Recipe Adapted from:

Home-Tested Cookie Recipes

Ingredients:

2½ cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1½ cups pistachio ice cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar, packed
1 small box instant pistachio pudding
1 large egg
12 ounces chocolate chips
4 ounces pistachios, coarsely chopped

 Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Combine flour, salt and soda. Set aside.

3. Beat butter, ice cream, vanilla, sugars and pudding mix. It may look kind of curdled at this point. Don’t worry. Stir in eggs.

4. With mixer on low, stir in flour mixture until just combined.

5. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

6. Drop in 2 tablespoon balls in prepared baking sheets.

7. Bake about 10 minutes until brown. This is one of those recipes where they look over-done when they are not. Even when brown, they are still soft.

8. Cool on wire racks.

Notes:

Original recipe called for vanilla pudding and had no nuts. They really were not very pistachioy. I changed the pudding and added the nuts which helped a lot. I was thinking of adding some green food coloring. Maybe next time.

Again, another cookie with a signature weird ingredient. When baked for 12 minutes, they were cooked but not browned. In fact, look at the pictures and it is hard to tell the raw from the cooked!  They have a dense texture.

Recipe By:

Capitol Cookies, Munch Your Way Across the U.S.A. Shari came across this little book while we were shopping at RAFT (Resource Area for Teachers.)

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups brown sugar
½ cup shortening
2  large eggs
2 cups flour, 9 ounces
1 teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 pound orange slice candy, diced
½ cup flour
½ cup flaked coconut
½ cup oats
½ cup nuts, chopped, optional

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Cream sugar, shortening and eggs.

3. Sift 2 cups flour, soda and salt. Blend into sugar mixture.

4. Mix orange candy and ½ cup flour. Stir into sugar mixture.

5. Stir in coconut, oats and nuts.

6. Form into 2-tablespoon balls. Place balls on parchment-lined baking sheets. Flatten with fork.

7. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

Notes:

Consider adding some orange and/or coconut flavoring.

Sandy asked for a vertical bag with a pocket on the back. I made it like the bag I take cookies to work in every Thursday but bigger. After hers turned out so well, I was inspired to make another.

Here is the cookie bag.

While Chair of our department, I had occasion to review the medical records of one of our patients. This review prompted me to write the following memo to our doctors:

This patient has been seen many times in our ED for various complaints. She usually reports an injury, as you will see below. In spite of these visits here, she always checks in with a Reno, Nevada address. She is frequently prescribed narcotics. Please keep this in mind as you have occasion to deal with this lady in the future.

Here is a list the dates and chief complaints she gave when registering:

2/92            dental pain

9/91            car crash

1/95            twisted ankle yesterday

3/95            car crash

3/95            fell last night while taking the trash out

7/95             slipped on newly waxed floor yesterday

11/95            car crash

3/96            fell onto shoulder

4/96            fell from ladder

7/96            dental pain

8/96            fell getting out of the tub

11/96            garage door hit head and neck

1/97            fell off snowmobile yesterday

4/97            fell off ladder 2 days ago

5/97            hit with a 2 by 4

6/97            fell attempting to put bolt in an engine

7/97            hit ribs on truck hood when fell off a plastic chair

8/97            fell off ladder yesterday

9/97            fell off ladder yesterday

10/97            struck in ribs by car door opened by granddaughter

10/97            fell off ladder today (17^th)

10/97            fell off ladder two days ago (30^th)

11/97            slipped and fell yesterday

1/98            fell off ladder two weeks ago

2/98            fell on U-Haul ramp this morning

4/98            slipped on linoleum floor two days ago

5/98            slipped on stairs last night

7/98            fell from chair

7/98            fell onto rocks yesterday

9/98            fell onto buttocks yesterday

11/98            slipped yesterday and hit chest on counter

2/99            bumped chest wall on edge of chair two days ago

4/99            fell against a corner of a refrigerator at 4:00

5/99            slipped and fell at Laundromat

7/99            slipped and fell in kitchen two days ago

8/99            fell down steps yesterday

9/99             fell from ladder yesterday

10/99            fell down stairs yesterday

12/99            fell in bathtub yesterday

2/00            fell off ladder yesterday

3/00            dropped box of books on wrist yesterday

10/00            fell from ladder

Recipe By:

Nob Hill Magazine

Serving Size:

60 cookies

Ingredients:

1 pound butter, softened
1½  cups  brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups  chocolate chips, melted and cooled
2½  cups  flour, 11¼ ounces
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 cup  oats
2 cup  chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla.

3. Stir in melted and cooled chocolate.

4. Set aside.

5. Combine flour, baking powder, soda and salt.

6. Gradually stir flour mixture into butter mixture.

7. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.

8. Bake for 12-14 minutes.

Notes:

These came out very moist but are more oaty than others I have tried. They also have a good chocolate balance for those of us who are not really crazy about really deep, dark chocolate. Don’t over-bake them. Keep them soft and moist.

I took a couple of nights off last week. I went mountain biking in the Sierras with my friend, Rick. In the five nights I was not there to take care of the straps, this is how many came in:

After I rolled and separated them, this is how many I had to return to the medics to reuse:

This is how many were cut and unable to be reused. I use these for my bags:

These are the buckles cut from the pile seen above:

This gives you an idea of how many of these dumb things I am keeping out of the landfill.

“Doctor? I’m going to die.”

I don’t know if she feels it from within herself or if she reads it on my face.

“Yes.” I mumble, dropping my head, unable to continue to look into her eyes.

“No!” bawls her mother, falling forward and pulling my patient up against her.

She is in her mid-forties, round-faced and hump-backed from the steroids she uses to control the symptoms of her lupus erythematosus. She woke up in the middle of the night with severe chest pain radiating to her back, unable to feel or move her legs. Within seconds from the time the medics unload her onto our stretcher, I know she is dissecting her thoracic aorta, the large artery carrying blood from the heart to the rest of her body. In like manner, I also know there is nothing I can do to keep her from dying. In order to combat the feeling of futility brought on by this realization, I launch into a frantic effort to save her.

I order two large IV’s, blood tests and x-rays. I place urgent calls to the surgeon and radiologist. The results of this effort lead only to frustration. The surgeon says he can’t do anything until I get a CT scan that demonstrates the problem. The radiologist can’t do the scan until the patient is more stable. She is dying.

More frantic calls are placed looking for a thoracic surgeon willing to come in and do something heroic. Again, no one will come until I have a scan showing a dissection. But her blood pressure is too low to send her for the scan.

I order lab tests looking for something I can do to help her. The results only reinforce my feelings of powerlessness. Anemia, acidosis. She is not responding to the fluids and medication I am giving her to try to keep her blood pressure up.

As her blood pressure drops further and her acidosis worsens, she slips into unconsciousness. All of my efforts frustrated, I give in to the inevitable and shrink back into acceptance. I pull the curtain closed behind me, leaving her with her family. They hold her and weep as she quietly slips away.

I weep too. I weep and it hurts. I have failed! No wonder I try so hard to avoid facing death. No wonder I choose to resuscitate rather than let life go quietly away. If she had only lived to get to the operating room or intensive care unit, I would have done my part successfully, even if she died later on. As I face her death, premature and unfair, I am forced to face my inadequacies and the cruelty of life.

I have to go be alone for a while as I deal with my emotions. Soon, I am able to shake off the feelings. I wipe away the tears, pick up the next chart and charge off to see my next patient.

When you have a famous restaurant with interesting food, your recipes and knock-offs appear all over the Internet. I have never been to Momofuku so I can’t say anything about the originals. As I compared several of the recipes for these cookies, the base was similar but what they recommended putting in them varied so much that it is clear you can put anything in them you want. This version was in the San Jose Mercury News but is in many other places on the web as well. I went out and bought a huge scooper to make them just as recommended here but they don’t have to be so large and you just have to adjust the baking temperature accordingly.

Yield:

12 large cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar, tightly packed
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 egg
½  teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups flour
½  teaspoon baking powder
¼  teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¾ cup mini-chocolate chips
½   cup mini-butterscotch chips
½   cup Graham Crust (see following recipe)
1/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
2 ½  teaspoons ground coffee
2 cups potato chips
1 cup mini pretzels

Directions:

1. Combine the butter, sugars and glucose in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg and vanilla, and beat for 7-8 minutes. (Yes, that long.)

2. Reduce mixer speed to low; add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix just until dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

3. Still on low, add the chocolate chips, butterscotch, graham crust, oats and coffee; mix until just blended, about 30 seconds. Add the potato chips and pretzels and paddle, still on low speed, until just incorporated. Be careful not to overmix or break too many pretzels or potato chips.

4. Using a 2¾-ounce ice cream scoop (or a 1/3-cup measure), portion out the dough onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Pat the tops of the cookie dough domes flat. Wrap the sheet pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 1 week. Do not bake your cookies from room temperature — or skimp on the chilling time — or
they will not bake properly.

5. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Arrange the chilled dough a minimum of 4 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake for about 18 minutes. The cookies will puff, crackle and spread. After about 15 minutes, start checking them. They should be browned on the edges, yet still tan in the center. Give them an extra minute if that’s not the case.

Notes:

You can throw in anything you want. Other items recommended are marshmallows, cut up candy, corn flakes or other cereals. One that came up frequently was marshmallows, chocolate chips and corn flakes. Go for it!

Graham Crust 

Yield:

2 cups

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup milk powder
2 tablespoons sugar
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ cups butter, melted
¼ cup heavy cream

Directions:

1. Toss the graham cracker crumbs, milk powder, sugar and salt with your hands in a medium bowl to evenly distribute the dry ingredients.

2. Whisk the butter and cream together. Add to the dry ingredients and toss again to evenly distribute. The butter will act as glue, adhering to the dry ingredients and turning the mixture into a bunch of small clusters. The mixture should hold its shape if squeezed tightly in the palm of your hand. If it is not moist enough to do so, melt additional 1 to 1½ tablespoons butter and mix it in.

3. Spread out on parchment sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for about 7 to 10 minutes. May need more time to brown depending on how much you flatten it out.

4. Eat immediately or deploy as directed in the recipe. If using as a piecrust, the crust is easiest to mold just after mixing. Stored in an airtight container, graham crust will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature, or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.

When I was a resident at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, I took care of a young man who came in worried about being poisoned. He lived with his mother in a public housing apartment building. He was hungry when he came home from work that night so the pan of red beans and rice on the stovetop looked good to him. As he was finishing them off, his mother came in the room. With an alarmed voice, she asked, “Why are you eating those red beans and rice?”

They had been having trouble with rats in the kitchen so she put rat poison in the pan of leftovers and left them on the stovetop with hopes of poisoning the rats.

As soon as he found this out, he came to the emergency department to be treated for his rat poisoning. Fortunately, this type of rat poison is not very toxic to humans so he was fine and needed no treatment.

Another such case happened to me more recently. A 42-year-old man came in saying he had taken a gulp of what he thought was Gatorade.  As soon as he tasted it, he recognized it was not his Gatorade but “floor degreaser” a friend at work had poured into a Gatorade bottle for him to use at home. Again, he was not harmed by his ingestion.

Still, who would put rat poison in food on a stovetop and leave it? Who would put a clear blue-colored poisonous liquid in a Gatorade bottle and have it in his car along with the Gatorade he was drinking?