Hello br.. Wait. Where am I? And why is my kitchen so clean?
[Intro Music]
First step to getting a clean kitchen: Decide to show it to the entire internet.
Second step: Have someone else do it. Step three: Pay them back by making dinner.
Great. Dinner.
This is not food.
There is nothing to eat.
These are plates.
Cooking can be really overwhelming for those of us with ADHD because it relies on a lot of stuff our brains find challenging. Planning, prioritizing
organizing, time management, using our working memory, filtering out sensory overwhelm, not getting distracted, wandering off...
I'm forgetting one...
Right! Forgetting what we were doing! Basically, the same challenges that ADHDers face and the rest of their lives,
we face in the kitchen too. Only now there are knives, and boiling water, and...
[Fire alarm]
fire. Excuse me for a sec.
[Fire extinguisher spraying]
Of course there are some
ADHDers for whom cooking is a hyper focus or who have already developed routines and systems that work for them. But for the rest
of us, we still have to eat! So I reached out to you guys on social media, to see if you
had any ADHD friendly cooking tips, and look! So many ideas, oh my gosh it's not just me!
First, yes! The absolute easiest thing to do is to let somebody else do the meal planning and shopping for you, like...
Blue Apron.
Thanks,
thanks Steve!
Blue Apron is actually sponsoring this video which is awesome because it meant that I could buy a few
ADHD friendly tools and some food to reenact the rest of the tips. But for the meals blue apron sends you,
you don't have to go shopping for
anything, and get overwhelmed at the grocery store.
And come home with so many things you don't have time to make.
Is this fennel?!
They send you everything you need to cook three meals a week including spices and...
recipe cards! With pictures!
Wait, they have check boxes now. Somebody give me a pen!
Yes, thank you! One step is never one step. Thank you for understanding.
They have checkboxes for the sub steps. Oh guys, this could really teach you how to cook
[Pen clicks]
They tell you what to do while you're waiting for other stuff to cook?!
This is seriously ADHD friendly. Good job Blue Apron.
Baby, what do you want for dinner?
[Unintelligible murmering]
Oh this one!
I'm gonna need that back.
Dinner will be ready in 55 to 65 minutes? Challenge accepted!
[Dramatic music]
Is it good?
If you want to try Blue Apron, I've included a link in the description below
that'll get you 40 bucks off your first two weeks. And if you don't feel like cooking one week, or you know
you're gonna be gone a lot, or you have commitment issues, you can skip or cancel anytime you want. Good tip, Charlotte!
Okay, but besides having Blue Apron do most of the work for you, what else can you do?
I shall attempt to demonstrate through a series of do's and don'ts.
Do's are mostly helpful tips you recommend.
Don'ts are things I have actually done.
Do: Allow more prep time than it says you'll need.
Don't: Attempt to mash potatoes without boiling them first.
Do: Fill up the sink with hot soapy water before you start cooking so that every time you're
done with something, all you have to do is throw it in the water to soak.
Don't: Accidentally throw your phone in the water... to soak.
Don't: Worry about using too many bowls. A trip to the ER after you stab yourself
with a knife while frantically searching for garlic salt is way more time-consuming than having to rinse a few, extra prep
bowls. The cost of an ER visit is like 78 bowls. And then you have them!
Seriously, use the bowls.
Do: Make timing meals easier on yourself by cooking everything together. Crock pot, Insta pot, if you forgot to start your crock pot...
Sheet pan dinners are amazing.
Do: Separate feeding yourself from cooking.
Hannah Hart does a really good job explaining that in this video but once the pressure's off cooking you can
enjoy it more and experiment knowing that, if it doesn't turn out well,
you still get to eat.
Do: Use a wooden music stand in the kitchen to put
electronics on.
You can listen to podcasts or music and keep electronics out of harm's way while cooking.
For the record I happen to have a wooden music stand, you can totally use something else.
Do: Make it enjoyable!
Play some music, get something you like to drink, I don't know, dance!
[Music]
Do: Stay in the kitchen while the stove is on high or medium.
You know what, when you're starting out, maybe don't leave the kitchen if the stove is on at all. May I recommend a baby gate?
Do: Have a good sharp chef... chef knife. You're more likely to hurt yourself with a dull
knife than a sharp one, so it's better to have one nice one than like a bunch of not so nice ones.
Chef's knife!
Don't: Only cook stuff that's healthy.
Don't get me wrong, it's great to eat healthy.
But if the choice is always between steamed asparagus
and ordering pizza, pizza's got an unfair advantage,
that's all I'm saying.
Do: Date everything you put in the fridge.
An easy way to do this is to use colored stickers,
where each color represents a different day. Then even if you don't have time to write the exact date,
you still have a general idea how long it's been in there.
Don't: Eat leftovers you rediscovered in the fridge.
If it's been long enough that you've forgotten about it, probably not good.
Do: Clear the counter before you start.
Don't: Use a smaller cutting board than you need, because that's all the counter space you have left.
Do: Label your burners if you can tend to forget which ones the front which is the back. Now you know.
Do: Have a special place by the stove where you keep your oven mitts.
Don't: Forget to put the oven mitts back.
Do: Protect your fingers while you cut.
Don't: Hold something you want to cut while cutting it.
I'm not gonna reenact this one, because I still have the scar.
Do: Use a meat thermometer.
Don't: Not use a meat thermometer.
Don't ask.
If this seems like a lot and you're already overwhelmed, just stick to the basics.
Here's a helpful order of operations suggested by Lisa:
Step 1: Read the recipe.
Step 2: Gather the ingredients.
Step 3: Gather the tools.
Step 4: Prepare the ingredients.
Step 5: Cook.
[Music]
That's it for this week! Hopefully some of this inspired you to spend a little more time cooking and let you learn from my mistakes.
Thank you to everyone on social media, who suggested these awesome tips and helped
me brave the kitchen once more.
And to my brain advocates and all my Patreon brains:
Thank you for the support you give me month after month. Because of you, I never have to partner with a brand I don't believe in.
I can always put this community first and that feels really good.
Share your cooking tips in the comments below,
like, subscribe, click all the things, and I will see you next week.
Bye Brains!
[Outro music]