AHHHH!

I'm still swimming. Promise. Barely. I'm on heme onc right now, pulling some crazy hours. I'm also trying to make feeble daily attempts at completing my application. I'm cooking, just not in a picturesque sort of way. I am however, way into eggplant right now. Quote from my resident at ?dinner? while on call...

um what are you eating?

Eggplant

hmm, how do you cook that?

I saute it in balsamic vinegar usually

Oh... so you're a vegetarian.

Um no. there is also tuna in my salad.

ok.

Clearly if you don't eat U of M supplied pizza 2 meals per day, your are some sort of freak of nature. Love those budding health professionals. Go go hyperlipidemia! I went home to la casa this weekend, stocked up on my mom's garden goods. Thank the lord for mothers. Alright, diversion complete. Back to essays.

Weekly wecap.

Not gonna lie. I'm really stinkin tired. I fueled my body last week with this scrumptious lunch. Nicoise schmicose. I took mama's garden green beans, shrimpies, tomatoes, nectarine and spinach to nosh at noon. I topped the salad usually with trader Joe's chipotle salsa. I'm giving TJ's a second chance, I'm forgiving like that. Bless you. Hold your applause till the end.

ID drew to a close and Internal Medicine part 2 loomed. I celebrated Friday night with this clown. Model photo shoot! I love my bro. Best company in the world. We gnomed it up. I love that restaurant, but I must say... they claim to have a wide variety of GF brews. Oh they lie. There is never anything besides redbridge. Fyi. The waiter always THINKS there is. Then he returns, tail between his legs. It's still a sweet patio. Christmas lights will win me over any day. I'm easy like that.




Saturday = America's pastime! Gluten free game day treats!!! Oh yeah. I'm swollen like a beach ball after all that Na+


Christmas at the twins! I was trying to support the team. Jon was... not sure, green brings out his eyes.

Jon's cousin Manolo was in MN with his beautiful girlfriend Silvia. We enjoyed the game together and then headed to the Green Mill. These folks were craving deep dish! Check out this recipe I made last summer, thanks to Manolo's input!


Finally, I went home to start my personal statement. Holy buckets. I start sweating bullets every time I even say that statement. I did manage to get some thoughts on paper.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there’s love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong. -Ella Fitzgerald.

Plus raid my mom's garden. YUM! Thanks M & D, you saved me a pre call grocery trip. MMM tomatoes MMM.
Especially because this pretty much sums up my green thumb. Even with Cati. Sorry dad, I must of dumped those genes during some early blastocyst division.

Wedding Weekend

Ok lovlies. I'll start my marathon of posts with my cousin Abby's wedding. Abby is currently in nursing school in Arizona. She started out at UND, where she met her main squeeze Ryan. They ventured to the dessert together over a year ago now. She has an adorable blog with stories about their life together. Such a cute couple. Picture totally stolen from Lisa's facebook :)




We had a little family band for the wedding. I even got to play Handel's Largo during the processional. I love this song. My piano teacher told me to walk down the aisle to this piece. I fully intend to...when I'm 40?


At the ceremony. It was held in a cute catholic church in Battle Lake MN. Brand spankin new in fact, making Abby and Ryan's wedding the inaugural nuptials.


The lovely Lisa, the maid of honor. Looking fantastic! She did a wonderful job as a gracious hostess and spectacular speaker!




Then the fam headed to the reception at Thumper pond resort. The boys had already been there bright and early for 18 holes. I slept it. It was nice to have a leisurely morning and get the the church early to practice.





Mama Barb. She did such an amazing job playing during the ceremony. I'm always so amazed at how talented my parents are. And my aunt Rosie played the recessional. Holy buckets. She smoked up the keys!


Jon and I hung out with these goofballs all weekend. Love them! We hit up a local watering post Friday night when we arrived. We played pool, air hockey and listened to the musical masterpiece "Rockin the beer gut". On Sunday the boys golfed AGAIN, while Ellen and I bummed about Ottertail MN. We did some hot tubbing and hit up the Otter treat-aka imitation dairy queen.


A beautiful weekend for sure. Complete with M&Ms in those little green boxes. I may have had 1 or 8. Hey, if you leave your M&Ms unattended I cannot promise they won't end up in my belly. Sorry to anyone who found theirs missing :)

wow

I'm working on my application, and currently on my second bowl of peppermint ice cream. Feeling a bit like this picture. A little bit fun, but mostly feel like I might die. I have tons of pictures to post, I hope to get some new bloggies up soon! I'm done with infectious disease, and starting Internal Medicine in the U tomorrow. Yikes. Breathe....

Puffy Pancakes.

Yum. This Sunday morning called for something special. I had virtually nothing to do. I slept in, did some am yoga, and decided to whip up some gluten free goodies. This week at school was insane. It felt fantastic to do nothing but stand at my stove and flip some flap jacks.

Banana pancakes. Seriously delicious. Adding banana to your baking makes the "gluten-free-ness" SO MUCH less in your face. Plus, the banana bread-esque + maple syrup combo is ridiculous. Holy yum. Try these, they won't disappoint :)

Banana Pancakes: recipe from Gluten Free Cooking School

My version:
1 1/4 Cup Gluten free flour mix
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup milk
1 Tbs canola oil
1 egg (jumbo)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 mashed banana

Whip up the wet ingredients, then add in the dry. Stir sparingly once you've added the dry ingredients. Cook them up, like you cook pancakes:) Use the bubbles as your guide. Keep the stack warm in your oven, then enjoy your Sunday creation.