Fried Mushrooms

My friend Jo's boyfriend came down from CT the other day. They were super sweet and invited a bunch of people over for a homemade lunch. We feasted on pasta and this raspberry-accented salad, but my absolute favorite dish of the day were these fried mushrooms that Jo's boyfriend whipped up. They were delicious -- not too soft, not too crunchy, and cooked to a golden perfection. On my way home that afternoon, I bought some mushrooms of my own and decided to try to make them myself. It took me an extremely long time, mostly because I forgot what the recipe was so I had to go by trial and error (and unreliable recipes from the internet). They turned out well in the end though. Here's how to make this dish in four easy steps:

Ingredients

Flour

Garlic Salt

Pepper

(any other herbs you want to mix in. ie basil)

White mushrooms (sliced)

Oil (or butter)

Step 1: Wash and slice mushrooms.

Step 2: Mix the flour, garlic salt and pepper in a bowl. Dip both sides of the mushrooms in the mixture. and make sure it's covered evenly on both sides.

Step 3: Add oil to a heated pan and carefully place mushrooms in. Flip mushroom slices occasionally to cook on both sides.

Step 4: Yum. Enjoy your masterpiece. 

Fruit & Vegetable Juices

When I was in NYC this summer, my friend Lianna took me to this amazing juice bar in Brooklyn - near Williamsburg. Now, I have to admit, I'm not a very big juice fan, and my experiences with juice places is...limited...but, this juice bar was much better than I expected! The thing is, they had some really unique mixes of fruits and vegetables in their juice selection that I never would had thought to combine. For instance, one juice was a mix of carrot, apple, and pineapple. Another, had ginger, carrots and oranges! I was hesitant about diving in with one of their fruit AND vegetable drinks, so I just got one of their fruit juices (which was still delicious). However, this past weekend, during a much needed study break, my friend Adina and I decided to have a juice party!

Here are two juice combinations that we came up with:

Celery + Pineapple (the mix of the two is soo good! It doesn't taste like celery or pineapple...more like pinelery or celapple).

and 

Guava + Pineapple (we both love pineapple :))

Both juices are super easy to make. All you have to do is put the ingredients into a blender. Add ice, water and sugar (occasional taste checks are encouraged) and blend until there are no more clumps. 

New Lunch Idea

It's been two weeks since I first started medical school and I love it. However, that's not to say med school does not have its challenges. Not only has it been quite an adjustment getting used to the courseload, but it's also been hard to figure out how to live a healthy lifestyle (I mean, in undergrad, I lived on campus and never had to cook or clean -- well, maybe occasionally :) -- or pay my own bills). Although it might seem like a small detail, one of the most challenging things for me to get used to was bringing my own lunch to school. At first, I brought leftovers from the night before. But I soon realized that it took half of my lunch break just to heat up the food because of the lack of microwaves in the cafeteria. I wanted to see if there was a way to pack a lunch without having to go through all that trouble and came across this brilliant idea: Mason Jar Salads.