the sister hospital calls and says she overwhelmed and asks if I'm busy.  I am most certainly not so she passes me a lit search.  The question: why and how does the JC choose the antibiotics they recommend for the treatment of pneumonia?  I search PubMed and Google for the answer without much luck.  I also try UpToDate, which has the same suggestions but doesn't state how they arrived at that recommendation.  

2:00: I pass along the information that I did find and go back to blog reading and playing around online.  I update our the libraries' blog to share the new books that came in.

2:30 I check Docline (our ILL system) and see that we have no new requests.

2:40: I have a huge "that's what she said" moment (that I won't repeat here) and was very glad that no one was around to witness it.  

3:00: I start cataloging the new books.  I actually have to change part of a MARC record (scary!), but do it successfully.  I create a new Pandora station and listen to show tunes which makes this task go by much faster.  

4:00: I finish cataloging and make a new sign to hang up reflecting the books that have arrived in last month at the library.  

4:30: I frantically remember that I'm not going to be in the office for two days because of a leadership seminar so I make a list of things I need my library assistant to do while I'm gone.  

4:45: Leave work.  This was actually a fairly productive day for me.  Reference work, updating policies and procedures, and cataloging make for a good day!

That was my day! I'm glad this was a good day to share, because I've had some extra quiet days and some days where I'm so busy I can't breathe.  That's life as a solo I'm learning.  Every day is a new adventure! 

Did you participate in Library Day in the Life?  How did your day go?

August Goals

A lot of my favorite bloggers post monthly goals at the beginning of the month and then review them at the end.  I really like this idea and have been meaning to do it for a while.  There are a lot of things I want to accomplish and I'm thinking that setting goals will help me stick to my plan and achieve them.  I plan on posting my monthly goals on the first and reviewing them on the last day of the month.  Obviously I'm a day behind, but I don't think that should count against me.  :)

So my August goals...

 

1. Only put $300 of my paycheck in my checking account each payday.  The rest will be divided up among my 3 savings accounts.  This will help me spend less money and put more money into savings.  Right now I'm concentrating on boasting my emergency fund and potentially (??) saving for another trip to Europe.

2. Seriously look for an apartment.  I hope to be ready to move into my own space by the end of September/first of October. 

3. Try one new recipe each week.  I'm pretty good about this, but I have so many delicious looking recipes that need trying and only so much time to do it in! 

4. Get up 15 minutes earlier every day for my "quiet time".  Quiet time isn't a new concept for me, but I used to do it at night.  I often feel asleep before I could get to it and I think moving it to the mornings will help me have a more productive day and will help me stick with it.

5. Clean out my closet.  Weed through clothes I don't wear (both summer and winter) and make a list of what I need as far as fall/winter clothes and shoes go.  I plan on selling what I can at consignment shops and donating the rest.

What are your goals for August?

Menu Plan Monday

I can't believe it's August already! July simply flew by! I'm really not ready for this month to begin. Stores are putting school supplies on sale and the tv is full of ads for back to school clothes, supplies, and college needs. This will be the first August in 19 (!!) years that I haven't been getting ready to go back to school. Watching all friends get ready for the second semester in January was hard enough, but this time, knowing that the day school starts will be just another work day, is a super strange feeling.

Anyway…the menu plan for this week. I spent a lot of time (I know no one is surprised) baking this weekend so we will be enjoying the fruits of my labors. :)

This weekend we enjoyed:

Friday: Peel 'em and Eat 'em shrimp, baked potatoes, broccoli slaw, the last of the Italian Cheese Twists

Saturday: Macaroni and Cheese, corn on the cob, fresh pink eyes, corn bread, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes

Sunday: Grilled Pork Loin, green beans and potatoes, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, Garlic Pull Apart Bread, Blueberry Cobbler

On the menu for this week is:

Monday: Pasta with Spinach and Asiago Cheese, leftover bread

Tuesday: Grilled steak, rice, Caesar salad

Wednesday: Mom's homemade sauce with pasta

Thursday: Leftovers

Breakfasts will be Orange Oatmeal muffins (recipe coming soon!), cereal, and fruit. Lunches are leftovers as necessary and sandwiches.

What's on your menu this week?

Menu Plan Monday is hosted by I'm an Organizing Junkie!