Kitchen-cabinet meatloaf

I recently visited my very sick grandparents in Florida and had the satisfaction of watching them scarf down my chocolate chip cookies. Inspired by the sight of these wasting octogenarians wolfing down sweets, I wanted to cook more for them. It's the easiest way for me to make people feel good without sitting on the couch holding hands and watching TV. Prescribed or not, I'm convinced that a week of my cooking would help them gain back some of that weight.

Now that I'm in med school, I viewed my grandmother's edematous legs and oxygen sat with a new understanding. I feel an additional responsibility to take care of her and ease her discomfort. Stuck in the apartment, I opted for raiding the cupboards for something to cook. A fun and entertaining challenge.

There may be a touch of old-people preferences in these ingredients but the results are really delicious:

• ~1 lb ground turkey
• 1 egg
• 1-2 of each chopped carrots and/or celery ribs and/or onion
• 1/2 cup chopped prunes (or other dried or fresh fruit or tomatoes)
• 1/2-1 cup breadcrumbs (or 2 slices of bread soaked in milk and mashed up)
• 2 cloves chopped garlic or 2 tbsp garlic powder or Mrs. Dash seasoning
• ketchup
• salt and pepper

Mix everything but the ketchup together in a large bowl and pack into a loaf pan, then brush ketchup over the top. Bake at ~350 degrees for ~1 hr until a knife comes out clean. I served it with some kitchen-cabinet mashed potatoes (homemade, of course).

If you're not in Florida, this would be perfect for a snowstorm or exam-week studying-around-the-clock meal. Stock the fridge!

GI

This morning I arrived in class for a lecture on "Clinical Abdominal Anatomy" -- sounds perfectly harmless and boring, right? But in med school you are never safe: anything could be fascinating and gross at any moment. Generally this happens when flipping through an anatomy textbook: for example, there's a rule of nature that requires you to randomly open the page to a picture of genitals when all you may be looking for are nerves in the neck or muscles of the foot.

Today, "Clinical Abdominal Anatomy" required an intimate discussion of vomit and feces in terms every layman can understand: food. As the professor put it, "People communicate well when it comes to food." I thought she made a good point, but that doesn't mean I'll be eating pea soup any time soon.

A pre-spring salad

This winter I have tried to learn the physiology of the nephron as well as how to cook root vegetables, which are cheaper and less egregiously out-of-season than tomatoes. The nephron is a series of parallel tubes in the kidney that filter electrolytes and manage the pH and osmolality of the blood. Root vegetables are starches that grow in the ground. Guess which endeavor met with more success.

Today's lunch:

• 1/2 beet, peeled, steamed, and sliced thin (prepped this over the weekend to have on hand)
• 1 carrot, raw, peeled and sliced thin
• Handful of quinoa (leftover from a Seder last night -- but easy to cook just as you would rice -- my roommate has a small rice cooker that she allows me to commandeer)
• Toasted walnuts, about 1/4 cup or less (a treat! -- also Seder leftovers)
• Arugula
• 1/2 lemon

I pack the quinoa, beet, carrots, and lemon in the bottom of a tupperware with the arugula on top, keeping the walnuts in a separate container to keep them crisp. At lunch I'll squeeze the lemon over everything and toss it all together. The lemon cuts the bitterness of the arugula perfectly.

Today I'll be eating it during an advocacy and service learning meeting on how to do a community needs assessment. What are the needs in my community? What is my community?

California

I've been daydreaming of California lately, can't guess why. I like going to California (the couple of times that I've been), among other reasons, because it inspires me to make new and delicious salads. This is a version of a fancier salad that I had at Gjelena on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach last February. The colors are enough to brighten up this long, dragged out New England winter...

1 beet, peeled and sliced roughly into wedges
1 carrot, peeled and sliced into thick rounds
1/2 avocado
olive oil
pinch of salt

Steam (over boiling water or in a microwave) beet and carrot until a knife just slices through easily. I prefer the carrot to retain some crunch, so I add them to the steamer just before the beet is done.

Slice avocado into large chunks.

Toss all together and season with olive oil and salt. This makes a hearty salad that can stand alone as a lunch, or have it with a yogurt. I ate mine in the library hunched over a textbook, thinking back to those skateboarders with a view of the Pacific...