Of cooking and extreme low spoons levels
Sometimes things needs an introduction, rather than jumping in the thick of things. A place to send people to if they have questions, further down the line.
If you've been on my Categories page recently, you might have seen that one of them was Recipes, which was, until this moment, quite barren.
However, the recipes I plan on posting are of a certain type and geared towards people with specific needs in mind. And this, I feel, needs its own post to put into context, so as not to bog down the first recipe with extraneous information that people might not want to read before getting into the meat of things, as it were. And can come back to in the future without distractions from a recipe further down the page.1
First of all, I'm not usually one to share recipes with anyone unless asked for it. However, my current health situation has led me to struggle finding recipes that I can actually do and have ended up modifying a few to be able to do so, and thought I'd share them to the world at large, so that they might help someone who's in a similar situation as me.
Bit of background
I love cooking. I especially love cooking for others. My fav was cooking from scratch and spending the whole day in the kitchen. Bonus if I could share the fruits of my labour with my friends.
Unfortunately, a few years ago my already iffy health went to hell and I found myself bed-bound most of the time and when not stuck in bed, home-bound. Cooking like I used to is an impossibility. I do not have the capacity to stand so long, prepare and cook the food, move heavy pots and pans, etc. In addition to that, I needed to switch to a gluten-free diet when I was diagnosed with coeliac. That just complicated everything, let me tell you.
I was left with depending on expensive and very limited in choice ready-meals or very expensive gluten-free takeaway.
As you can imagine, it's not ideal and since cooking2 was always a part of my self-care, the low mental state due to my health issues is exacerbated by the meh food.
So I needed a way to find things to cook that had the following criteria:
- Can be cooked exclusively in the microwave (with potential addition of the hot water dispenser)
- Can be made with the less amount of prep and/or fuss possible
- Can by cooked within a high maximum of 10mins, ideally under 5
- Is or can be made gluten free
- Needs to be tasty
- Bonus if also comforting
Not an easy task, let me tell you. Especially since I'm limited to what my local supermarket can deliver that week.
I've managed to find ways to make it work, more or less, but there are drawbacks. And that is the cost, unfortunately.
My weekly food budget has literally quadrupled...! And that doesn't take into consideration what I had to spend to make things more accessible around me.
At the moment, I'm getting along, more or less, but since have to go to the kitchen can be a struggle, eating more than once a day can be a bit of a luxury. I'm working on getting stuff moved to my bedroom, so I can more easily and frequently prep food, but as it involves building and moving furniture about, it's a process that's on pause at the moment.
That doesn't stop me from trying to experiment, though it's slow going, as I like routine and often end-up eating the same thing every day for a while, as it's both easy and comforting.
The recipes
And what you can expect from them.
They will all fulfil most if not all the criteria I mentioned above.
They will obviously be gluten-free and although not vegan, they will be lactose-free too3. However, it shouldn't be too complicated to make vegan/vegetarian/etc. if needed.
I don't have that many of them currently. Maybe half a dozen right now. And will be posting them as I make them, as I want to share a pic of them, even if they don't always look very appetising due to often being one pot microwaved... -shrugs-
If you know of any recipes that fit the bill, feel free to share them with me via email or my fedi account or even the guestbook if you prefer.
The first recipe in this 'series' should be soon4, as I'm making it tonight for dinner.
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Post published on Friday, 14th February 2025
Post last updated 7 months ago
Definitely talking from my own experience here. I don't want to have to read/scroll down a wall of small talk/life updates when I'm there for the recipe. So I'll do you the favour of not being a hypocrite and abstaining from the same.↩
And then eating, let's be honest.↩
To my dismay I am also lactose intolerant... -crying-↩
-ish. Managing mine and your expectations.↩