I have shared previously that I have an eating disorder (anorexia) and often struggle to eat when my anxiety, stress or other factors are looming heavily in my day/life. Living alone for the first time in my life has also proved to be challenging in that I no longer receive external cues for when to eat. The last couple of weeks have been a struggle, too, due to getting a head cold followed by whatever the hell is going on with me this week (fatigue, queasy, restless leg syndrome acting up like whoa, headaches). I have tried day in and day out to care for myself, to be patient, to be gentle and kind when it’s really hard to do so. I have made every manner of noise a person can make in this quest and journey that is self care and I have been humbled by my own thoughts and memories of my ex being the excellent caregiver that he was/is.

When I am really struggling I won’t eat all day. I will have coffee in the morning, orange juice mid-morning or around noon and then nothing until dinner. This is normal for me, though I do realize not the wisest or best choice, but I’m working on it. Lately I have been having a breakfast of toasted crumpets with Irish butter and cookie butter from Trader Joe’s (Speculoos, creamy). I look forward to the chewy texture of the crumpets, but I still sometimes must force myself to eat them (like today). It really is a mind over matter thing much of the time.

Having said all of that, it is Friday and I have long believed that Fridays are all about state of mind and being positive! So I wanted to share some visual victories of mine in the realm of food and cooking for oneself and how I’m finding some peace with that by creating small rituals that are beginning to feel more like meditation. Now, of course, when I was feeling my weakest from my head cold I stuck with soups and fruit and little else. Not much cooking involved there since I chose to microwave my Campbell’s and Progresso soups, but I hold no shame in my soup game, okay?! Ha-ha!

One thing that was a struggle that I’ve come to terms with was losing my beloved summer fruits. Oh how I miss my nectarines, peaches, strawberries and cherries. But I have come to love winter vegetables more than I thought I would. The two are nearly equal to me now (veg vs. fruit). My bf has called me a fruit-aholic, which I won’t pretend to be embarrassed about. I enjoy fruit! Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy my veggies, too, but my focus and delight wasn’t there during the summer. The reason? The heat! Cooking veggies in the summer, let alone roasting them, just doesn’t sound great when it’s nearly a hundred degrees. Now I am roasting all of the veggies and loving that shit like whoa!

One thing I still do and enjoy the crap out of is simply how I cut up my fruit: thin slices! Sounds silly, but I cut all my fruit into thin and wide slices now. I don’t know if it’s a surface ratio thing or just the tactal pleasure of eating simple things with my hands, but it started with nectarines and now I do it with apples and oranges and whatever else I can get my hands on. Also, Kiwi! I love those funny looking buggers more than I knew and now I just cut off the tops and eat them with a spoon! It’s such a nice and refreshing treat at the end of a meal. I have also found that taking the time to slice up my fruits and veggies helps stimulate my appetite even when I’m not feeling hungry or fighting it.

I also love a small green salad as often as I can get it. My basic is just butter lettuce (sometimes 3 types when I can find it) chopped up to bite size (I hate huge chunks of salad that get too messy to eat), tomatoes diced and some green onions sliced up tiny with olive oil and red wine vinegar and fresh ground pepper. Sometimes I think that the act of putting the things together is therapeutic in its own right, but what do I know? *Shrugs* I love red wine vinegar and will almost always put too much, to the extent that it makes me cough  but I don’t care, it’s so delicious! Colors are also more stimulating for me. If I’m making a meal, as I have recently, and it’s a plate of one color (yellow for instance) I will look at it funny and think it wasn’t such a great job I did putting my meal together. I still eat it! I mean, cooking is work, even on a smaller scale. Ha-ha!

I’ve also become accustomed to making a small fruit plate for myself that I will begin and end my meal with. So it’s like, small green salad, a bit of sliced fruit, meal and finished with a kiwi or other fruit. I eat slow as hell, you can ask around for real, so it may seem like a lot of food but it’s more of an evening than a quick meal time thing. I also just think that if you invest time in preparing a meal that you should also invest some time in enjoying it. I know this is a personal preference and also one that suits my current unemployed schedule and lifestyle. My bf eats faster than a bullet, though you’d never notice it. It’s perplexing but it’s why I don’t cook for him more often since it seems difficult to invest the time in preparing a meal that will be gone in two minutes flat. No harm, no foul.

Can I also just give a shout out to my bff Mychii for giving me the gift of the phrase, “Single people food” because I knew exactly what she meant and I am becoming quite comfortable in my singlehood or bachelorette-ness. She also totally inspired this post because she said I should do a podcast about food because of how I talk about it. Ha-ha! She’s one in a gazillion, y’all! <3

Turkey burgers have become an easy staple. Jenny-O turkey comes pre-pattied and seasoned with four in a pack for $5! So I cook one per night so they have that freshly grilled taste. I toast my onion buns (come 8 to a pack, but you can fridge or freeze the rest). I like a simple but flavorful burger with a nice thick slice of cheddar. Mayo on the bun with some crunchy veggies is preferred for me, but I didn’t have full sized tomatoes or a red onion so I made a grape tomato sort of relish with diced green onion, salt and pepper. It was tasty! So much yum! For this meal I steamed and then sauteed my brussels sprouts with some butter and olive oil until tender. There’s my little green salad, but this was the rare night I had run out of red wine vinegar and substituted (though poorly imo) with some ranch I had in my fridge for some strange reason. And my little fruit plate on the right with apple slices and “Pretty Lady” grapes. All very happy making stuff! I made this meal with some variation on veg or fruit for four nights that week.

I’m a gal on a budget, for sure, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get some decent steak sometimes! The key is to really read the labels because I don’t know much about different cuts of beef but the ones for Carne Asada are thinly sliced, cook up really quickly and easily and still provide a nice amount of real flavor. Hey, I just crave some red meat once a month! It’s nice to know now that I can take care of this craving myself instead of shelling out $12+ at a restaurant (and trust when I say that y’all don’t want my company when I’m having THAT craving! Ha!). This was one of those monochromatic meals I gave a bit of side eye to until I started to eat it because the flavors proved their worth beyond color. This was just the thin steaks lightly seasoned with S & P, onion and garlic powder, sauteed in the pan with a touch of olive oil until seared on both sides, really quick though. I made a single corn on the cob that night, which I’d never made before. Just boiled some water and threw it in there for 2-3 minutes, but I broke it in half before plating to save for a future meal (future me was stoked!). I had also sauteed some yellow squash that I sliced up with the same seasonings as the steaks after I pulled them out so they shared some yummy flavors. There’s my little green salad and note: “The last peach!” Seriously, the fruit stand I bought them from had a sign that said so. I cherished it! So good!  Gotta have a bit of A-1 or HP Brown sauce handy for the steaks, proper! And my beloved Cabernet! *drools* I repeated this meal for 2-3 more nights.

I had a pretty decent sized pack of the steaks (I think 6 or 8 in a pack for $6) and decided to switch it up and make these last two steaks with taco seasoning and sliced up for tacos! I love corn tortillas (I get a locally made kind that is extra thick and chewy), freshly warmed in the pan! Ohmygosh! So good!!! With tomatoes, green onions, sour cream and avocado when I can get them at a decent price and shredded “Mexican blend” cheese that I melt on the tortilla in the pan before plating. I think I added some black and pinto beans that were originally canned but I’d frozen from a previous meal. Great protein and meal stretchers! More brussels, another little green salad. There’s my lil’ fruit plate with some clementines as my meal finisher. I like something sort of citrusy to cleanse my palate after my meal I think. (I also do almost this same type of taco with seasoned ground turkey! So good and I can add rice and beans and stretch it even further!)

This was a night of disasters. I don’t remember all that came to pass, but I very excitedly and patiently baked a big sweet potato in my oven for ages and ages and my house filled with the aromas I was craving so much to taste! I was going to have it with butter and salt and a touch of brown sugar and pepper. When all was said and done my sweet potato was a dud of a spud and so I microwaved some Trader Joe’s sweet potato gnocchi with butter and sage. Sauteed baby bok choy in a touch of toasted sesame oil is a personal favorite of mine. TJ’s sells a pretty big tub for $2 and I’ll admit to eating the entire thing in one sitting more than once. It’s so simple to wash, chop and toss it in the pan of oil, usually done in a couple of minutes with little attention or effort, really. My slightly larger than little green salad. That white log is string cheese, by the way. Ha!

One of my favorite childhood memories was of Sunday dinners at my Grandma’s house because we always had a small green salad that she’d serve in these little clear glass bowls that were shaped like lettuce cups. Sometimes she’s let me “help” by placig teh chopped items in the bowls or just setting the table, it all felt so fancy! She would always put the green onions on the side because my dad hated them, but it was such a treat for me to have these fresh and crunchy salads with different dressings that always seemed so exotic that I now know really aren’t at all. Ha-ha! Wow! I literally just realized that my little green salads I’ve been making were because of her and those memories and I’m really quite moved right now, y’all! I miss my grandma all of the time, but never more so than since moving back to my hometown. It’s tough. <3

My little puggo likes to get underfoot when I cook. He’s pretty good if I tell him to “Get!” and point to where I want him. If I am chopping veggies I’ll occasionally give him a bit of fresh stuff, but I’m no soft touch and he doesn’t need people food! But this particular night he was just the worst and my back was killing me and I really yelled at him, he made me so mad. When I finally sat down with my meal, I looked over at him with utter exhaustion shimmering through my entire body and he just stepped into his little bed and smooshed down like this and I cried! No lie! Just too cute! He can be just the sweetest lil’ angel you ever did see and a complete jerk. But he’s my baby and I love him infinitely!

Ah! This was another turkey burger night, but I got a bee in my bonnet suddenly and spent an hour preparing these side dishes that I then ate the rest of the week! Smart! So everything the same as above plus avocado on my salad and burger. I couldn’t remember the exact recipe for my old beet salad but I threw together the beets (they come pre-cooked in a vac-sealed pouch at TJ’s for $2) that I then diced, gorgonzola crumbles, pecans chopped and sauteed shallots with a touch of olive oil and red wine vinegar, S & P. It was good, but not as addictively good as I remembered. Not sure what was missing. Hmm…. Also my first ever improv casserole! I had some fresh green beans I’d been working through all the previous week and wanted to use them up. Saw some mushrooms beside them in my crisper and thought: green bean casserole! I’ve never actually made green bean casserole but I threw together what I felt was appropriate (green beans,  medium shells pasta, cheese, cream of mushroom soup, 2 tbsp milk, sour cream, sauteed mushrooms and fried onions) and baked for 40 minutes. It was fucking delicious! I’m quite proud of that shit! It was a bit of an epic meal for one, but I spent over two hours in my tiny kitchen cleaning and then cooking and so I was ready for a hot meal when it was all done. And that casserole became lunch and dinner for a few days! My fruit plate of apple slices and a kiwi!

Ah! This was a night I didn’t wanna cook but I had this lovely country French sliced bread I’d just bought so I made a nice salami sandwich with mayo and cheddar. It’s the simple things, folks, truly! My mini kosher dill pickles (Clausen’s) and a sliced pear and a banana (which is weird because I usually only have bananas during the day) and my ever present red wine vinegar for my salad. I’d gotten these mixed colored tomatoes that were tasty and fun.

That face!!! He looks like he’s talking or about to talk! I love it! He didn’t, by the way, though many pugs do talk. He was just making funny faces.

I don’t know and won’t venture a guess or opinion on what I’m eating being “good” or “bad” or “too much” or whatever. This is what I eat. No shame! I enjoy these things, though simply prepared, they are flavorful and nutritious. I won’t defend a damned thing on this subject. I went years without cooking or truly nourishing myself in a way that felt satisfying or safe. I’m finding these simple meals to be calming in the process of preparation. It’s allowed me to be creative at times and to be inspired when I hit the produce section of whatever store I’m in. I don’t use recipes, but sometimes will see one and create my own version because I can’t be bothered with measuring or jotting things down. I start my shopping trips in the produce section and try to stay true to the season, though where I live I can get nearly anything always (doesn’t mean it’s tasty, like strawberries off season, blegh!). I tend to buy a few things more often than not, but I also like to discover new ways of preparing them or pairing them with other flavors. I do tend to make one thing and then eat it the rest of the week, just easier and less decision making later.

For me it is the flavors that rule my cooking and eating at dinner. It’s all too easy to go back to my Lean Cuisine habits and hate myself again. I am discovering, again, for myself that when I am inspired and look forward to something I’m going to make later (Oooh! Brussels sprouts!) that I make better choices for myself over all. This in turn can lead to better choices later that evening or into the following day. There’s some study about that somewhere but who cares! Food is good. We need it to fuel our minds, bodies and souls, for real! I feel better when I am more involved in my meal preparation, but also do my best not to feel shame or guilt when I’m not feeling well enough to put forth the effort. I’m learning everyday to honor what my body is telling me, to listen to those cues and not ignore them. I’m learning to live and eat while also having an eating disorder.

I also wanna know what you’re cookin’ over at your place! Do you have quick and easy things you fall back on or look forward to making? I want your recipes or non-recipes! I’m looking to expand my repertoire and horizons! I have some ideas and some good stuff in my freezer (I buy things on sale and freeze them, like the pre-marinaded pork roast I’m saving for a special occasion). I did just buy a smoked turkey Johnsonville sausage that was less than $2 but I’m not sure what to do with (Ideas?). And I bought my first ever spaghetti squash that I’m going to make a chicken parmesan dish with (you bake it in the squash!). Exciting!

What foods excite you? What meal preparation stuff do you struggle with? What special occasion foods do you love? Who’s hungry?!

Rad Fatty Love,
<3
S

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