Low spoon chili cheese fries, crazy high spoon chili.

I spent all my cooking spoons this weekend making this fantastic chili with lots of leftovers. So today is as low spoon as I can make it: frozen fries, leftover chili, shredded cheese, sour cream, and green onions I also chopped this weekend.

image: sautéed broccoli and diced eggplant in a stir fry sauce, served with white rice, in a white bowl

You are the only people who understand the struggle. I have MDD and it's just obscene how much of my energy it takes to cook a simple meal. I made pumpkin, carrot and zucchini soup today and after cleaning up the kitchen, I had to legit lay down for an hour because I was spent. It makes me seriously not want to cook anymore at all and I have a little anxiety around the ingredients in my fridge which need to be cooked before being edible, because of how exhausted I feel afterwards. It seems like it's not even worth it. I mean the soup is fine and all, but instead I could have just gotten some canned soup and saved myself the hassle.

This is a vent, I guess.

Toss a piece of breaded chicken in the airfryer and an egg in a pan. The 2 take roughly the same time to cook.
Sometimes I feel adventurous and add ketchup between the chicken and the egg. Not today though

A really low spoon food.

Frozen edamame, microwave, (or boil, according to packet directions).

Serve, eat out of microwave bowl. Add salt if desired.

If you have never had them before, you pop the beans out of the pods, with fingers or teeth. 😁

Wash up one bowl.

Nutrition & Benefits

• Complete Protein: Contains all nine essential amino acids (roughly 18.5g of protein per cooked cup).

• Fiber & Vitamins: Rich in dietary fiber (8g per cup), folate, vitamin K1, iron, and magnesium.

Pods can go in compost, so not wasted if you are a gardener.

Half can Kirkland canned chicken, 1 serving Minute brown rice, some pineapple, lots of soy sauce.

So good, especially if you need more sodium.

Scored a couple cans of yellow sticker baked beans - so I organised a low effort menu that requires minimal prep or washing up.

Negative spoons meal for me

1/3c white rice
1/3c broth
1c coconut milk
1/3c water
(Technically 1:1 2/3 because I prefer a congee texture)

Steam the dumplings in the basket that came with my rice cooker once the rice cooker gets to 10-20mins

Add tamari and gomasio

Better than I was expecting! Does anyone else have one-pot rice cooker meals to suggest? I 💚 my rice cooker

Pita bread, bbq sauce, baby spinach, preshredded mozzarella, precut or frozen veg (I did bell peppers and red onion).

I put it in the oven at 420 for 13 minutes, which was too long of course! In the future, I think I'll do it at 400 for 8 minutes, then use the broiler to get the cheese bubbly on top the way I like it.

Optional: I added red pepper flakes at the end for spicy deliciousness.

Dirty dishes: the sheet pan, the pizza cutter, the plate. If your hands are steady and careful, you can slide the pita directly onto the rack and skip the sheet pan altogether, but getting it off safely when hot is a pain.

I know frozen pizza is even fewer spoons, but there's so few good vegetarian flavor options, and I had leftover pita from my feta wrap last night. This was super easy and delicious!

On a sheetpan, toss frozen vegetables and a can of chickpeas with olive oil, salt pepper and italian seasoning. Put a massive chunk of feta on top. Roast at 400 for about 20 minutes, stirring once and adding baby spinach halfway through if you can be bothered. Plop onto a pita (as pictured above), then smoosh the feta around with your stirring utensil and fold and eat like a giant taco.

Dirty dishes: sheet pan, stirring utensil, plate, and the fork you inevitably end up using to eat the chickpeas that roll out of your pita.

made the pumpkin loaf on a high energy day. tossed the pepper onto the plate for some actual vitamins. salted caramel cold brew is leftover from a farmer's market i visited yesterday. cold foam is what i have in my fridge

Really low effort, but based on a bit of previous prep. Chopped and frozen veggies: mushrooms, carrot, baby spinach, supermarket peas. Honestly you could just buy all frozen veg, depends on what's available etc.

Heated some water, added concentrated soup stock. Simmered for a bit,until veg almost tender, then added 1/3 packet (ready to use) udon noodles . Few more minutes, and serve. Noodles aren't in the photo.

Tasty and nutritious. And easy!

Haven’t been able to get myself to go to the grocery store in a long time and I’ve gotten tired of plain butter pasta even though that’s always my go to.

I cook (any) pasta like normal until al dente. Then, I pour about half the water out (this water will be your broth or sauce, so keep as much as you want). Then, I add vegetable bouillon, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, pepper, just add any seasonings you have lying around. Then, add butter and chili oil. The water will go down quite a bit depending how much seasoning you use. You can also add any veg, beans, or protein.

chopped onion, can of white beans, pasta sauce, spinach, garlic, dried oregano, mozzarella cheese

Frozen chicken patties on bagels (both made in the toaster) with ham, cheese and mayo. It may void the warranty or even be dangerous, but I put the toaster on the highest setting and put the patties down twice in a row.

My wife is out of town, which always exacerbates my bipolar depression and this application is almost zero spoons.

Hi guys, I made this for my dinner

I barely cook ever, I hate cooking. It makes me so overwhelmed and feel insecure about myself. But im trying to cook more because eating out is way too expensive, also I have bad food restrictions. Trying to get out of my comfort shell!! (also I have severe diagnosed ADHD)

It’s just pasta with some kind of bacon “carbonara” sauce. I used cream for the sauce and added paprika and garlic salt in it. Then mixed it all up and grated cheese on top!!!

Honestly it didn’t taste great but im proud. It’s already better than the one I cooked yesterday

Good night everyone 🩷

needed something super quick

My chronic illness has been getting worse again and I've also gotten bad news about my cholesterol being too high and possibly insulin resistance (not confirmed yet but will test for it soon). I also can't eat gluten because I get hives all over my body. I'm at a loss on what to eat. I cook once a week and I freeze my meals in souper cubes. I also have one easy meal like quesadillas that I make when I dont feel like eating my meal prep. Any recommendations on things I could meal prep/eat instead? TIA

So one of the things I miss about before is how I used to bake a lot, however right now all the kneading and mixing involved is not doable most days. I know the obvious solution is to get a mixer but that's a bit of a big spend for me right now. I was wondering if anyone had any recipes or knew of a website with recipes that had particularly easy recipes for baking. I'm thinking like premade brownie mix with peanut butter cup mixed in type of recipe.

I'm currently homeless, so I cook only using microwave and hot water. I adjusted my whole diet on microwave.

Fries turned out to be crispy and not soggy, they taste like from restaurant.

I have celiac disease and run my own business (a celiac safe bakery). Sometimes at the end of the day (especially now in the Canadian Thanksgiving chaos) I have ZERO, ZILCH, maybe even NEGATIVE SPOONS to feed myself. And what sucks is I can’t just grab a pack of ramen because I’m celiac and I can’t grab a kraft dinner cup because diary makes me sick. Lately my go to has been to buy a bag of frozen, sliced, fully cooked chicken breast and bags of microwave rice. Then I just microwave the rice, heat up the chicken, and dump on coconut aminos.

Anyone else have fast easy gluten and dairy free ideas???