'Five' ingredients or less

[vass]

My main cooking problem is with executive function/attention/general brain fog. If there are too many ingredients or steps, I just tend not to eat, or to eat junk instead of cooking a meal. I once had a three day brain block when it felt too hard to make a banana smoothie. All I needed was ice cream, a banana, cinnamon, and milk, but I also had to get the blender down and wash it afterwards, and it just seemed too hard.

So, it occurred to me this morning that I should try googling for recipes with five ingredients or less/fewer. I found a lot of recipes, but one small problem: THEY CAN'T COUNT.

Take this recipe for crockpot mashed potatoes: it purports to have five ingredients, but actually has nine. I'm guessing they thought the condiments didn't count. Well, if I were adding salt and pepper to my own taste, they wouldn't count. But if they're a step I have to get over while following a recipe, they certainly do count. If I have to go to the supermarket to buy onion powder, garlic powder, and white pepper, because I've never used those things in my life, then yes, they count.

I used to be a good cook.

Does anyone have any brain fog friendly vegetarian recipes? Preferably not too starchy, since insulin resistance contributes to the brain fog.

Comments

[axelrod]

Greens, like kale or collards, stir-fried or steam-fried with garlic and/or onion. Or brussel sprouts or broccoli. Probably works with other veggies. Could be seasoned with, like, red pepper or whatever if you felt like it. I don't know about adding some already-cooked noodles and/or tofu to the pan would be too much for a brain-fogged mind, but gluten-free noodles of some kind would be a way to get some carbs and/or protein into the same dish. Let's see: vegetable, garlic, cooking oil, pasta. That's four, and you could add a fifth for flavor or protein. Not sure if all the steps required would work for you.

One of my fallbacks is "pizza" in the microwave oven: bread (gluten-free in your case), marinara sauce, cheese. I add garlic a lot, but there's lots of ways to make pizza more interesting and/or a source of protein or veggies.

A variation is very thin apple slices, cheese, and mustard.

I get pre-cooked frozen dumplings at Trader Joe's (they are *delicious*) and I cook them and some soba noodles in the same pot, since they have about the same cook time. According to google, soba noodles are gluten free if they're 100% buckwheat, and they cook really fast. There are probably other frozen or pre-cooked and refrigerated things you could cook at teh same time as the soba noodles.

I know rice has gluten, but melting some cheese on top of rice, maybe with some tomato, is quick and easy.

I always keep hummus around to put on bread. Hummus, goat cheese, and roasted red peppers make for a good sandwich imo: with the bread, that's four ingredients and no cooking. I added cucumber once, that was delicious. (Though I realize sometimes you probably want something *hot* to eat).

I eat apples and cheese together fairly often. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches are also relatively easy.

I hope some of these suggestions are helpful - it can be hard to judge what is too much for another person. And I mean I have definitely found it too difficult to make toaster oven pizza (I have also found it too difficult to get out of bed) so I dunno. This is why I always keep Clif bars around - $1 each at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods (I'm sure you can get them elsewhere, but not sure how much they'd cost), ~250 calories, ~10 grams of protein. I think they taste quite good for an energy bar and the texture isn't really dry like a lot of snack bars. Not sure how gluten friendly they are. The one I've got next to me uses soy flour, rice flour, flaxseed, and oats among the ingredients. And they rely on nuts for the high protein, in case you're sensitive to nuts.

Ahem. I just really like Clif bars and eat a lot of them. If you find that sometimes you just *don't eat* because putting ingredients together, however simply, is too complicated, then I suggest finding some kind of energy bar that works for you, so you get at least some carbs and protein in you.

[jesse_the_k]

I gotta contradict you here. While I'm sure there are people who are allergic to rice gluten, the essential protein in rice is indeed "rice protein." However it's different enough from wheat gluten that general celiacs who must be "gluten free" can eat rice products safely.)

[axelrod]

Thanks for correcting me, I'm only vaguely aware of what gluten-free means.