Quarantine Baking

When I realized there was a bunch of bananas in the physicians' lounge that was so ripe no one would eat them, I stuck them in the freezer until after my shift. I looked up banana bread recipes that were fairly simple to make (no yeast) and would not leave me with 1/2 a container of sour cream. I settled on a pair from Two Peas and Their Pod, in no small part because they offered versions with and without chocolate. Then I made sure Dear Husband brought home sufficient flour, eggs, and butter for all this baking.

To the right is the chocolate chip banana bread I made for myself. Never having baked banana bread before, I was surprised to discover that the skins were still frosty cold, even though the flesh had thawed into pulpy mush!

Above left is the peanut butter banana bread I made for DH and topped with peanuts. It required less flour, butter, and eggs, and no baking powder than the chocolate chip one. However, only after starting the measurements for the second loaf did I realize I had put in twice the amount of butter (1 stick is half a cup, not a quarter cup)! Thankfully I hadn't started mixing yet and was able to skim a quarter cup of melted butter out of the bowl.

I baked them together and therefore lengthened the time a little bit, but I wish I had rescued them at exactly 50 minutes, as they are both a little more done than I had hoped. Now I know for next time!

Want other baking ideas? Check out these posts for Sweet Potato Casserole, Apple Maple French Toast Bake, or Reindeer Turds. I cannot, however, recommend this Blueberry Oatmeal Coffee Cake.

What Residency Looks Like XCI: Food on the Run

Sometimes residency looks like meal prep in the morning before a 12-hour shift. If I get up before 7am, I typically need "2 carbs" to make it to lunch. This photo shows first breakfast (oatmeal with raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, and brown sugar); second breakfast (homemade oatmeal blackberry coffee cake and a hard-boiled egg); a mango-flavored bubbly water in case I couldn't make it to the water fountain to refill my big blue flask; and afternoon snack (homemade chocolate chip cookies and a sliced apple). I used meal tickets to buy lunch at the cafeteria, and I ate leftovers for dinner when I got home.

What I ate while on service: 3 pieces of veggie pizza (free), 6 squares of blackberry oatmeal coffee cake, 7 hard boiled eggs, 7 apples, 5-6 bananas, 1 orange, 3 bowls of oatmeal, 2 bowls of yogurt and granola, 15 homemade chocolate chip cookies, 1 piece of chocolate, 1 freezer-burnt pre-boxed salad from the cafeteria, 1 salad that was not frozen, 2 bags BBQ potato chips, 1 crab cake sandwich consumed 30 minutes after it was reheated for me, 1 large plate of very salty pasta with Swedish meatballs, 1 slightly soggy cookies and cream ice cream cone (free), 1 bag of Chex Mix party mix, 2 chicken tenders, 2 small salads, part of a high-protein cookie, tortellini soup that was salty from having cooked down, a 100-calorie baggie of Lorna Doone cookies, a bag of white cheddar popcorn. There definitely would have been more chocolate if I knew what had happened to the stash that used to live in the left-hand bottom drawer, but oh well.

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The most quarantine things I did

I have been more or loss quarantined for the last three weeks. The last time I left my house for work was Friday, March 27, but I had basically stopped caring for patients in person the week before that, either because they did not show up at clinic, or because I went to the hospital but did my consults from a distance. Being relieved of clinical duties freed up significant time for me to do other work, when I wasn't managing the influx of COVID-19 related information from the news, social media, my three residency programs, hospital, clinic, and every medical organization that has ever gotten possession of my email. Ditto for a number of companies reassuring me they were ready for the pandemic, and oh by the way did I want to purchase something from them for delivery/to use in the future once I got out?

Like all the other pediatric residents at my institution, I was pulled from the elective rotations I so carefully chose for my last three months of residency for their diversity of experiences--and favorable work hours, I won't lie--to be kept at home "on jeopardy" 1/4 of the time, be off 1/4 of the time, and work 7 days in a row the other 1/2 of the time. The children's hospital is being maintained on a skeleton crew due to the low number of patients and high number of potential COVID exposures on the staff. Quarantine is a novel experience for me, as for so many of us, although I confess that the introverted workaholic who was already overextended is not so secretly grateful to be able to devote so much time to studying, teaching, sleeping, and the following activities:

Cleaned house, did laundry
Sent long email updates to friends and family (if you didn't get one, have you checked your spam folder?)
Never set an alarm in the morning
Alternated my outfits between couch potato and put-together, depending on my mood and whether anyone besides Dear Husband would see me via teleconference
Cooked: potato and bean casserole, tuna pasta, black bean and corn soup ("Pittsburgh soup")
Baked: scones, chocolate chip cookies, blackberry oatmeal bars
Took a walk everyday with my housemate while trying to remain 6 feet away from everyone else
Had a conversation from the sidewalk with friends on their front porch
Watched a lot of COVID parody songs, famous people reading stuff, and late-night comedians become day-time YouTubers
Listened to the entire soundtrack of Hamilton
Held a weekly disaster-themed film series

Things I used Zoom/Microsoft Teams/Google Hangouts to do: listen to COVID updates multiple times per week; participate in live-streamed educational sessions about medicine and/or history; worship on Sunday mornings; teach college and medical students; participate in a hip-hop class; have "happy hour" with friends; celebrate my father in law's birthday; and eat Easter dinner "with" family. (We had ham, roasted asparagus, and black-eyed peas with spinach and onion.)

Pittsburgh "Black and Gold" Soup

This is another Cooking with Frau Doktor Doctor post. Just follow these simple directions, and by the time you are done, you may have something to eat...eventually. Learn from my mistakes!

1. On Monday while apprising the store of foodstuffs relative to the projected length of the stay-at-home order, discover a Tupperware canister of dried black beans. Decide to make the Black Bean and Corn Soup from your Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook on Tuesday night, right before the cheesy tuna pasta runs out.

2. When Dear Husband waits to venture out to the co-op to acquire a few key ingredients until after a care package with homemade masks arrives, finish the pasta on Tuesday after all.

3. The awaited packaged arrives on Wednesday! After DH returns from the the store that afternoon, pull out the cookbook and ingredients. Learn that not only do the beans need to be blanched, but the recommended crock pot time is 8-10 hours. Oops.

4. Rinse 2 1/4 cups black beans, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Cover and let stand for 1 hour. Clean purple-black splatter from the stovetop.

5. Meanwhile, chop 1/2 a large onion and the rest of a desiccated head of garlic. Sure, we can call it 4 cloves. Add to the crock pot with 1 tbsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp salt, and a 14 1/2-ounce can of stewed, halved tomatoes that you chop by hand.

6. Substitute an 8-ounce can of drained corn for the 10 ounces of frozen corn in the recipe. Omit the bottled hot pepper sauce and cilantro pepper salsa that your household would never eat.

7. Contemplate trying to recreate the "Mexican spices" that would have been in a "Mexican-style" can of stewed tomatoes. Feel reassured that the soup will be spicy enough when you see that the salsa DH purchased is HOT.

8. Rinse the black beans and add to crock pot. Cook for 4 hours on half heat. Fix tilapia filets, roasted asparagus, and bouillon-cooked quinoa for dinner. Stow crock pot in fridge before bed.

9. After lunch, return crock pot to heating element on high, stirring hourly. Realize too late that, being pre-stewed, the tomatoes were supposed to have been added last. Shortly before serving, mash some of the beans to thicken. Try to ignore that the beans are really rather mealy instead of soft and smushable.

10. Spoon this "Black and Gold" mixture into bowls, top with salsa, and serve with red hot blue corn tortilla chips. Vegetarian serving suggestions include sour cream and Greek salad (tomatoes, cucumber, feta cheese); leave these off to keep it vegan.

This was pretty good, even though it was thinner than I had anticipated, and decidedly more red than "black and gold," especially after I had added a tablespoon of HOT salsa to it. Still, it fit the bill, and DH drained the dregs from his bowl. Finally, it thickened considerably after being left in the fridge in the crock pot instead of being stored in Tupperware (::ahem::). Bon appetit, n'at!

Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this recipe, you might like this one for Stuffed Shell Casserole, my experiment with succotash, or a yummy fall-themed breakfast casserole.

Palm Sunday under Quarantine

This Palm Sunday Dear Husband and I celebrated Palm Sunday with Third Presbyterian Church via Zoom. Despite the occasional technical difficulties (we got kicked off twice!), it was really nice to see our church family. You can see our Communion set up here: tea in appropriately Pittsburgh-themed black and yellow mugs, and Lenten pretzels on a ceramic sand dollar paten from my parents. The Miracles of Jesus in Galilee place mats are from DH's parents' trip to the Holy Land. It was a beautiful service with plenty of time for meditation. I hope we can have singing next week; at the very least, I suppose DH and I could sing together at the piano here.

I have spent the last two weeks basically home, and I expect the same for another week before taking my turn at the hospital for a week. Being off clinical rotations has let me cook more than usual. So far I have made scones from a mix, an old favorite, Bean and Potato Casserole with roasted Brussels Sprouts, and a new recipe, Creamy Tuna Pasta. DH complained that the sprouts with olive oil, salt, and rosemary were too bland, so I spiced up the leftovers with red pepper flakes and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked them that way. This week he will bake a pie out of mixed frozen fruit, and I want to make chocolate chip cookies.

On the left, I am pleased with how well my spider plants are doing. There is another little group on the mantel in the front room, and the "giants" are now out on the front porch. On the right, snuggling up together on the couch to stream a movie on my laptop. We have been holding a disaster-themed film series every Friday evening. So far we have watched Contagion (2011), War Games (1983), and Cast Away (2000). Also Dial M for Murder (1954), split up over two other nights, if you want to count that. DH gets to choose next week; he is thrilled(!) to finally get to show me The Shining (1980).