Cooking with POTS

[BuffRockChick]

Since learning about the existence of POTS, I have new perspective on why I have trouble cooking - it's the standing up!  Me not cooking is probably the single greatest stressor on my hubby, so I want to learn to adapt to put supper on the table without much time standing up.

How do you get cooking done?

[haugr]

Hmmm... Maybe try cooking with PANS instead?  

(I know, I know, that was a lame joke)

 

[BuffRockChick]

LOL!  I was trying to work that into the thread title!  

[Guest KiminOrlando]

Crock pot or compliment his skills on the grill and hope it works. 

Then you just have the side items to worry about which is easier to manage. On really bad days, those side items have been canned green beans, canned corn and even canned potatoes. They can tell how I feel by what we eat. I can tell how bad his day at work was if we have rotisserie chicken from Wal-mart, or if it is on sale at the grocery store.

You would be surprised at what can go in a crock pot.

Kim

[BuffRockChick]

I have trouble with crock pots!  I can still burn stuff in them!  I use it for marinara sauce mostly.  How do you use your crockpot?

We always have cereal and frozen pizza on hand. Last week I was struggling with fatigue and hubby had a nasty cold so we ate pizza and cereal all week.   I managed marinara and meatballs tonight.  DS10 made the meatballs for me  

Google says I can cook potatoes and pasta in a rice cooker!  I have experimental batch of pasta in the rice cooker now!

[Guest KiminOrlando]

Ha ha ha.... I didn't know you could burn stuff in a crock pot. You have mad skills. Then again, I burn stuff in the microwave.... 

My favorite is corned beef because it is salty so I get extra salt those days and seem to feel better the next day and we have left overs. I just buy a prepackaged corned beef in the meat case, fill the crock pot 1/3 of the way up with water and, since I don't do mornings well, I put it on right before I go to bed at 300 degrees. When I get up, I turn it down to 250, then I put potatoes in, cut up, about 90 minutes before I want to eat and turn it back to 350. 

You can do the same thing with beef roasts or pork roasts. Add carrots, onions, and garlic. Most recipes say to sear the roast in a pan with oil, but that just isn't going to happen with me and it is still good.

You can make beef stews and chicken, pork chops. It is all about putting enough liquid in there with it. Try some different stuff, just keep the cereal for back up. I also bake fish in the oven because that is low effort - thaw it, season it and bake it.

I have been thinking about getting a rice cooker. I wonder if you could steam seafood in it? Hmmmm..... I also saw a microwave pressure cooker, but since I burn popcorn, maybe I should steer clear.

What I find difficult is trying to follow a diet like paleo or Mediterranean and do the cooking. I feel like I am doing good to keep laundry done, house manageable, and food in the house. I end up cooking what I can handle with the least amount of preservatives possible. 

Hope this helps.

Kim

[DizzyGirls]

Cooking, yea!!  Because everything with my daughters has been so hectic this year, my parents have been doing most of the cooking for us.  We live around the corner, so that makes it possible!  My favorite meal that they do best (mom's a great cook!) is a chuck roast sprinkled with taco seasoning (my mom makes hers from scratch, but you don't have to) to make into shredded beef tacos.  Don't forget to add some water, not a lot, though.  Let it cook about 8 hours on high so that it gets good and done.  You want it to be kind of carmelized on the outside.  Take a couple of forks, then, and pull it apart (you can do this sitting down!).  Serve it in warm tortillas.  This is fantastic for leftovers!  We eat BBQ beef sandwiches the next night.  Heat up some BBQ sauce in a bowl, dump some meat in, stir.  I love coleslaw on top of this.  You can buy pre-shredded cabbage and coleslaw dressing.  Great meals! 

With these meals, the slow cooker does all the work.  It beats standing over a skillet cooking hamburger meat for your tacos.  Hope these ideas give you some help and a great way to cook dinner, but get to sit down, too.

[Urkittenme]

Ohh I just love to cook and bake. I especially love that I can have control over what I'm eating because I can be soo picky sometimes! 

My crock pot and rice cooker are used verrrry often. I was recently gifted a food processor and I'm in love. Days that I don't feel like cooking, usually throw 2 cups of brown rice in the cooker and steam some vegetables on the stove. With teriyaki sauce or ranch, that's a good enough dinner for us. Usually the day after grocery shopping (or...whenever I get around to it..) defrost 3 or 4 chicken breasts, put them in the slow cooker with some water and some spices, and cook until it reaches around 165° [5-6 hours] and now I just cut into large chunks and pulse in the food processor for 2 seconds to shred. If I've made a large batch, I'll place some in individual bags in the freezer (thaw in microwave for quick dinners.) Chicken is usually a go to. 

Pork shoulder with root beer cooked in the slow cooker, then add bbq sauce after shredding....easy peasy delicious pulled pork sandwiches.

Sometimes bake over-ripe bananas into muffins for quick breakfasts. 

For snacks I'll bake pretzels with ranch seasoning and garlic powder in a big batch to last the week.

If I'm chopping a bunch of vegetables, sometimes I'll bring a big tray and sit on the couch. Not feasible for everyone but hey. Whatever.

If you don't use pinterest, you should! Type in "quick dinner" or "easy dinner"- soo many ideas. I probably have 1000 or more food pins, most of them are super easy to do!

[bunny]

Try using a barstool.  It doesn't make the cooking any easier, but might be able to give you a bit more time before you feel symptomatic.  

I also try to sit as much as possible between cooking tasks.  

+1 on the rice cooker!  I have an American-style one, so there's a steamer basket above the rice.   Iv'e become quite adept at finding ways to shove almost everything in there and letting it go.  Likewise, I'll often prep the rice at night and have it be ready in time for breakfast / lunch.  

I also use a crock pot quite a bit, as I'm very much into soups & salads with fresh bread, which leads to... a breadmaker.  Never buy one of these new -- your local thrift shops probably have dozens of them.  I guess this is one of those items people request/get for a wedding and never use.  I picked up a Zojirushi breadmaker on a whim one day from the thrift shop.  It had never been used and still had everything wrapped in plastic.  $15 for a $200 breadmaker?  I figured I'd buy it, play with it, then put it up on eBay.  Well, I never stopped playing with it!  Waking up to fresh bread in the morning is awesome and it only takes about 10 minutes of prep time.  

I also do as much prep as I can ahead of time.  Even if it's doing it an hour or so beforehand, it reduces how long you have to stand while cooking.  I like Urkittenme's suggestion of cutting up veggies at the couch.  

[Guest KiminOrlando]

@Urkittenme OMG I thought I was the only person in the whole world that chopped veggies on the couch using the coffee table!!!!! 

That is too funny.

I also use the bar stool trick, but Bunny is right. It isn't a solution. It just buys you time.

I prep stuff and rest. Then prep more and rest. My only accomplishments some days are shower and food. Left overs are the BEST! I always cook for leftovers. Laundry gets done on leftover days. You find a routine.

@Urkittenme We need our own cooking show. We can call it, "Cooking from the Couch"!

Kim

[corina]

I use a stool on wheels in the kitchen, really useful!

[yogini]

A mandolin slicer makes chopping easier. I roast things in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper.  Add spices if you want (like thyme, rosemary, dill etc) :  salmon, chicken, asparagus, potatoes, brussels sprouts, cauliflower. Super easy, healthy and quick.

 

[Urkittenme]

@KiminOrlando Cooking from the Couch; episode one: All My Spoons are in the Dishwasher

 

If it works, there ain't no shame! Lmao!! 

[BuffRockChick]

I have a bread machine and love it!  I used to pride myself on making it by hand completely, but... meh, I'm over it!  We found ours brand new, at an estate auction, and snagged it for $2!

I wonder if I can find a mandolin slicer that doesn't slice so thin? 

[yogini]

My mandoline slicer slices so thick (or slices my finger)...lol!!!

[Mishifu]

My Instant Pot has been a life-saver. Ha, I just realized POTS and Instant Pots! I use it mostly for the pressure cooker but it does rice, yogurt, slow cooker, sauté too. Of courses there are many days when I cannot do anything in the kitchen and then it's yogurt, fruit, nuts, salty chips and water. 

 

[Bigskyfam]

Crockpot, meal prep with hubby, hubby grocery shops, pub height chair with a back and a fan or open window

[Lemons2lemonade]

I used to do all the prep work sitting and then bring a chair to sit down on in the kitchen while things were cooking

[Weyland]

I have a bar stool in my kitchen ,only way to go if you have pots and want to cook .. I cook waaay less after getting pots . It sucks....

[BuffRockChick]

Bar stool doesn't help me a whole lot in the kitchen.  When I have bad symptoms I'll get tachy sitting up straight - as in to look down into something cooking on the stove.

I've taken to doing more sitting on the floor - I can slouch and that keeps tachycardia away.  Took me an hour to mix up a batch of brownies from scratch.  Totally worth it, I'd been fantasizing about eating brownies for days!

 

[WinterSown]

I can't stand long either, I don't have a dishwasher so we may have to remodel the kitchen just for that (and that, so far, is the only good thing about POTS, lol). 

I do a lot of meals for the freezer. It is as easy for me to throw twice as many ribs into the instapot, multi-cooker or whatever you call it. I love this thing. I make ribs or wings with sauce in the pot and then, if you want, a few minutes under the broiler. I even learned how to make flan in it. This site has nice rated recipes or do a keyword search for 'recipes for the freezer' http://allrecipes.com/recipes/17880/everyday-cooking/make-ahead/freezer/

I will broil eight burgers instead of two and put the rest in a plastic bag in the fridge, they don't last long, my husband and son scarf them down in a day or two. I make a lot of reheatables. I know it costs more but I often buy the precut fresh veggies and melon at the market I don't like to depend on tv dinners or take-out though I do need all that extra salt, it's not fair to my family to overdose them on the salt as well as heavy calories that is in take-out foods. 

Instant carbs: Bake brown rice (EASY!) and freeze it flat on a cookie tray lined with parchment, then put it into a plastic bag to pour out what you need when you need it. You can do that with cooked grains and cooked pasta shapes too. 

My husband will eat anything on bread. I make flat bread pizzas, grilled cheese, paninis, etc. He thinks leftover stew on instant polenta is like restaurant food. I try to be creative, saucy leftovers on an easy carb is always a winner here.  He also likes pancakes for dinner--I make them in the blender with greek yogurt or cottage cheese to increase their protein. I cook fruit in the microwave on the 'fresh' veggie button and we have that with the pancakes. 

And for fun, I went to the thrift store on a book day and got a ton of old appliance cookbooks--recipes meant for the food processor or blender or pressure cooker, I go through them and find new things to try, some of these books are so old I think my Mom had them in her kitchen, the added nostalgia is good for my head. And Hubs, so far, is enjoying the new recipes.

 

[cmreber]

I use a bar stool for food prep when I need it, and definitely do a LOT with the crock pot.  I decided to splurge and get a really nice one that has lots of time settings and automatically turns off when it's done.  It even has a thermometer you can set to turn off when the internal temp reaches a certain amount to help avoid the burning   Pinterest recipes are my friends these days LOL!

[vtpixie]

definately start preping and then rest for a bit. Then start the cooking try meals that don't take a ton of prep or time. I make quiche from scratch (only 20 or so minutes prep), chicken with cream sauce (only onions and garlic involved as well as chicken and broth), pasta with any kind of sauce, fish is quick in oven to make and can either bake or saute veggies with most of these. You can do something like sundays is prep day where you cut up veggies for monday and tuesday, etc. Make larger batches of food so that you can freeze some for later dates. Chili is great for this and you can freeze a quiche for another day or chicken pot pie for another day.