Little by little, things can start to change
Sometimes starting to change the big stuff starts by changing the little stuff
Cleaning up my act
Over the last several weeks I’ve been learning to cook. For anyone that knows me, this is big news. It’s not that I never cooked anything, or baked anything, but I have/had such a tendency towards convenience that I would barely cook what I knew how to in leu of something more convenient such as a bowl of cereal, microwavable meal, or eating out. I can’t name a meal that I knew how to cook before this month that was healthy. I can’t think of one that I could still eat today with my lactose intolerance that has formed in the last 5 years. But I really think that the biggest factor for me rarely cooking was because I HATED cleaning up.
Chili
Somewhere between now and then my desire to clean up has shifted. With Sarah, for years, I would be the one to rid up the dishes and put them in the sink, and was often the one doing the dishes. Actually, I think Sarah might have done the dishes more often until we moved into our apartment. But for whatever reason, well actually I know what reason now, I started doing the dishes less and less, and started ridding up the dishes less and less. My lack of desire was two fold, my psychosis from years of being off meds was consuming me, and I felt obligated to clean up. Cleaning up was optional before, I did it either to tell Sarah that I did or because I didn’t want to get ants.
Chickpea and Dumpling Soup
Now that I’m living on my own again, in my own space, unshared… I’ve discovered something about myself. My years of experience washing dishes by hand with Sarah has not gone away But also the lack of obligation to do the dishes has also increased. No one is going to complain if I leave the dishes in the sink for weeks at a time. There is nothing stopping me from going out to eat all the time or getting microwavable meals to avoid any real cleanup. Sure, I could be drinking only Soylent again, but with a lack of extreme depression destroying my appetite I’m finding that lifestyle almost impossible to sustain. I still mainly find myself drinking Soylent, but I have been learning to cook batches of food that I use to prep meals throughout the week. So far I’ve learned to make chili and a dumpling and chickpea soup. Oh and I’ve made up 2 amazing veggie omelette recipes!
Broccoli, Bell Peppers, Mushrooms, Green onions and Spinach omelette
Maybe it’s because I don’t have many utensils and dishes, or maybe it’s because I want everything I need to cook ready for the next time I cook, or maybe it’s because of the lack of obligation, or maybe it is all of these combined, but I’ve found myself doing the dishes every day. Now here is the weirdest part… I am enjoying it. I find a sense of fulfillment from it, there is something quite rewarding about putting dirty items one at a time into the sink and rinsing them off immediately while cooking. Also it is satisfying to wash the stuff in the sink with my scrubber wand and sort them out onto the drying racks. And it is nice to have everything that dried end up in its place, but I must admit this is the part of the process that I enjoy the least. I don’t actually enjoy putting everything back, and often find myself pulling things from the drying area when I need them. But I do find it satisfying to see the end result of putting things away, and often find the ‘mental time’ and motivation to put the dried things away in the middle of cooking or when I want to scrub the dishes but there is no more room on the drying racks.
Finally I must admit that I feel very accomplished to be writing this post. I expect I will get to a point in my culinary skills that I can look back and find this all quite quant. But that is the sort of thought that keeps me going.
Spinach, Mushroom, and Green Onion Omelette
I'm mixing things up
This goes with my new skills for mixing drinks. I clean that up regularly and really enjoy that process, even putting that stuff back from the drying racks. I actually find myself starting to put dry stuff away because I first put the cocktail mixing stuff away. I REALLY enjoy having all the drink mixing tools set up for when I want to make something. I’m learning to make more and more somethings as well. I learned how to make a Sex on the Beach and a Pina Colada with Sarah. But she learned and showed me, and if I forgot anything she was my recipe to reference. Now I have notes with the recipe for every drink I want to learn to make and have made that I reference often. I’ve made recipes for the drinks that I already knew how to make, and I’ve also found 2 more recipes for new drinks that I have learned how to make.
Above: Grap LIIT
Below: Sex On The Beach
No longer do I need Sarah to find and learn how to make drinks for me. I’ve even learned how to find a recipe and modify it to my liking, such as with the Long Island Iced Tea recipe that I modified to replicate the Grape LIIT served at TGI Fridays. I ended up asking how they made it grape the last time I went, and they showed me the syrup that they said could be purchased all over the place, but I found it on Amazon. I would see that they would squirt some soda water from their hose thingy, so I decided to find some Club Soda bottle as the store, little ones as to not have the soda go flat by having to put it back in the fridge after opening. I modified the part about Cola by splitting it into 2 halves, 1 part club soda and 1 part grape syrup. It was wildly fulfilling to learn how to do this and finally get it right. I also learned how to make an amaretto sour, and how to make a Pina colada using pineapple juice instead of coconut flavored rum.
Above: Piña Colada
Below: Strawberry Shake
Finally I have found I really love putting away the ingredients while cooking and mixing drink IMMEDIATELY after finishing with them. I have a place for all of these things, but not extremely precise places, but defiantly specific areas that I have made their homes. Finally I must admit that I feel very accomplished to be writing this post. I expect I will get to a point in my culinary skills that I can look back and find this all quite quant. But that is the sort of thought that keeps me going. It is very nice to have these recipes stored in their own notes for me to quickly access and share. And I have also enjoyed creating a menu out of what I have learned to make, like a full on menu with a drinks and dessert and different meal categories and even an appetizers section. Oh yeah! I’ve also learned how to make 2 desserts! A strawberry milkshake, and a variation I experimented to find and documented into its own recipe. I created a Banana Milkshake recipe! Bon Appétit!
Above: Amaretto Sour
Below: Banana Shake