Addendum: Mexican-style black beans and rice if you have a little more than a hotel microwave

In my previous post I gave a recipe for a black beans and rice dish that you can make using only a hotel microwave, made possible due to the glory of canned foods. But if you have a little more time and few more appliances, it's very easy (and even tastier, and much cheaper!) to make the black beans and rice yourself. Here is the recipe I use. Add your choice of fresh mozzarella, avocado, mango, or salsa, and you will have a meal fit for kings!

Ingredients:

• 1 can organic black beans
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1/2 sweet pepper (whichever color you like), chopped
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon chipotle pepper flakes (chili powder works too)
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
• salt (to taste)
• 1 cup brown rice

Instructions:
Cook the brown rice using whatever method you prefer (rice maker or stovetop), adding the amount of water indicated on the package. Saute the onions, garlic, and peppers over medium-low heat until soft/just beginning to brown. Add the black beans, cumin, pepper flakes, cilantro, and salt, and continue to cook, stirring frequently, for about 10-15 minutes. Serve the black beans over rice and add whatever extras you like. Yay!

How to make a tasty gluten-free meal using only a hotel microwave

Last weekend my dad and I drove an hour and a half down to Rochester, MN to visit the Celiac Center at the Mayo Clinic. Being my first "vacation" (if you can call it that) since starting a strict gluten-free diet in February, I was a little apprehensive about what I would eat. I still won't dare set foot in a restaurant, no matter how gluten-conscious it claims to be, and the thought of three straight days of peanut butter sandwiches on that dry crumbly gluten-free bread made me quite sad (and a little nauseated).

But with a little culinary creativity, I came up with a solution to this cooking conundrum:

Mexican-style black beans and rice with mozzarella and fresh tomatoes

Cooked in five minutes using only a hotel microwave and refrigerator (though you could easily make due without the refrigerator). This is also makes a good "OMG I just got home from work/school and I have to eat something NOW!" recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 can Eden Organic Black Beans and Rice (Caribbean or Mexican style). A statement on their gluten status can be found here.Want to make your own black beans and rice? Here's my favorite recipe.
• Grated Mozzarella cheese* (if you don't have access to a fridge I bet string cheese could also work!).
• 1/2 Tomato, diced
• ~1/4 teaspoon Cumin
• Salt to taste

*If lactose intolerant, avocado would also make a nice addition to this recipe.

You will also want to bring a can opener, plates/knives/spoons, and of course your gluten-free toaster.

Ok, ok, a gluten-free toaster isn't really required for this recipe, but really, no Celiac patient should ever leave the house without one!

Instructions:
Empty about 1/2 to 2/3 of the rice and beans can onto a plate. Stir in the salt and cumin. Sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese and microwave for 2-3 minutes. Add tomatoes on top and enjoy!

BONUS: What to do with that gluten-free toaster you dragged all the way out here!

Open-faced tomato and cheese on toast

Ingredients:

• Gluten-free bread of your choice
• Good quality hard cheese (I used my most recent obsession, Gran Queso from Whole Foods)
• The other half of that tomato
• One clove of garlic (optional)
• Olive oil (optional)

Instructions:
Toast the bread. Cut the garlic clove in half and rub a small amount into the toast. Add a bit of olive oil to the bread and assemble. Yay!

Anderson Kitten, the Movie!

Remember my little underwear-stealing Corsican kitten, Anderson voleur Chausette? Well, he is now a star of YouTube! While recovering my camera files after a recent hard-drive crash, I discovered video upon silly video of this adorable little dude hanging out in my hotel room. And with the help of Windows Movie Maker, I have started editing some of the footage into short videos.

The first features Anderson hanging out in a bag (his favorite spot) while chasing his own tail (his favorite activity). Enjoy!

A very nerdy Christmas with Nelson's Little Helpers!

There are probably at least 10 people in my group who will kill me for this, but I just had to share this video with my nerdy non-MIT peeps.

Every year the highlight of the MIT Chemistry holiday party is karaoke, and every year the organizers of the party search high and low for musical performers to break the ice and get the party started. Well this year, the Nelson group stepped up to the plate! Starting in late October, group members Harold, Sharly, and Dylan started retreating to empty classrooms in the basement of MIT to write the music and lyrics to what would become the next holiday hit of the century. Sharly had the music and background vocals professionally recorded, and at the beginning of December the rest of the group started meeting once or twice a week to practice the lead vocals. Together we made a video to accompany the performance, which sadly you cannot see that well because of the bad quality of my camera (however, there has been talk of professionally recording our voices over the music and syncing it to the video, so give a shout-out if you think we should do it!)

My friend Elizabeth was kind enough to film the event for me and, after five months of the footage knocking around my hard-drive, I finally had the time to edit and post it! Sadly, the sound quality is atrocious, but I added lyrics so y'all can figure out what we're singing about.



P.S. I'm the one in the Santa hat.

A Storm in Minnesota

Since being home, I have been reminded of why all Minnesotans are so gosh darn obsessed with the weather; why my dad wades through the entire local news just to see the five-day forecast and each an every Minnesotan knows their favorite meteorologist by name and is willing to fight anyone who dare voice a differing opinion (Paul Douglas, a.k.a. "The Goof on the Roof" is a person non grata in my household, unless you want to hear an extended rant from my dad). A week and a half ago I felt May snowflakes melting on my cheek. Two days ago it was 87 degrees and humid as a sauna. And last night, we had our first summer storm.

Midwestern storms are just as dynamic as the weather itself. In less than hour a sunny blue sky can become dark, violent, throw down some hail and perhaps a tornado or two, and then become clear (though now a bit damp and drippy) once more.

Tornado storms always warn of their approach by tingeing the air an eerie shade of green, as if the world has stepped inside an ancient photo album. Chattering birds and squirrels become silent. And soon after the tornado sirens, wailing holdovers from World War II, confirm the atmospheric intimations.

The chartreuse (or is it sepia?) before the storm

The proper safety procedure during a tornado warning is to retreat to the basement or other enclosed area of your house, where you will be most protected from flying glass or debris. My mother, who is terrified of thunderstorms, always puts on her shoes, grabs her purse, and troops the family down into our basement as soon as the warning has been issued.

However, most Minnesotans (including me) are not nearly so cautious. A single tornado can form within seconds and rarely lasts more than a few minutes. Warnings are issued for any storm with the capability of producing tornadoes, whether or not any have actually formed, with the result that most of us have experienced countless warnings in our lifetimes with no ill effects. The local news stations, each vying for ratings, exacerbate the situation by instantly broadcasting any photo, story, or video of the storm submitted by brave viewers.

And let's face it: thunderstorms are cool.

This perhaps explains why, 15 minutes after the tornado warning had been issued, half of the neighborhood was out in the hail-peppered streets, gazing at the sky.

Nickel-sized hail from the backyard

The violent core of this sleek and compact storm had passed less than two miles north of us. So, while my mom stood in the doorway shouting the location of the nearest spotted funnel cloud, my neighbors and I stared with joy at the sight of the the sunset reflecting off the back of a thunderhead, which rose out of the treetops in a capricious mountain of steam.

Thunderhead at Sunset

Ten minutes later, it was nearly gone.

Medical Leave and Doing Nothing

After my last post I received a couple messages from friends asking about my health. For those that don't know, I have been on medical leave from MIT since the end of March, primarily due to unexplained exhaustion. While fatigue is common among grad students (in the words of one of my doctors: "You're tired? You're a grad student. I need more.), it is not common for a 25 year old to be bedridden after a four block walk to the grocery store. The good news is the doctors have been unable to find anything wrong with me, other than Celiac disease. The bad news is, the doctors have been unable to find anything wrong with me, other than the Celiac disease. And, after a month and a half of rest and three months on an ultra-strict gluten-free diet, I am still not feeling much better.

 "I know this must be hard for you," my advisor said, when I told him of my decision to take a leave, "you don't get to MIT by being the type of person who takes off for a few months to do nothing."

And it's very true.

Before leaving for home I had already started making lists of all the ways I could make this medical leave as productive as possible: Organize all my computer files. Read that large backlog of research papers.Catch up on all fifty thousand e-mails. Oh, and write the next Great American Novel.

But, as we all know, life has a way of hijacking even the most earnest of to-do lists. Some days are okay (suck it hard drive! Your ass is backed up three ways to Sunday!), but on others the simple acts of taking a shower and eating breakfast are enough to send me back to bed. One of the blessings (and curses) of being sick is that it limits your choices (which isn't always a bad thing). You can no longer feel guilty about not doing all the things you think you should be doing because you really can't. Not without making things worse. So while the insidious voice of Mr. To-do hisses away in my ear, I try and turn my mind to more important things: re-learning the art of doing nothing.

I used to be excellent at the activity of nothing. I once could spend hours just looking at rocks (it's true! I had a rock collection that filled up half my bedroom!). But due to the pressures of adulthood or the pervasiveness of technology, I have forgotten this skill. I guess I should try to get it back again. I mean, I have nothing better to do.

Yep, I am midway through knitting a scarf. I really don't need another scarf. Scarves are something I berate myself for buying when going over my monthly budgets. One by one they accumulate in my apartment, puddling on the floor and tangling in the wheels of my office chair. I keep buying them cause I like the colors. And now, I am knitting one. It keeps my hands busy and, well, I like the colors.

My mom and I have unofficially begun a project of identifying the birdsongs we hear in the morning. "It's deeeeeee - deeeeeeee - de-dee-de de-d, ee-de de-dee-de," my mom sings to my grandma, "do you know what it is?", while I page through soundbites on the internet. My favorites are the white-throated sparrows, which have been camping in our back yard pine tree on their way to their summer homes up in Canada.

And, no period of hard core sloth would be complete without a cat to share it with. I've been hanging out with my grandma's old cat, one of three strays that wandered onto their property when they moved in over ten years ago. My grandparents, with the naming creativity of physicists, called them Goldy, Whitey, and Spotty. Can you guess which one this guy is?

He is a sickly old man whose shoulder blades cut through your fingers when you run your hands down his back and whose face and ears are shredded with scars from his young tomcat days. But he spends his time basking in the spring sun and purring like a tractor at the sight of a petting hand. Cats sure are smart when it comes to doing nothing.