Playing with Food

Here's some fun stuff I've made in the last week!

Spaghetti with Pesto Sauce
Pesto sauce is rich and delicious!  It's also great as a dip.

Ingredients (makes enough for 6 servings):
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons pine nuts
pinch of salt
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons softened butter

1.  Wash and dry the basil leaves.  I cut the stems off. 

 2.  Mix the basil leaves, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and salt in a food processor until they reach a creamy consistency.

3.  Place this mixture in a bowl.  Add the butter and Parmesan cheese and mix by hand.  Taste and add more salt if you'd like. 

 4.  In the meantime, you've been cooking the spaghetti!  Once you drain the pasta, mix in the pesto sauce.  Don't heat the pesto sauce--the heat of the freshly cooked pasta will do the trick.







Mojo Chicken and Tostones with White Rice (that's toast-oh-nes, for my Gringo friends =)

Ingredients
4 Chicken Breasts  (thinly sliced)
Mojo marinade (1 cup sour orange juice, 6-8 garlic cloves (minced), salt, black pepper, cumin)
1/2 an onion
Olive Oil
3 Sweet Plantains (green!)
Corn Oil
Salt
Steamed White Rice


Mojo Chicken
1.  Making the mojo marinade:  This is the traditional marinade of Cuba.  What you will notice with most Cuban meat dishes is that citrus flavor, courtesy of the sour orange.  You can buy pre-made mojo marinade by Goya or Badia at most supermarkets.  Those are authentic and yummy.  If you want to make it yourself, it's pretty easy!  Squeeze the juice of a couple of sour oranges into a bowl (until you get about 1 cup).  add the minced garlic, salt, and black pepper.
2.  Once you have sliced the chiken breasts, season generously with cumin and then place into the bowl with the mojo.  Cover and place in the fridge to marinade for a couple of hours.
3.  Slice about 1/2 an onion and save for later use.
4.  When you're ready to cook the chicken, start by heating some olive oil in a pan.  Once the olive oil is very hot, add your chicken breasts.  When the chicken starts turning golden-brown, throw in the onions and some of the juices from the marinade.  The onions should still be soft when you are done. It will look like this:

Tostones: 
1.  While the chicken is marinading, peel the the sweet plantains and then cut into 1-2 inch-thick slices.
2.  Fill a medium-sized pot about halfway with corn oil.  Heat the corn oil at medium-high heat until it's very hot.  (Do this right before you're ready to start cooking the chicken).  Add the plantain rings into the hot oil until they start turning golden.  Do not fully cook them!  You just want them to get nice and soft.  This will take about 3-5 minutes.  Remove from the oil onto a plate and drain with a paper towel.
3.  Here comes the fun part!  You are going to flatten the plantains.  This can be accomplished in two ways:  The traditional way is to use a plantain press or you can simply place each slice vertically on a cutting board and then press down on the top with the bottom of a cup. 
4.  Add the flattened plantains to the oil again and cook until they are a nice golden color and the edges look crispy.  Don't forget to turn them over as they cook.
5.  Remove from oil onto a paper towel to drain.  Sprinkle with salt.

Flat bread Pizza with Pesto Sauce

Ingredients:
Pesto sauce (see above!)
Flat Bread
Shredded Cheese of your choice
Red and green peppers
Chicken breasts

1.  Make the pesto sauce!
2.  Slice as much pepper as you'd like on your pizza!

3.  Heat some olive oil in a pan and cook thinly sliced chicken strips or cubed chicken breasts.  Season with garlic powder and basil.  Throw the peppers in the pan until they are soft and chicken is fully cooked.  Set aside.
4.  Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.




 

5.  Spread the pesto sauce across the flat bread.

6.  Cover the flat bread with a layer of shredded cheese.  I used an Italian cheese blend.
7.  Add your peppers and chicken to the pizza, and then one thin layer of cheese.









8.  Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted.  The one thing I didn't like about baking it was that the pesto sauce gets dried up and loses its flavor.  =(.  Next time I think I will just brush the flat bread with olive oil and season with rosemary and garlic. 

I also tried the Fancy Macaroni recipe from the Pioneer Woman.  You can find that recipe here.

 Mine looked like this:  

It was good...but I wasn't that happy with it.  I'll have to try again. 

I'm having fun playing with food with all of my spare time!  Hopefully I will have more to come in the next couple of weeks!

A Journey in Pictures

I realized that I suddenly stopped blogging about my hand.  Probably because I got tired of telling the story...and because you all know how I'm doing since I've seen you all throughout the injury and healing process.  For whatever reason, I felt I needed to do a final blog about it.  Consider it a 'bloggy' catharsis of sorts.

Things started off like this:

This was a few days after my accident.  Look at that swelling!  my fingers looked like Vienna Sausages.

Here's a comparison to my left hand.  BIG difference.  And it was soooo extraordinarily painful.  The pain kept me up for four days...no sleep.  My fingers and most of my palm were completely numb, but I could still feel PAIN!  Once I was able to sleep for a few hours at a time, the tingling was so annoying...almost unbearable.  That and the pain would wake me up every few hours, and only a pain killer would help me get back to sleep.  The first night I slept a full night was actually 3 weeks later in Tampa when I was at the Music Educators Conference.  (Remember that, Michelle?) That was also when I stopped taking the prescription pain killers.

Look at the difference just two weeks of therapy made!  Movement helped break up the pool of blood that was deep in the tissues of my palm and helped my body absorb all of the fluid that was just sitting there.  (Isn't it incredible how our bodies heal themselves?)  Let me tell you how painful therapy was those first few weeks!!!!  The first day my therapist bent my fingrers backwards and forced me to make a fist.  My tendons and ligaments hadn't moved in 3 weeks and it made me howl when he stretched them out.  We moved slowly at first, and I practiced at home by picking up little pieces of paper and empty plastic water bottles.  I was a good little patient and tortured myself at home with the exercies just like my therapist said.  My husband said I was a trooper.  Before surgery I was pushing buttons on my keyboard and trying to push the mouse button, too.  That required monumental force.  The first time I picked up my cell phone it felt so heavy!  Luckily, there was no injury to my fingers--they were just really, really, really stiff.  This photo was taken the morning of my surgery just before going in.  I ended up wearing a splint until the first week of April. 

Here is my incision after surgery.  My palm was soooo swollen.  I had yellow and green bruising down my wrist.  My doctor told me that was normal, and my body was now healing from TWO injuries--my accident and his surgery.  When the anesthisia wore off, it felt like my skin was ripping.  But luckily that lasted for only a few days.  The progress I made after surgery was great.  Therapy still focused on the flexibility of my fingers.  Moving my wrist wasn't allowed until a few weeks after surgery, and then it was only 'active range of motion.' 

Here's what I looked like when the stitches came out a week after surgery.  Three months after the injury (the time carpal fractures take to heal), my therapist said he got the OK from my doctor to "go gang busters" on my wrist.  That involved stretching my wrist backwards and forwards to increase my range of motion.  That hurt.  A lot.  It made me squirm and sweat.  But I never cried...in public.  One of the doctors said I was pretty good...he's seen grown men sit there and cry.  I digress...I'd also have to hold weights in my hand and flex my wrist up and down.  I started using hand grips and silly putty to strengthen my grip.  That went on until early May.  Then I graduated from therapy and saw my doctor for the last time in mid-May.  He gave me a clean bill of health.  I am able to flex and extend my wrist over 50 degrees (40 degrees is considered functional).  However, I can flex/extend my left hand over 70 degrees.  I want that back...but the doctor said once you fracture a bone, it's never really the same.  He also told me I'm a 'robust healer' and my body heals quickly.  I formed scar tissue very quickly after surgery, and he said if I ever have surgery again I need to move very soon after to prevent the scarring from getting too hard. 

Here I am today.  Can you see the scar?

It looks pretty good!  I was lucky to have a great surgeon.  I have to continue strengthening my grip (I only have 15 pounds of grip stength, which is very wussy) and increasing my wrist's flexion/extension.  The swelling may take up to a full year to go away.  My thearpist recommended that I buy a hand gripper to help with all of that.  

So I bought a grip ball.  Can't you see my muscles rippling?  Grrrrrrr....

 

...and I bought a hand grip.  Wow!  Check that guy out!  Who knew using a hand grip would make you look like that?

Anyway, I'm really glad to do all the little things I couldn't do for a few months.  What was most important to me was to play flute again.  It wasn't until April that my fingers could really move well enough to play again.  I just jumped right back into it.  Just like riding a bike...you may be wobbly at first but you never really forget.  I can type, and write (SOOOO glad I don't have chicken scratch hand writing anymore), and pick up utensils and eat like a regular person, and hold a baton and conduct properly, and pick up my hair, and snap on my own bra, and tie my shoes, and brush my teeth...and all those other little things you don't even think about when you're OK.  AND...I can feel!  My feeling started coming back little by little as my poor crushed nerve healed.  

I like having my hand back! Thanks, everyone for your support and prayers!

Meet Charlie!

Meet our new kitten, Charlie!!!!!  One of Zeta's cats had a litter and I fell in love with this little guy right away at the father's day BBQ yesterday.  Zeta was ready to let him come home with us...I was ready to take him home...Steve was reluctant.  So I started begging...and batting my eyelashes.  And Ranger and Zeta started talking him into it.  Eventually Steve came to the back yard and picked little Charlie up.  He stated cuddling up to him, and climbing on him, and sleeping on him...and eventually little Charlie convinced Steve all on his own.  As a matter of fact, Steve wanted me to drive the car home so he could hold Charlie in his lap.  It was such a huge surprise that Steve was so reluctant to have a kitty.  Steve, who grew up around cats and loved it!  His main concern was our furniture.  He's been saying that for two years.  I thought for sure he'd want a kitty as soon as we had our own place.  Two and a half years later he's still talking about the furniture...thanks is owed to Ranger for convincing him otherwise!  

Charlie rode home with us last night (we wasted no time!).  We made a little kitten box for him out of an empy shoe box, a towel, and an old T-shirt of Steve's which is now Charlie's safety blanket.  We put him in his little box and rushed to Wal-Mart to get him some kittly milk formula and a small feeding bottle.  We stayed up until 1 AM watching him clumsily walk around our kitchen and refuse to drink the kitty milk.  =(.  I'm a little worried that he hasn't really eaten since he left his mother yesterday.  All he really does is sleep (he's kinda like me on a Saturday).  We're trying to get him to eat solid foods mixed with the kitty formula so we can wean him off the milk within the next couple of weeks.  Any suggestions on how to get him to eat?  We also have to train him to use the kitty litter.  NO IDEA how to do that...any suggestions?  Not sure when is the right time..we think he's around 4--5 weeks old now.  When is the right time to get him neutered and get his vaccines?  And flea medication?  And worm medication?  And...and...and...???  Ugh.  Too much to think about. 

But when I look at this face...

I temporarily forget about all of that stuff!

From Primped and Pampered....to Potatoes and Pans

Yesterday I went to an event at the Newport Beachside Resort entitled 'Teachers Deserve More.'    At 7 PM, the newly renovated spa opened just for teachers, where they treated us to beer, wine, appetizers, fruits and cheeses, and mini-massages.  All for free.  Oh, yes.  The resort is also offering select salon and spa services for only $20.10 for teachers all summer long.  Oh, yes....

I went with one of my teacher-girlfriends to the resort yesterday.  We sat in massage chairs, sipped complimentary champagne, and got manicures and pedicures.  All for just $20.10.   I haven't treated myself to a mani/pedi since the week of my wedding.  Ahhhh....the sea salt scrub made my skin soft and smooth.  I was long overdue.

 Bubbly

 Afterwards, we joined the crowd in the spa for the free event.

Today, I peeled potatoes and made dinner.  With my French manicure and all.  Tonight I blended two different dishes into one meal:  garlic and herb chicken and paremesan-basil potatoes.  Here's the how-to, in case you'd like to try:

Garlic and Herb chicken
Diced chicken breasts
Olive oil
Garlic powder
Sweet basil
Black pepper
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme (just kidding...I couldn't resist the urge...or use them if you want to).

How-to:

1. Dice chicken breasts into small cubes, or strips, or don't dice at all if you don't want!  Season chicken with garlic powder, sweet basil, and black pepper. 
2. Heat olive oil in a pan.  Add chicken and cook until it's...well, cooked...and voila!

Parmesan-Basil Potatoes
Diced potatoes
Butter
Grated parmesan cheese
Sweet  basil
Large Ziploc freezer bag

How-to:
Peel potatoes and dice into small cubes.
Melt one tablespoon of butter (for every two potatoes).
Add the potatoes and butter into the bag and shake, until the potatoes are well-coated.
Add the parmesan cheese and basil to your liking and shake.
Spread the potatoes onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for 45 minutes at 350F.  

Voila!  The chicken looks a lot like the potatoes in the background due to the cubed shaped. 

The first time I've cooked in...........ages.

My husband certainly didn't marry me for my cooking.  There was no 'getting-to-his-heart-through-his-stomach' in this love story.  And Amen for that.  Or it might not have worked out.

As a girl, I watched my mom cook us home-made meals every night.  I learned how to make a few simple things, and helped her here and there.  So I'm not completely useless in the kitchen.  And I don't burn everything I make, either.  Actually, I very rarely burn food.  Cooking was just never something I was really that interested in.  Besides, my job (as my parents told me from a very early age) was to be a good student, go to college, get a degree and hang it on my wall, start a career doing whatever I wanted to do, and make my own money; and if a man ever mistreated me or told me what I could or could not do, I could tell him to stick it where the sun don't shine and I would be able to move on and take care of myself.  Well...my mom added the last part about the man.  Although my dad certainly agreed.  We (my sister and I) were raised to be strong-willed women with minds of our own, and my mom taught us to one day marry men that would appreciate and respect that.  College was not an option.  We were going.  And we'd better get good grades, too.  I think my mom was trying to get us away from that traditional role of the Cuban housewife that she had grown up around.  Women of her mother's generation just didn't have many other choices.  As the oldest daughter of 10, my mom's mom was pulled out of school when she was still a young girl to help raise her brothers and sisters.  She would cry and beg her parents to let her go to school.  She really wanted that opportunity which she was denied, and I guess she passed that sentiment along to my mom.  I guess that's where my mom was coming from.  I suppose it's because parents always want more for their children.  School was my first and primary job.  Around the house, we had to help my mom with chores and keep our rooms clean.  But only if we were done with our homework first.  By the time I was in high school, my room would get messy and my mom rarely asked me for help around the house since I was so busy with band and honor societies and concerts and college applications.  No time for cooking lessons.

I love my refrigerator magnets:

My mom printed something for herself a while back and put it on the fridge.  It reads:  "The maid is off today. If you want something, get it yourself."

I think this sums it up pretty well:  When I was going off to college, my mom asked me if I wanted her to buy me an iron.  I said "what for?"

Don't get me wrong--I do like cooking.  Sometimes.  Before we got married, Steve and I would talk about how nice it would be to have our own place and cook in our own kitchen.  We did pretty well the first year--we cooked at home most of the week.  Then we settled into life and work and got tired and lazy.  Home cooked meals became less frequent.  But, every now and then, I get inspired to experiment in the kitchen.  Mostly in the summer months, when school is out and I get bored.  Sometimes good things come of my boredom.  Like a clean house.  It has been really messy for the last few months.  Things piled up after my accident and hand injury, and once I got better I got busy with work and the piles just kept getting more mountainous.  Now that it's officially summer break, I've already made some progress.  (I'm the neat freak and organizer in the relationship, although you wouldn't be able to tell that by the look of my spare bedroom).  But, I digress.  The last time I cooked something besides pasta was months ago.  Steve likes to cook (another Amen) and frequent restaurants with me, so that's why we haven't starved.  I borrowed a book of chicken recipes from my sister (although she says 'stole' since I didn't ask for permission, a minor detail between sisters) and found an easy dinner idea I wanted to try:  honey garlic chicken wings.  Since I don't own a BBQ grill, I changed the recipe to suit my available utensils (and limited cooking skills) to a honey garlic chicken stir-fry with mushrooms and steamed rice. 

Honey Garlic Chicken with Portobello Mushrooms
Ingredients (makes two servings)
2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup steak sauce (I used A1 thick and hearty)
1/8 cup honey
1 garlic clove, minced
Baby portobello mushrooms
1 cup rice

How-to

1. Start cooking the rice
2. Slice two chicken breasts into small cubes
3.  Begin to heat some olive oil and minced garlic in a pan over medium-high heat
4. Mix the steak sauce, honey, and minced garlic in a bowl.
5. Once the pan is hot, add the chicken and mushrooms.
6. Once chicken and mushrooms are cooked, add the sauce and let simmer for a few minutes.
7. Serve with steamed rice and enjoy!

Nothing like the smell of olive oil and garlic sauteing in a pan...

                                  

Saucy!

 

Simmer....

 Eat up!

Not too bad for a self-proclaimed 'domestically challenged' woman.


Next time, I will return to my roots:  Mojo chicken with tostones and white rice!

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum :: Elissa's Pictures

Photo Sharing by MyPhotoAlbum :: Elissa's Pictures

I finally finished uploading all of the pictures from Adam and Veronica's wedding!

Pretty and not-so pretty

I'll start with some pretty stuff:

Sunset from the Dolphin Expressway.  I snapped this picture Thursday afternoon while sitting in traffic that wasn't moving...at least the view was nice.

The newest addition to my collection!  It was $100 off the original price, plus an additional 70% off!  What a steal!

And now, for the not-so-pretty stuff...

My 'mummy-esque' post-surgery wrappings.

 

My Frankensteinian stitches...after the wrappings came off...

 

And, finally, after the stitches and then butterfly stitches came out.  The cut is tiny and healing well. 

Off to enjoy the three-day weekend!

How to Drive in Miami

1.  Get yourself a good car insurance policy. 
2.  Learn to curse in Spanish (I can help with that)
3  Avoid driving in Hialeah at all costs. 
4.  Assume all the other drivers around you are one or more of the following:
      a) blind
      b) complete idiots
      c) reckless drivers
      d) not paying any attention whatsoever
      e) asleep
      f) not even licensed drivers
5.  Grow a second pair of eyeballs so you can see said drivers coming at you from every direction at a million miles an hour and while breaking every traffic law known to man kind. 
6.  Assume at least three people will run every red light.
7.  Realize that most Miami drivers think speed limits are merely "suggestions," stop signs are really "pause" signs, and merge lanes are opportunities to speed up and pass everyone.
8.  Assume that there will be 30 accidents on the highway while you are on your way to work.  Plan accordingly.
9.  Realize that in Miami, rush "hour" is from 7 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Friday. 
10.  Be one of the few drivers in Miami that learns to use those complicated devices in cars known as turn signals...and brakes.
11.  Practice deep breathing exercises.  Pray.

OR...just stay home. 

Seriously...be safe, wear your seat belts and may the force be with you!

When it rains...

In the last 7 weeks, I've had:

Total number of x-rays to date: 5 (I should be mutating into an X-Woman any day now...)
CT scans: 2
MRI's: 1
Nerve tests: 1
Surgeries: 1
Therapy sessions to date: 7 (lots more to go)
Total number of fractures to my wrist: 5

Wait a minute.... five?  Wasn't it three fractures to two bones?

Nope.  Five fractures to four bones.  Two, of which I was just told today, are minor fractures. (We have 8 carpal bones in each hand...I fractured FOUR of them)!

I saw my Doctor today for my check-up.  He did another x-ray to see how I was healing, and he brought up the images from my CT scan.  He said that aside from the two main fractures, I also had minor fractures to my scaphoid and my triquetrum (or was it the trapezium?) bones.  The fractures are small and inoperable, so only time can heal them.  He said the other bones weren't moving around when he checked them during surgery, so he didn't need to insert any screws.  However, the hook of the hamate bone was loose--definitely needed to be removed!  The carpal tunnel release went well.  He said my nerve looked good too....it's healing.  Recovery time is about three months.  My fractures are already 7 weeks old, so another 6 weeks or so and hopefully the splint can come off.  The carpal tunnel recovery is 3 months also...it's only been one week since that, so I've got some time to go. 

Hand and wrist bones diagram
Carpal bones

Look at what one of my third graders gave me on my first day back to school yesterday:

How adorable!

Off to Never Never Land

I've never had anesthesia before last Friday.  First, the nurse and anesthesiologist administered "happy juice" via the IV in my hand (that's what the nurse called it...she said I might still feel pressure, but this will make me not care).  Then the anesthesiologist said:  "Time for mojitos!"  I said "how about a martini?" He replied: "this is three martinis!"  He injected the said happy juice into my IV and the feeling was instant--three martinis at once.  The man wasn't lying.  All I could say was: "whoa."  They then started the local anesthesia on my arm--a few injections near my armpit.  Little by little, my arm started to go numb.