Sugar Pills Still Have Sugar

Now more than a month into pharmacy school, I have never felt such a rush of information.  Taking 19 hours of classes, life is a difficult balance between science, life skills, and the continued adventure of growing up.  


When meeting with the assistant dean, I was asked what I did for fun.  I just laughed.  Perhaps some orientation information is needed here.  The whole week of orientation can be summed up in this quote:


"Yes, you are going to have more work than you know what to do with, but you can do it, and we can help.  Don't forget to take care of yourself as well.  Eat right, exercise, and be sure to give yourself some social time.  Don't forget your friends, family, and hobbies as well."  


After a whole week of this lesson, school started, and the books hit hard.  Her question caught me off guard because studying has been the consistency of my life.  What do I do for fun?  Well, probably the biggest thing is being creative.  I love to write, to paint, to draw, come up with word play, and write songs/play the piano.  I love to hike, to go to the lake, and camp.  I love to learn how things work, have real conversation about more than just pop culture, but also get silly with unreal topics.  I also love to cook wonderfully good but healthy foods beyond or without a recipe.  And of course, all of this is enhanced with friends and family.

This blog will hopefully be an outlet for at least a few joys: cooking, writing, and just sharing the joys/curiosities of life.  

Hiking

Painting 

Building sand pirate ships

Making scrumptious salads

The Experiments

The following salads are little experiments of mine that may not sound the most conventional, but sometimes, after a week of hard testing, inspiration will come in the strangest ways.

The Lean, Mean, Red, and Green

If you are hard pressed for a salad idea, pick some colors, and make a masterpiece.  Obviously here, I decided to go with red and green.  So, I made a list of my favorite red and green things that could go on a salad that I could easily get: craisins, grapes, tomatoes, avocadoes, and raspberry vinegrette.  I added some chicken and sunflower seeds to provide protein.  

Taco Salad Twist 

The taco salad is probably one of my favorites.  Earlier in the week, I made some crockpot salsa chicken (which will be featured later) and was thinking of my visit to Costa Rica a few years ago.  It seemed that they would put a fried egg randomly with your food, so I thought with a shrug, "Why not?"

The egg was kind of two experiments.  1: an egg on a salad that isn't egg salad.  2: seasoning the egg with something other than salt, pepper, and Cavender's.  I wanted to match the spicy flavors of the chicken on the egg, so I used cilantro, chili powder, cavender's, and cinnamon.  Yes, you read correctly, cinnamon.  The concoction was a surprising success! (At least, to my easily pleased taste buds).  In fact, I've taken to putting cinnamon on my fried eggs now simply because I liked the way the warm spice mixed with the neutral egg.  

So, this salad's final make up is: spring mix lettuce, salsa chicken, olives, cilantro, spiced fried egg, and a dollop of light sour cream.  yum yum!