Deja Vu

Once upon a time I went to the Southampton Oceanography Centre as I thought maybe I would like to be a Marine Biologist. I was told that it would involve lots of travelling by boat (I get terribly sea-sick) and I spent a day counting small bizarre creatures and seeing whether I could break the counter. I decided that this life was not for me. Luckily the bloke there suggested that I could do Pharmacology, and, so they say, here I am.

However, I seem to have gone back to the start. I have started having to count stuff, AGAIN. Now I hate microscopes and I don't like spending lots of time counting things. My current job seems to entail me having to do this a lot. I am not amused.
If you had to count the number of cells that looked like the top picture, and compare them to cells that looked like the bottom picture, over approximately 200 cells, with a few blank spaces in between where there is nothing, you would probably also feel like screaming gently. However, if I manage to cope with the madness, I do get a nice graph at the end. So I can kind of say yay. And hope I don't have to do it too much. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, we grow cells that have been donated from various creatures. These we then manipulate so that they will glow green (or possibly any other colour you may desire) with our protein of interest (I hope). This makes us able to cure cancer (ha ha).

Recipe of the Day: Fajitas with Homemade Salsa

I love to make this dish. It can be very messy but is quite good fun. You can of course buy salsa ready-made but I like to make my own. I also tend to make the salsa first, then wash the pan out and do the chicken.

Homemade Salsa (makes 1-2 servings)

Tablespoon olive oil
Garlic clove or two
Half an onion, chopped finely
One small fresh or dried chilli (add more to taste)
Half a can of chopped tomatoes
Tablespoon tomato puree
Handful of sweetcorn
Handful of Coriander leaves (or a squeeze of coriander paste)

Fry garlic and chilli in olive oil for a minute until it starts to bubble. Add the onion and fry on a low/medium heat until onions are translucent. Add the tomato puree, stir, then add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a further 5 or so minutes until the liquid has reduced to the required consistency. Add the sweetcorn and heat through (3 minutes ish). Finally, stir in the coriander and pour into a useful bowl.

Fajitas (makes enough for 1)

4-5 tortilla wraps
One chicken breast, chopped
One pepper, chopped
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
lime juice and zest from half a lemon

If you have time, marinade the chicken breast in the oregano, cayenne and lime juice. If not, fry these ingredients together with the pepper until the chicken is cooked through (about 15 minutes) on a medium heat, stirring to make sure it doesn't burn. Once the chicken is cooked through, you can either place the tortilla on top of the mixture to heat through or place in a microwave on high for about 10-15 seconds until hot.

To make the fajitas, you will also need some sour cream/yoghurt and some salad leaves/avocado slices

Place a few bits of the chicken mixture in first, in a straight line in the middle of the wrap. Make sure you leave a clear 1/3 of the wrap so you can fold it. Then dribble some salsa on top, followed by the sour cream/yoghurt and finally garnish with the salad/avocado slices. Fold from the bottom of the tortilla and then wrap the two sides.

Enjoy!

Lost about Lost

I'm sure everyone is talking about this at the moment, but I for one just really don't understand. What is going on? Am I really interested? Who cares what's going to happen next?

Maybe it's because it just doesn't seem real to me: there's too much going on and not enough explanation. They want to make more action because I guess they think that's what's interesting. But I get bored instead. They get attacked by a polar bear, was it the only one on the island cos they haven't seen another since? There are other people on the island that want to steal small children - why? do they really want to cope with screaming infants that are not their own? I certainly wouldn't. Why have they not bothered to try and find the others camping site to see how many people there are - then throw all those nasty bits of dynamite at them?!?

I guess it doesn't help that I've missed a couple of episodes but to be honest I don't think I will be watching the next series. I don't want to know what the hatch does, or in fact who they're going to kill next in another ridiculous storyline (sinking in the sea; falling off a cliff in a plane; being dynamited). But, you never know, come 10pm in "spring", I may be watching Channel 4 on a Wednesday. Who knows. I'm more looking forward to the next series of Desperate Housewives and CSI:Miami (I really like Horatio, he's really cool).

Anyway, back to work...

Hi there!

Hello and welcome to my blog. Here you will learn a little about myself, my life, the universe and everything. Well, maybe just the first two.

So where do I start? My name is Hilary, I'm a 26-year old female in Bristol who works in a laboratory. That's the scientist bit. I'm 6'3, which is the tall bit. If you think that's bad, my boyfriend is 7'5. Yes really.

This weekend concerned the tale of the bad cat which invaded my house on Saturday. This particular cat is incredibly friendly and comes and says hello to me often. The only problem is that after a certain amount of time it turns on you and decides you're suddenly a scratching post. Ouch. This led me to muse this morning whether there would be a mathematical equation about the amount of time it takes to be scratched after starting stroking a cat. Probably, but not something that I'm going to figure out... Anyway, due to the fact that I had just started this blog I wanted to take a picture of said cat, so left the door open while i went inside. Cat came in, of course, and started to wander round the house. This was all nice and lovely (I love cats, especially friendly ones) until it started to scratch my furniture. Unfortunately it did not take kindly to being removed from the house (much yowling) and my hand was well and truly scratched. Ouch.

This morning, as it was raining, I spied the cat again. Of course now I was a bit wary but it was being very friendly so I guessed that as long as I didn't let it in the house again (which is difficult when you're trying to sort a bike out and make sure you have some waterproofs on) it would be OK. The only problem was I left the poor thing sat under a car, which I felt bad about. But it was just too bad, it's not my cat so there's nothing I can do about it. And I didn't get scratched. Hooray.

Recipe of the day: Risotto

Risotto

Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 smallish mug risotto rice
dash white wine
stock cube (chicken was mine)
2 mugs water
4ish button mushrooms, sliced thinly
Tomato, diced
leftover cooked chicken bits, chopped into edible chunks
Worcester Sauce
some cheddar and parmesan

Fry the onion in the oil on a moderate heat until translucent (about 5 minutes)
Turn the heat down and add the rice, stir for a couple of minutes.
Add the wine and let reduce for a couple of minutes
Add the stock cube and the water and stir. Cover, bring to the boil and simmer for approx 10-15 mins with some stirring until water is soaked in and the rice is almost cooked.
Add the mushrooms and tomato and cook for a further 3 minutes.
Stir in the chicken and cook til cooked through.
Add Worcester Sauce, season with some salt and pepper
Grate cheese on top and eat. Mmmmmmm