Urban Chestnut
On Sunday we discovered the new location of Urban Chestnut, modeled after a German bier hall. What a nice relaxing way to spend the afternoon!
More midnight scanning
Two subjects tonight (both people from my lab). So far they seem to be more awake than I am, which is a good thing. . .
Tonight is Jill's last night shift for a while—she's back on days starting this weekend. Hooray!
We have a fun week planned:
- Thursday: Orff's Carmina Burana with the St. Louis symphony
- Friday: Wine tasting in the Botanical garden with our friends Abram and Kristin
Busy busy busy
Today I gave the last of 3 guest lectures I signed up for this year. The first was in an undergraduate linguistics course taught by our friend (and neighbor) Kristin; the second two were for a graduate course in systems neuroscience. They've been fun to give, but also exhausting...I would say at least a full day of preparation for each lecture. I hope I get invited back next year—hopefully I can re-use a lot of the slides I made for this time around.
Although it's been tiring, it's also nice because it helps me feel like a "real" professor: As much as I enjoy research, and the students who help out in my lab, I definitely always pictured myself as doing some lecturing as well. This was a nice way to easy my way into it. It's also a good way to advertise myself and my lab to the neuroscience PhD students—one of these years I'm hoping to recruit 1-2 for my lab.
I still have to put together some "lab" activities for the neuroscience course for Wednesday...I should be working on that now but I'm exhausted, so I think I'll go to bed (Jill's working tonight) and finish this up in the morning. I can't keep my eyes open, much less think straight.
Some of the folks in my lab had talked about having an end-of-year picnic tomorrow; they never really got their act together in planning it, and it's also supposed to rain. So we are going to head to Gringo restaurant for "happy hour" instead (in quotes because most of the undergraduates aren't yet 21) (though of course we can still be happy). With one exception they are all quiet and our get-togethers tend to be slightly awkward. But not too bad. I tell myself that they have fun going out with their lab boss, and getting a free dinner at a grown up restaurant!
Polenta with rice and beans
New quasi-feature: sharing recipes that we make! Beats a recipe book and then you get to see them too. This is from The China Study Cookbook.
Today I got home from work around 6; Jill was working on this recipe. We went out for a 1 mile run through the neighborhood, took another 1 mile walk and checked on our garden, and came home to finish the job. It turned out great!
2 cups water
3/4 cup polenta
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
2 cups vegetable broth
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 cup short grain brown rice
1 15.5 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup salsa
2 avocados
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- Place 2 cups water, polenta, and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook for 10-12 minutes, until polenta pulls away form the sides of the pain (or just follow polenta directions). Transfer to a large dish and spread over bottom and sides of dish. Set aside. [We used an 8x8 glass baking dish, but a 9x13 would also work.]
- Place onion, garlic, tomatoes, broth, chili powder, and rice in rice cooker or pan. Cook rice until all liquid is gone and rice is tender (about 45 minutes).
- Stir black beans into the rice. Spread rice-bean mixture on top of polenta.
- Spread salsa on top of rice mixture.
- Bake at 350ºF for 30 minutes.
- Remove from oven and set aside for 5-10 minutes.
- Mash avocado and toss with lemon juice and garlic powder. Season with some salt.
- Arrange mashed, seasoned avocado on top of dish.
