Snack
It seems that snacking has become a very hot past time since the pandemic has forced us to stay around home and indulge in our love of small plates and platters of delicious creations to have with a cold beer or glass of wine. Present: …
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Pumpkin
The dying days of summer leave way for the cooler days of autumn.
Pumpkin is a big part of this time of year and can be used in both sweet and savoury cooking.
The smell of a spicy pumpkin pie baking or a moist muffin or quick bread in the oven, always makes me think of Thanksgivings at home. The recipes are usually very simple, not a lot of outrageous ingredients are needed and they can be whipped up quickly if you keep a tin of pumpkin purée in the pantry.
Try pumpkin in place of squash in savoury recipes for a different tasting pasta, lasagna, ravioli, soup or stew.
My recipes menu includes a snacking cake, muffins, a pie, and cookies. Give them a try and let me know what you think. With that smell permeating the house you wont be able to wait until they’re cooled.
enjoy!
Anticipation
an-tic-i-pa-tion
NOUN -the action of anticipating something; expectation or prediction.
Emergency Nursing causes one to be in a constant state of anticipation. It can be both a positive and negative feeling and evokes a variety of physical and mental characteristics in each individual nurse.
In the early years of my career an adrenaline-rushed excitement would overtake the fear and uncertainty of what was to come. As I continued on in the ER, my experiences built a wall of resilience to the anxiety, nervousness and sometimes dread, of each passing moment.
COVID19 is dredging up some of this early uncertainty I felt way back when. The unpredictability, lack of initial treatment to eradicate, and the seemingly unstoppable spread has the usual positive anticipation turning to the negative.
There is also a whole shift in the focus of our most basic practices and procedures. For example: chest pain. It is usually thought of as cardiac in nature, you can be diaphoretic(sweaty), nauseated (feel like barfing) and have shortness of breath due to pain, fluid collection in the lungs, or a mechanical problem with the pump.
Enter COVID19 screening. Do you have any new onset of shortness of breath, cough, fever and/or nausea? Immediately, with any of these symptoms, regardless of what you would do “before COVID”, the patient is given a mask and brought into isolation. The focus and anticipation of what’s to come shifts from a somewhat predictable cardiac workup to include total isolation precautions, additional testing and high anxiety for your patient.
We can use anticipation to our advantage in the ER. We already know to expect the unexpected. We are masters of rising to the challenge of come what may. If we use the tools we already possess of preparing for the absolute worst that can occur, then we will be able to overcome the anticipated predictions we’ve been told are going to eventually happen.
Our patients will arrive anticipating the worst and they will get our best.
Keep up the great work, keep safe and remember, even though we are in the business of caring for others, care for yourself.
Raisins
This is a love them or hate them ingredient.
I like raisins, currants, prunes and other dried fruits but prefer to not eat them in certain cooking. Especially not in anything savoury. I apologize to the cooks that lavish roasts, sprinkle them in rices and pastas and stuff poultry and vegetables with various assorted varieties of these dried things.
I enjoy them in rice pudding, oatmeal cookies (if paired with chocolate chips in the same cookies) and, of course, the British dishes that would not exist without currants and/or dates,raisins etc. Think Eccles cakes, fruitcake and scones with currants.
I recently added Old Oatmeal Cookies to the Recipe menu. This is a great cookie that I have been searching for for a while….I lost it, couldn’t remember the name of the oats I found the recipe on and so alas was baking second rate , sometimes dry, sometimes too wet, below grade Oatmeal cookies!
Raisins shine in this cookie so please don’t omit…unless you truly do hate them. The 2 tbsp of water seem to plump them a little and boy are the cookies great right out of the oven!
Raisins do have their place in the baked good in my world…..
Sad
Recently I heard of the passing of a colleague. Emergency Medical Services personnel are a special breed of people. These men and women are compassionate, knowledgeable, caring individuals required to be almost robotic during any number of horrific encounters or situations they find themselves in …