Need help with cooking

I can VERY rarely make simple meals for myself - as opposed to 6 months ago when I couldn't cook at all. Still, I get winded washing dishes. My husband is useless. He's promised to make the easiest crockpot meals in the world and did it twice and hasn't done it in two weeks. I did so well on the crock pot meals. Since then, I'm back on organic gluten-free takeout and I feel like hell. Forget my husband. He's clearly no help. He literally cannot handle washing vegetables, chopping them up and putting them in a crockpot. Actually, he doesn't even have to combine them. I asked him to just wash and chop. He's too busy reading the news and reading on Facebook. I get that this is his defense mechanism, but he's not stepping up. It's been a year of me begging him to help me with food. A year!

I need help. I can't go on eating takeout. It's hindering my progress and I'm in tears constantly over this. Does anyone have any bright ideas on how to eat when you can't cook? I also don't have family to help. The minute I got sick everyone got "too busy to help". Not kidding. All of a sudden, everyone is more busy than they've ever been.

OMG. I need good food. I also don't have a microwave and can't do those mail order meals - which require microwaves.

Post Edited (10LymeB) : 10/12/2017 7:54:11 AM (GMT-6)

Sorry to hear that 10lymeB, i really feel for you, where do you live? Wish I could help!!

The only thing I could suggest is cooking in batches when you do so it lasts a few days.

How sad that people can turn their back at a time like this

what kind of food do you like to eat?

I make this super simple dish with 'Kitchens Of India' brand Black Gram Lentil Curry then add that to some heated up frozen rice with mixed veggies from the frozen section. a couple spoonfuls of greek yogurt.

its really good,easy to make, and i feel pretty healthy. also cheap!

https://www.amazon.com/Kitchens-India-Bukhara-Lentil-10-Ounce/dp/B000LKTW3K/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1507821344&sr=8-1&keywords=kitchens+of+india+lentils

https://www.birdseye.com/product/rice-5/

You can buy flash frozen cut organic veggies at almost any grocery store now. There nutritional value is the same and you can literally just dump a bag of mixed or half bags of a few that you like into a slow cooker along with your protein, seasonings, and other ingredients. Make it as easy as possible on yourself.

I follow Danielle Walker on FB and Instagram. She's the best selling author of cookbooks that are allergy friendly- so no gluten and no dairy and more. She also has a YouTube channel. She had a baby a few months ago so many of her FB lives have been on quick meals. Using frozen meat and veggies to make healthy meals. Maybe some of her posts or video's will be helpful. She responds to posts so you could ask her to point you to the easy fast one's that fit your diet.

It's so hard isn't it?

Also, what about doing freezer cooking? It's kind of like batch cooking...maybe you and your husband could do it together a couple weekends a month, then freeze stuff so all you have to is defrost and heat. But you'll both be chopping and whatnot, so the whole burden is not his. www.onceamonthmeals.com has paleo, GF, DF recipe options and walks you through how to prepare the food to freeze and then how to cook when you want to eat it.

I remember when I was really sick, I committed to myself that the one thing I would do no matter how I felt was prepare healthy food, even if the rest of the family had to go by the wayside...that was the one thing I would do to help myself. It really helped me feel better, so I understand your desire for healthy food.

I also think trying to find as much stuff "pre-done", like frozen veggies, bagged cauliflower rice, stew meat or things that are already pre-cut, frozen shrimp. What about making smoothies. Sometimes I do that...just toss some stuff in the blender with some protein powder and drink it down.

I'm so sorry your hubby isn't supporting you in this area, food can make such a difference in how we feel!

When I was living alone with my first go round with lyme (now I stay with family and it's a huge help), it was a daunting task, when you feel bad, anxiety is through the roof, and just overall feeling crappy about having this awful disease, I used the oven a lot.

Just take your meat and your veggies but them in a 400 degree oven let it do all the work. So rinse the meat and veggies put them in whatever oven friendly container you have, slide in oven.

With this method I had to have a plethora of different seasonings so it could be somewhat flavorful and switch flavors up.

Yes, this gets old pretty quick, but I had to eat dinner every night right? You do what you got to do.

It was struggle through the work day, come home, oven, couch, food done, eat, bed. That was my life for several months.

My point is you don't have to get crazy with the meals. Just keep it real basic until you feel better. You won't have to eat like that forever.

dacarte3 said...

Girlie said...
I often kept my meals very simple.

Put some chicken pieces into the oven...and a big pot of broccoli on the stove. That would be dinner.

And leftovers were for breakfast or lunch the next day.

Girlie,

I didn't even read your post before making mine.

I swear we are like lyme kindred spirits lol

lol, dacarte. Actually - you 'one-upped' me - putting everything in one dish and into the oven.

That is even less work.

I actually like 'plain' tasting food anyway - who needs sauces, etc. We can make up for it when we're well.

Hubby never helped me either, and I had a 1 year old to look after + I could barely stand on my feet most of the days.

Cooking one pot of whatever was one of the hardest tasks of the day (even rice, as I did not remember the sequence, measure of water...).

Hard to give you advice then...

Now I'm eating raw, 100%, and really feels amazingly good.

But eating 100% raw is work: I need to shop every 2 days...
Then wash, cut, etc.

It takes me some time to do that, contrary to what people must think...
(I mean, raw = less work = not true!!!).

I think the advice on frozen food (like frozen veggies) is good: the food is already washed, almost ready, you just need to put it in the pot, cover it, low fire, add bits of water and eat it.

Frozen spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.

Add olive oil and salt, and you're done!

Just add potatoes on top, if you are able to cook potatoes: better sweet potatoes or taro, yam, manioc.

All easy to do: just put them in boiling water, then take off and peel after.
Add again olive oil or any good oil + good salt, you're done.

You don't even need to wash them if they are organic.

The delivery service suggestion reminded me, I signed up for Hungry Harvest. They deliver a box of produce to your door every week. You can see the week's list and customize it. (I add eggs too.) I can't shop now, but I can spend a little bit of one good day cooking this good fresh food in very simple ways and then I have it all week. Good luck!

I'm the cook in our family, so I am also the grocery buyer.

I found a grocery store that I could order online and drive up and they load it into my car! What a lifesaver. It was too hard to grocery shop.

I was a gourmet cook, but with lyme I learned simple really fast. My favorite and the one that lasted about 3 days was the vegetables. Cut celery, cut cauliflower, cut asparagus, cut broccoli, sweet potatoes, throw in a bag of baby carrots, a bag of snow peas into a olive oil sprayed pan. Drizzle more olive oil over it and in the oven at 400 degrees until brown or the carrots are done. I actually had to order online a huge and deep, lasagna pan for this.

I makes a huge amount of roasted vegetables. Then you can just nuke them and put on soy sauce or my favorite is balsamic vinegar. Rosemary sure makes it taste different and your house will smell good. Easy and we would eat those for a few days.

When I was ordering from the grocery store, I could get 2 already roasted chickens. I deboned them and put them in the fridge. You could always make a sandwich or just eat a piece cold. Fancy was when you nuked it.

A potato! I would nuke a potato for breakfast. Put organic plain yogurt on it, salt and pepper and sometimes dice up garlic on it. I could not stand at the stove long enough to do eggs...

My other breakfast was oatmeal. I would have a huge pot of oatmeal. Let it cool, put it in a bowl covered and into the fridge. You can scoop out a dollop, in the microwave and easy oatmeal breakfast.

I did many others. It was hard to keep hubby fed. He eventually learned how to make a wrap for himself and a burrito and he learned how to make scrambled eggs. So my lyme was his training wheels for cooking.

I just got this today in my emails.

/draxe.com/crockpot-soups/?rs_oid_rd=216955979005519&utm_source=curated&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20171014_newsletter_curated

I totally get the feeling of being overwhelmed by the need to constantly prepare healthy meals for myself when I'm too sick to do so.

If I told you what I eat you probably would be like " thanks, but no thanks..."

But I'll tell ya anyway. Eggs. Alone. With cheese if I'm up to it.

Occasionally ( on a real good day) I make 'pancakes'- eggs , almond flour,coconut flour, hemp seeds & cinnamon. If Im able to make the pancakes , I usually force myself to make several so I've got some for other meals/ otherwise it's just not worth the effort. There have been times I've gotten ahead of myself & not been able to make more than one- in that case, the batter lasted fine in the fridge.

Salad greens with oil.

Dinner- cooked veggies- I always said I'd never use frozen veggies, but I do now. And they're so much better than nothing. I cook them in a pan w/ coconut oil. Once in awhile I'll think i can prepare something fresh- I'll see it at the store & buy it...then get home & im too beat to function - often I end up eaither letting it go to waste or giving it to my dogs.

But here's my biggest secret. I bought a single burner so I can sit on the couch , with the burner on the end table & don't have to stand at the stove. I also got one of those instant teapot things that boils water in like 60 seconds ( or something) - this I keep on my bedside table. If I can't do any food, I boil water for tea- and add a bunch of collagen powder to it & some coconut oil. It's not as gross as it might sound.

Here is the most ( pre-Lyme) embarrassing part- while I do use a real mug & a few other real dishes, I've begun using paper plates ---and even occasionally paper bowls to mix my pancake stuff in. It's not financially or environmentally sound- in my 'real' life I never understood people using disposable dishes- how lazy , I thought!

Well, Lyme ( and life) have taught me a lot of things- this being one of them. I totally get the disposable dishes thing now.

Thanks Lapis_29 - nice to know I'm not the only one!