Cooking dinner and preparing food for the rest of the day is hard work at the best of times, let alone when you have chronic illness(es) plus the pain and fatigue that accompanies it.
There's this meme about how the hardest part of adulting is having to decide what to eat every day for the rest of your life. Sprinkle on some pain plus brain fog, and trying to make that decision every day, let alone cook the actual food, can turn out to be an all-around nightmare.
We know food is pretty important in general, second only to water and oxygen. But food and nutrition are even more vital when it comes to treating, or at least minimising the impact of, chronic illness. For me, this is especially true in relation to inflammation and hormones, meaning I try to skip the processed sugars, meat and dairy and keep to the plenty of plants.
However, this also leads us to the ultimate catch-22 of chronic illness, we need to eat nutritious food but often don't have the energy to make it.
Even Jamie's 15-minute meals can seem daunting when it takes every ounce of energy you've got just to drag yourself to the bathroom. The good news is, after a few years of living with chronic illness, pain and fatigue, and recently taking to living independently, I've learnt a few things and I want to share them with you.
Cooking on a BUDGET
Nope, my secret is not pre-prepping and freezing meals, it's not paying extra for Youfoodz or Hello Fresh, or getting those honestly kinda gross frozen meals from the supermarket.
As a recent uni grad who can only work part-time because of my health, I'm not about to suggest ready-made meals that cost $10 a pop. I will always dream of affording a personal chef (and hopefully one day I get there), but for now, I do my grocery shopping on a strict budget. At the moment, I try to keep my meals to $2-3 per serve and snacks to $2 a day. This generally gives me a budget of about $10 per day or $70 per week. Depending on the meals and extras I need to buy, I can often keep food under $50 a week.
Working within that budget, everything from what I buy to what I cook is all about minimising standing time in the kitchen.
MY SECRET to low-energy cooking for chronic illness
My biggest secret to cooking with chronic illness, even in the middle of a flare, is by measuring standing time, not cooking time.
For example, a slow cooker meal may take 7 hours of cooking time, which certainly doesn't fall under 'quick weeknight meals' or '15 minute dinners', but a slow cooker meal can take 5 minutes of standing time, meaning the energy it costs is minimal.
On the other hand, something simple like veggie fritters might top those lists of "quick and easy weeknight dinners". However, after the five minutes it takes to throw together some flour, eggs, milk and veggies, you then need to stand (or sit) in the kitchen for the next half hour cooking the batter. This means even though dinner can be ready in 30 minutes, the standing or kitchen time is the same as the cooking time and far more than a 7-hour slow cooker meal.
Even though veggie fritters are a super simple and nutritious meal, I've personally found they can be one of the most energy-draining meals for me to make.
Here's how to cook nutritious meals with chronic illness...
With the above goal to minimise standing/kitchen time in mind, here are a few tips on how I ensure I can cook nutritious meals even in the middle of a flare.
1. Choose or alter recipes to minimise standing and kitchen time
Set and forget meals can take a long time to cook, but often cost very little energy. A few of my favourites include roasts, quiches and tray bakes. The kind of things where you throw everything in a tray and throw it in the oven.
Try one of these:
Moroccan sweet potato bake, this recipe from Taste uses a bunch of different seasonings, see my below tip on cutting down that time.
Or this vegetarian lentil, broccoli, and sweet potato bake.
The other main recipes that don't cost a lot of energy are slow cooker meals. Trust me, a slow cooker is your chronic illness best friend. You can practically cook anything in a slow cooker, from appetiser to dessert. You can also convert many of your favourite stovetop recipes, that you often spend half an hour stirring and checking, to a slow cooker meal.
My favourite slow cooker meals are curries and Asian meals. The flavours turn out so much better by soaking into the veggies, plus you don't have to stand over a pan stirring!
Here's a couple you can try...
Check out these slow cooker pasta recipes from Betty Crocker.
This chickpea and pumpkin curry.
Or this super versatile basic vegetable curry (swap out any of the veg or the type of curry paste for a different flavour).
My own FRIED RICE
Finally, one of the simplest weeknight dinners that I love making has always been fried rice. I've altered my recipe to make sure I don't have to spend long-standing in the kitchen. Here's how I do fried rice:
Put the rice in a rice cooker and turn it on. Throw a bunch of frozen veggies into a pan to thaw, but don't turn it on. Go back to Netflix in my bed until the rice is done. Then throw the rice in the pan with the veggies and turn it on, add some canned chickpeas or cashews, soy sauce and peanut oil, and that's it.
I skip the extra bits and pieces that need cooking like eggs and chicken (or instead substitute precooked chicken from the deli), and skip the veg chopping by using frozen veggies, so all up I'm standing for about 3 minutes.
2. Use pre-cut, frozen or canned veggies and pre-mixed/pre-prepared ingredients
As I said above, I'm on a budget, so I was initially nervous about buying pre-prepared and pre-cut ingredients as I thought it would be a lot more expensive. However, I've found that some things are far cheaper to buy pre-prepared or frozen, and either way, I create less waste by not letting fresh ingredients go bad, whether by not being able to cook because of a flare or by buying too much.
For example, I buy frozen peas, corn, carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli. If you're an Aussie, I buy these at Woolworths for usually about $2 a bag. Alternatively, peas, corn, and carrots can be bought canned for about $1 a can.
Woolworths also recently introduced a frozen line of veggies called 'Prep Set Go'. This includes pre-cut, frozen onion, zucchini, capsicum, sweet potato, pumpkin, and a stir fry mix. These are super easy to throw together in a slow cooker or traybake, and the good news is they aren't going to break the bank. The sweet potato and pumpkin can be a bit more expensive than buying fresh, especially when they're in season, but not by much, so I'm okay with paying a little extra money to save a world of time and energy at home. Plus these frozen varieties are much cheaper than the pre-cut veg you can get in the fresh section.
Next, I buy canned (or frozen) garlic and ginger so there's no crushing or grating required every night. Plus, the $2 can lasts far longer and is far cheaper than repeatedly buying cloves. Again, Woolworths just released frozen cubed garlic, ginger, basil and coriander as part of their 'Prep Set Go' line.
This also goes for spices and flavours. I will either buy pre-mixed spices, like Indian spice blends for Indian food, Mexican blends for tacos and chilli, and jarred curry paste for curry, or I will mix up a bunch of a blend when I'm feeling well and keep it in a container in the cupboard.
It's always important to keep an eye out for hidden ingredients, especially in more substantive jarred foods like pasta sauces, but overall there's plenty of affordable yet healthy options. BONUS tip: I always check ingredient lists online before I go grocery shopping, so I'm not standing in the aisle reading labels for ages.
3. Don't just think about cooking, think about cleaning up afterwards
One of my other keys to minimising standing time in the kitchen is actually creating fewer dishes so that when the cooking is done there's not a lot of cleaning up to do. This means I'm a major fan of one-pot wonders - hence the slow cooker and single tray meals above. Plus, buying frozen and pre-cut veggies means no cutting board or knife.
Most of my cleaning after cooking involved putting a single pot or tray and a wooden/plastic spoon or spatula in the dishwasher. So, when dinner is ready, I get to sit down and enjoy the meal rather than worrying about the mess in the kitchen.
4. Finally, bring a stool or chair into the kitchen
When I do feel up to cooking something a little more elaborate, or I want to bake, I often bring a stool into the kitchen so I can sit while I stir the batter or fry the fritters and it makes a major difference.
So there you have it, a few ideas for changing the way you choose and cook meals, so that you too can find ways to cook with chronic illness, even in the middle of a flare or when in pain.
Remember, think standing time not cooking time, then do whatever you can to minimise the first.
I hope these ideas help you live life and eat well with chronic illness, chronic pain, and/or chronic fatigue. Be sure to share these tips with your fellow spoonies and pin these ideas for later!
Plus, let me know if you have any other tips or if you use any of mine in the comments below.
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