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ADHD @lemmy.world
Hansae @lemmy.dbzer0.com

How tf to actually get into a routine of cooking?

Had this issue for years now, meds nuke hunger and I'm terrible at eating breakfast by the time I get back from work they've worn off and I have zero motivation. Fallen into the diet of nearly always having ramen, energy drinks and a beer here and then with a muti vitami.

Tried planners, can never get them to work my job having constantly changing shift patterns probs contributes to that, even tried one of those meal recipe box thingies stopped due to it A: being expensive and B: still didn't really work.

I'm not even a bad cook either just cannot force my brain to bloody do it.

32 comments

  • It's really hard to have a routine when your work schedule is irregular. I don't think you are wrong to rely on easy to prepare stuff but you need more nutrition, yes? My kids say I have ADD, and most of them do, my second to youngest was having trouble because Adderall so I got her some easy things.

    Bagged salad packs with the dressing.

    Packaged Hummus from the grocery, on Triscuit crackers, has a lot of calories with fiber & nutrition from the hummus.

    Apple with sliced cheese or peanut butter

    Do you like tuna? Make tuna salad at the beginning of the week, or a can dumped on one of the aforementioned bagged salad mixes.

    Hard boiled eggs last a long time in the fridge, also an egg dropped into your ramen would add nutrition.

    Keep your work schedule in your phone calendar and set an alarm for dinner.

    For breakfast cold fermented oatmeal is amazing, we call it summer oatmeal. Mix rolled oats with yogurt, coconut water and/ or kombucha/kvass/tepache if you have it, juice or water if you don't. Mix in dried fruit and nuts and seeds, even chocolate if you want. It should start a little sloppy as the oats will take up the liquid. Taste and adjust, sweeten if you want, I don't. Put it in the fridge and each morning take a little for breakfast.

    And also, don't stress about eating regularly if you don't have weight issues. If your body is feeling ok and staying in a healthy size you don't need to force yourself.

  • when I don't feel like cooking anything and can convince myself to stay home to eat here are my go tos:

    1. get a rice cooker. an Asian one you get from the Asian supermarket or invest in a Zojirushi (white people rice cookers suck). they are super easy to use. you throw the rice in with some water and about 15-30 minutes later you have a fresh pot of rice. go watch a show while it finishes. if you can remember you can even start a pot before work or eat the rice from the previous day (as long as it was in the keep warm setting). it can also cook brown rice, other ancient grains, beans, lentils, etc.
    2. eggs. fry the eggs and throw them on the rice with some soya sauce. takes like two minutes. my hack here is i have a Japanese tamagoyaki pan. it's small and perfect to cook a portion for a single person so i don't have to deal with and clean a giant skillet. i just rinse it out (if i remember) and leave it on the stove top for the next time I use it since I use it so often.
    3. toaster oven chicken thigh. i get like those ten packs of chicken thighs at the supermarket. throw one on with some salt and pepper (and other spices if you feel like it) onto a small sheet pan. drizzle with olive oil and stick it in my toaster oven (which is a convection toaster oven) for 30 minutes at 350degF and you get delicious roast chicken. the toaster oven is a great hack for lots of foods actually (including toast) since you don't have to deal with preheating a huge oven. i don't even usually preheat it at all. takes about the same time as the rice so i can take 5 minutes to start both at the same time go watch an episode of DanDanDan and have a chicken and rice dinner ready when it's done.
    4. salad mix and premade dressing. get kale mixes. they take longer to go bad. they are prewashed. all you do is throe dressing on and you're good. adding more toppings is up to you.
    5. those tiny tomatos. rinse them and eat them on their own or on your salad.
    6. cucumbers. again in the no-cook veggie category. just rinse and chop roughly. top with soya or vinegar and salt. get english or persian cucumbers since the skin on normal cucumbers isnt very nice. they now even have tiny ones you probably don't even need to cut through the power of science.
    7. roast broccoli/cauli/other veggie in the toaster oven. when you do your chicken break off a few florets of broccoli and throw it on the pan with the chicken when you're seasoning and oiling. voila, roast broccoli done at the same time as the chicken.

    i don't do all of these everyday. some days i just have energy to do one like make rice and top it with dried seaweed or cheese. still better then eating out or ramen everyday (though I still eat ramen sometimes -- but it's usually more effort since i usually fancy it up with eggs and kimchi [another hack i forgot-if you like kimchi-buy a jar of the stuff and throw it on rice. great meal on its own])

    and visit your Asian supermarket once a month. their frozen sections are filled with premade crap you can just microwave but are still good quality like potstickers or scallion pancakes and they are usually cheaper to shop at

  • I dont know and i actuallu like cooking. I also don't have a routine of consistently eating meals at a set time. Dinner can be anywhere from 4PM to midnight. Or never. Or gorging on snacks for the entire evening and hating myself.

  • If you lose motivation because of the amount of time that you'd spend cooking, you should consider using days off to prep building blocks that can be used for different meals. Keeping the initial cook simple can give you a broad canvas to change things up on the spot so that you don't get fatigued over the flavor. You can salt a large chunk of meat like a pork shoulder or chuck roast and use a long cooking method like a braise or a roast. The longer cook times will make these cuts extremely tender, and you'll only have to do it once. Use them throughout the week in whatever application you feel like on the day, even if that means just adding it to your ramen. Since it's just salted, it's versatile enough to adapt to whatever seasonings or sauces you add to it. If you're using store bought ingredients, you can put together pasta, bbq sandwiches, or quesadillas pretty quickly.

    As far as vegetables go, you can also prep individual portions of things like a mirepoix a week ahead of time, to cut down on the work you have to do every day. You could even freeze it in ice cube trays to make them last longer if you have the space. You can mince garlic ahead of time and store it in a neutral oil. If you don't mind acidity, pickling and lacto fermenting your vegetables is a good way to both preserve them and have something that's ready to go on demand. Some vegetables like broccoli can be parcooked without sacrificing texture to reduce the amount of time you have to spend cooking on the day of.

    Meal kits may not have worked for you because they simplify the shopping, not the actual cooking process. It still takes the same amount of time to cook a meal kit, which doesn't exactly help when you're hungry and exhausted. I think that prepping pieces of a meal in advance will give you the tools to throw something together almost as quickly and easily as ramen, which might lead to you cooking more often. I hope this helps, and I'd be happy to expand on anything that was vague or otherwise lacking!

  • Simplicity was important for me. I started with just getting breakfast right: something I like, that's healthy, every day. Boring, but I can do it.

    Once you have that nailed, do something similar for lunches.

    This plan doesn't account for nutritional needs at all. It's just something I can do.

    Edit: meals you can make in a slow cooker or large pot are ideal. I turn the temperature off low and can take breaks to play computer games or whatever to break things up. Once I've everything chopped and added, I turn on the heat. It takes me quite a while this way, but I can make enough for a few days.

32 comments