It's a Celebration!

Celebrate good times, common! It's a celebration! Ok, so I'm extremely enthusiastic... but for good cause! I have officially been accepted to the Physician Assistant program at LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport. This 2 year program will give me the opportunity to learn how to diagnose and treat patients in the medical model. I will be capable of surgical procedures, ordering and interpreting diagnostic testing such as x-rays and MRI scans, writing prescription medications, and formulating treatment plans for my patients, among other things! I am so excited, especially as this has been a challenging journey - one which I have been happy to embark on, and I am glad that my hard work is paying off.

Mini Italian Cream Cake

My friend Meg had a birthday recently and I always make her an Italian Cream Cake for her birthday. (Well, I have for the last 2 years at least). The cake always turns out fluffy, moist, and delicious. This year she requested cupcakes due to my recent obsession of the swirled frosty top of a cupcake. After having made the cupcakes for Meg, I personally do not think that italian cream cake is intended for cupcakes. However, I also made a small cake and it turned out nicely. Meg thinks they all taste delicious - but shes not going to tell me otherwise! She is a first year student in the PA program that I will be starting this May, so I had a lot of questions for her and she has been very helpful in that aspect!

For the cake, buttercream and separation of the egg whites from the yolks allow the cake to be sooooo fluffy! yum. Something about folding in whipped egg whites is exciting, too. It's like having a secret ingredient - except really you are just transforming a traditional cake ingredient into something fancy. What's more delicious is the cream cheese icing that is usually slathered between the 3 layers and also on the top and sides of the cake. Toasted and chopped pecans finish the cake with a perfect texture variation and a little nut love is always good!

For the cupcakes, I think the lack of cream cheese on the inside made them less likable than the big cake. Oh well! I piped some tiny flowers using royal icing that I dyed with gel color - purple for LSU!!!!

My celebration weekend included several restaurant meals, which were delicious. Among them was Greek food Saturday night - yum! (Although nothing ever comes close enough to Lebanon Cafe in New Orleans!) Needless to say, I don't have anything else delicious to blog about. I did make a big batch of southwestern turkey burgers that I froze for easy defrosting/grilling during the work week. I will elaborate more on those later :) Also, I was craving some more of those shishkebabs because they are so delicious - so we grilled some up for a great Sunday night dinner. 

Also, my back is feeling slightly better from swimming last week and the bike ride that I went on yesterday rather than running. Hopefully I can keep up the low impact exercise and bring down the inflammation more! Looking forward to my 48 off Wednesday... more to come!