Tarragon Cream sauce Pasta

I'm telling Esme about another one of the family recipes that I want to make and show her how to make - and every other recipe I've been finding for it uses white wine in it for reduction in the sauce. And I had to think, ah.. yes, my mother never cooked with that (cooking alcohol) at all, so of course the 'family recipe' that I know doesn't have it, so.. do I try to do it 'correctly' according to the books or do I cook what I know so I don't 'mess it up'? I'm choosing option two, and then maybe we can learn how to make the 'actual French recipe version' later.  Apparently there is a 'boil the onions in white wine' step that I've never done in my life.. and am not sure I want to.  

 This is usually served with chicken breast, but can also be served with eggs.  We didn't have fresh garden tarragon, but I was inspired to make this by the dried tarragon packet I got in our spice sampler.  Tarragon goes bad quickly, much quicker than many spices - and the reason I haven't made it in many years is that it is hard to find it, and then when you do, a little disappointing to throw much of it away later.  I used finely diced zucchini instead of the real chopped tarragon plants that were in a recipe I found - I think maybe it was made with canned green beans at times in our household, my mom canned a lot of green beans every summer.

 We decided to make it with eggs.  It is not an easy dish to make with three burners by yourself - will need to practice again, as one of the burners was an omelette to go with it and that got a bit messy in between - started pasta, then melted butter in a big pan and added finely diced zucchini and sliced sweet onions, cooking them until the onions were translucent, then added a bit more water to make sure there was enough liquid - added a few tablespoons of flour until it began to form a paste with the butter, added some grated cheese (used the last of the gruyere block we had, about 3 by 2 inches) to that to finish making it a full paste (roux), then began to reliquify with half-and-half, then whole milk, until the sauce and melted cheese came to the right consistency, added dried tarragon and lots of black pepper (should have added more salt, I had hoped the butter and cheese was salty enough) and removed from heat as the omelette was getting done to put on the plates and drained the pasta, stirred it into the tarragon cream sauce and added more black pepper and shredded cheese on top of each plate after serving. It's been years, maybe a decade, since I made this dish, but I thought I'd give it a go again to show Esme.

Golden Beets and their Greens

Golden Beets : I thought they were just so pretty - even before cutting them up, and they had a long and thick plume of greens attached to them.  They are a bright golden color on the inside (See below).  Also, the leafy tops are more like the Siberian Kale than the darker tops that are on the red beets.   I cut all the green bits off of the stems and chopped it coarsely to put in a freezer bag.  A whole bag of greens AND beets for the price of a bag of spinach.  And the goat and chickens got bits of all the bits I didn't want, so none of it really went to waste.

And I got to show Esme how to prepare them - she says it is interesting to see the process and then how they are cooked.  Of course, then I also show her what vitamins are in them and tell her what foods and/or spices it goes well with.  I've told her that cutting up vegetables seems to be one of my favorite hobbies, which goes well with but does seem to live in a space all of its own beside the gardening and the cooking.  I also said that even though the produce wasn't perfect and the rest of what was on the shelf with it was bordering on sad - I would have been proud of that bunch if I had grown it myself.

Here are the bottoms, scrubbed but not peeled, then sliced somewhat thin, put a bit of water in the bowl so that the pieces were not sitting directly on the bottom, sprinkled olive oil over the top, added spices, and then drizzled some honey over the top.  Covered, in a 400 degree oven for probably a bit over a half hour.  We ate it with mandarin oranges, and she had about five slices on her plate.  I had twice that - and the leftovers in a small quart jar to use up tomorrow.  Mark made hamburgers for her and for himself, and I used up a bit of the sausage and egg rice I had made last night and added curry, ginger paste and green onions to it.

I will add the frozen beet greens to other fried rice and soup type meals just like I do kale and dandelion greens. 

navy bean soup recipe (with measurements)

 Apparently 'eyeballing' and experimenting with ingredients isn't as common as it was when I was learning to cook - so I made this recipe again as an actual recipe with measurements.  I 'scientifically' tested it out- and it worked fine.  Bonus is I now have two quarts of soup to eat this week at work :)

 

 

 Navy Bean Soup (with measurements)

makes two quarts (or two pints and a quart, which is how I put it up for convenience) 

 Note : This recipe was created to make a specific point of how to use dried beans, to have that in my 'cooking arsenal' and know how long it would take to make it correctly.  My daughter had wondered how to cook the beans from dry state, and there are SO many versions out there I wanted something I had done myself to show her a good method.  I use a lot of lentils and split peas, but dried beans do take patience and time to prepare properly.  Navy beans are small and cook up well into soups like this.  Dried beans are a lot cheaper than canned beans, are very available in many places and keep very well.  They keep even better when stored in a cabinet in a tight container like a coffee can, to prevent cabinet fly getting into the plastic bags.  You could use canned beans for this, just figure out what quantity you like and of course, it would make it quicker as the canned beans would already be at the softened state, just heat it up with the vegetables in it until they are done and blend it. 

The Method / Recipe :

In a large pot rinse one cup of navy beans - fresher beans are best, pick out any discolored or bits of other things (stem, gravel whatever, depends on your brand, they're much better about that than they were when I was a kid, as well)

pour out rinse water, add 4 cups of clean water to pot with beans

add 1 tablespoon of distilled white vinegar

Do NOT add salt or oil

put on stove and bring to a rolling boil - let it boil like that stirring for a bit, the beans may rise to the top and become sort of wrinkled

turn off the heat, remove pot from heat, add a lid to the pot, let sit undrained for 1 HOUR

 

After one hour :

add about a tablespoon of olive oil

add rosemary and garlic powder, flake, minced whatever you like 

add some ham or bacon or kielbasa if you want (it helps a lot to add fat but you don't want to overwhelm or add too much saltiness)  I used one round of Canadian bacon that Mark had bought for pizza, cut up very fine

optional : black pepper, ground brown mustard seed and/or celery seed

 

Put pot back on heat and bring back to a boil, stir well.

bring down to a simmer, where it just barely bubbles or not even quite bubbling but close, keep at this heat for 1.5 hours or so, stirring occasionally

remove a bean or two onto a plate and try to mash it with the back of a spoon

if it mashes easily, it is time to continue - if not, stir well and keep at temperature for another half hour, test again - if you had added salt before, it will be very difficult to get this to work well, as the beans may have hardened, so no SALT other than what might have already been in the meat 

 if mashable : add several good handfuls of diced zucchini and another of sliced onion, carrots might work in this or bok choy tops and bottoms - I've done the latter with no real change in taste but have been wondering if I might put carrots in it or if that taste would be too different

I also add some Garlic Parmesan grill seasoning at this point, because it is VERY good, but I know it has salt in it, so I don't add it earlier.

bring pot back to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so until the vegetables are well cooked - I have my veggies in the freezer, so this works well for them

take entire pot off of heat, put on a towel or trivet on a counter, and blend with a stick blender until smooth 

Either serve when cooled with bread and maybe some shredded cheese or : Pour up into two clean glass quart jars or two pints and a quart, leaving about an inch at the top of each jar - place tops on and put in refrigerator after they have cooled on the counter some, using within four to five days.  This will not keep out of the refrigerator, and it is best to use it as soon as you can, but I routinely get four or five days out of it before it is gone.

Another nice variation for serving : add several tablespoons of diced mild green chiles to the pot when rewarming, and then tear up flour tortilla into very small pieces, heat with the soup and it becomes almost a noodle.   

 

Madeleine cookies :

It seems I have to keep putting this recipe back up in multiple places because either I'm spelling it off, or the algorithm just really doesn't like to give it back to me when I ask.  It has went as far as to say that the website doesn't have a recipe for it - when in fact, it probably has about four different ones.  I make this sometimes once a week, but not too much more often than that - and know I've posted the recipe several times over the years although it always does fluctuate some.

What I'm using lately for the Madeleine recipe - also called magdalenas in Catalan

3 large chicken eggs, set out on counter to warm up and beat with 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of white sugar plus 1 softened stick of butter plus 2 tbsp of dark brown sugar - beat together for a total of FIVE minutes - then mix in 1 cup (little more) of white flour (that has come out of the freezer a few minutes beforehand) and 1 tsp of baking powder and less than 1/2 tsp of salt - mix dry ingredients in portions into the wet mixture. 375 preheated oven, each well of the madeleine pan brushed with butter and coated with flour, fill wells up only half way, and remove from oven as soon as the outer bits of the cookie begins to brown in the pan and a finger pressed makes the cookie bounce back - turn out onto plate to prevent it from overcooking in the madeleine pan.  All that bit about pouring in melted butter at one point and/or chilling the dough before baking it -- I tried that time and again, and found it really didn't matter in the end product at least not to me.

 Madeleine cookies

3 large eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract (mixed with the eggs) 

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 tbsp of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup (one stick) of pre-softened butter

1 to 1 and 1/4 cups of all purpose flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp little less of salt

375 degree oven, 10 minutes or less

this recipe should fill 2 madeleine pans, each well about 1/2 full or so 

 

 

 

an unusual soup and freehanded peanut butter banana bread

 I saw a quite unusual, but interesting soup the other day - some version on 'alubia blanca' stew with white beans, cod, onions, garlic, almonds and boiled egg.  I'm not interested in making that right now, but it got me thinking.

 Mark boiled a dozen eggs yesterday for a project he was working on - and then put them in the fridge for us to use and/or feed to the dogs.

Today we went to grocery shop and upon returning, I wanted to use up a few odds and ends that are still in the fridge now that I have more time to cook today.  I had made quick banana bread yesterday to use up some of the other things - and it had turned out pretty well considering it was freehanded. 

 Last night's banana bread : 

350 degree oven, Mark already had it heated up and on from cooking pork roast

2 small bananas, overripe, mashed

2 eggs, cracked and beaten

1 to 2 large tablespoons of peanut butter 

1/3 of a stick of butter, softened 

(the peanut butter was because I didn't want to open another stick of butter) 

a 1/4 cup of white sugar

about 1 cup of flour, with some salt and baking powder sprinkled on top of it

mixed all that together quite well, baked it for what was about 30 to 35 minutes until the knife came out clean

It didn't rise a lot, but it did bake up clean and taste very good

I had another large slice of it this morning with morning coffee 

 

Today's unusual soup : 

thinly sliced onions fried in butter and then added a bit of cilantro right after the butter began to brown

in a separate blender : 1/3 of a can of black beans and 1/3 of a normal can of tomato sauce

1 large boiled egg, peeled, blended in with the beans and tomato sauce

a handful of almonds

a good dose of "seven spice" (which is basically five-spice plus a few things : cloves, cinnamon, brown mustard seed, fennel seed, coriander seed, black pepper, star anise)

added that well blended mixture to the onions and cilantro along with another cup or so of water and heated up to bubbling, served with a flour tortilla in a bowl

 

We also made the red lentil sauce/soup the other day again and it was very good.  Fresh summer squash and onions with red peppers and a bit of frozen zucchini, and finely ground carrots and frozen ginger put with the red lentils to cook, and then served over a bed of rice beside an egg each. 

 

 

 

some hot dishes

 I've been needing to clean out some of the frozen vegetables in the freezer, and use up some other things - I do this standard sort of 'this is what fried rice could become if you just did it without frying the rice' hotdish thing, and usually I just follow what I've got on hand.  Both of these worked out really well, worth writing down and doing it again.

The past two nights I've done this :

 

Kielbasa : 

 1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

big splash of soy sauce, brown prepared mustard (a small bit), 1 tbsp of brown sugar, splash of balsamic vinegar, dash of pork ginger spice 

red pepper, onion, green pepper, bok choy (shredded tops and chopped bottoms) and small amount of zucchini

about 1/2 cup of cooked rice and potato mixture (leftover) 

frozen kielbasa chopped up into small bits

2 eggs 

I served that beside some chicken dumplings from the freezer case that we had decided to try the other day - but the above mixture was really standout above and beyond the store bought dumplings. 

 

Pork and Bacon : 

I cooked 1 cup of fresh rice in the rice cooker, and then set it aside to cool.

1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil

finely chopped pork chop, put in at this early stage and brought to sizzle 

yellow bell pepper, bit of red bell pepper, onion and a larger amount of zucchini 

1/2 to 3/4 cup of tomato sauce

1 to 2 tbsp of birria taco seasoning (guajilio and ancho chiles, claims to have 'adobo' seasoning in it and apple cider vinegar) that I picked up to try at the store the other day (Oh yes, getting more of this at a later date)

brought all the tomato and vegetable and pork combination to a high boil and the mixture began to become sauce-like, cracked and added two eggs 

very very finely cut up two slices of bacon, sprinkled in while the eggs were beginning to have the whites cooked

draw the yolks through the entire mixture after the white has cooked a bit, then let the whole mixture cook for another 30 seconds or so until the tomato sauce thickens with the egg

split the rice onto two plates and pour half the mixture over each plate

 

for my lunch the other day I had put part of a porkchop, carrots, ginger, zucchini, split peas and onion together and made a soup, which was then blended thoroughly and I've been eating at work with curry powder in it - one quart jar of that actually gets me three good bowls of soup, and helps to keep my sinuses from having issues as well

 I've been doing rice and black beans, rice and crowder peas, squash and black beans and so forth for other lunches, always with a good tablespoon of butter in it and curry powder and black pepper. (anti-inflammatory stuff, it works for me)

I'm thinking the rest of my butternut squash, some of the leftover tomato sauce and black beans for my own lunch tomorrow, with a little gouda cheese in it.   

 

 

yeast bread

 

I found a recipe that looked similar to what I had on hand - World's easiest yeast bread  I didn't follow the recipe exactly because of what I had on hand - 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour, 1.5 cups of all purpose flour, 1 tbsp dark brown sugar, 1 tbsp of white granulated sugar, 1 tsp of normal iodized table salt, mixed that all together, heated up the 1.5 cups of water it asked for, poured a 4 year out of date yeast packet over the dry ingredients and 1 more tbsp of granulated sugar, and then poured the water on it and mixed, rose for three hours in a 63 degree kitchen, then followed the rest of the instructions about putting onto parchment paper lightly floured, preheating covered Corelle type pot in oven to 450 degrees, put whole thing with parchment paper included into pot, baking covered for 30 minutes, uncovered for 12 minutes, waiting 10 minutes to cut.

Ate it with the soup I made this morning, which was one can of crowder peas with aqua faba included, most of a large frozen sweet potato that was too much for the pan last month so it just went in the freezer and was a bit freezer burnt by now but still souped up really nice, and yellow summer squash along with some maple chipolte seasoning - all well blended after the sweet potato chunks were soft enough

 

and the process:

 at one hour

 

 at two hours - I put it on a pottery stoneware plate that I heated up 25-40 seconds in the microwave a few times along the process, since there wasn't a way to move it to a warmer area

 

and at the three hour mark, before I floured the parchment paper and then scraped it onto it, made it a ball and lightly slid flour over the top of the ball

 It went in looking like this

 

 when I took the lid off after a half hour

 when it came out of the oven and I transferred it immediately to the pottery stoneware plate on the counter, then waited the ten minutes and sliced it (first picture)

 

Cooking lots of things

 

omelet with bacon and spinach/whole wheat flour / egg mixture fried in the bacon grease

I had another half of the spinach mixture that I fried separately in butter and it turned out much more cohesive - pan difference, I think.  All of them tasted wonderful, but I also think I needed the nutrients and that is why I was drawn to cook it.  The cans of spinach had sat in the cupboard for nearly a year without me getting into them...

1/2 can of spinach (I put the other half in the fridge with the liquid in that)

1 large egg, beaten

I don't know - less than a 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour, it is supposed to be oats in the original recipe but I'm using what I have 

cook 1 slice of chopped bacon on low to medium until bits are crispy - keep all that oil  

cook 1 more egg as an omelet in a separate pan, in tandem that you can add the bacon in at the end (start bacon, gauge when is right, make omelet, add bacon keeping the oil in the other pan)

form large spoon fulls of the spinach mixture and place in the hot oil to cook, turn over, cook until well done.

but : I found that greasing the omelet pan with butter after the omelet was finished and then putting the other half of the spinach egg mixture in that in a layer made a much better finished product - so, have to try that again.  the bacon grease one was all fluffy and dry, but the butter one was a pancake like structure all smooth on both sides.

 

the lasagna without noodles

And today I am using the sweet potato tomato soup (below), the whole wheat pancake (also below) layered in a pan with this other half of the spinach omelet, mashed sweet potato layer and some mozzarella cheese to make a 'lasagna' - put in the toaster oven in a glass pan at 300 degrees.  1/2 pancake, 1/2 omelet laid on top of that, covered in mashed sweet potato, covered in mozarella cheese, other 1/2 of pancake, pour tomato sweet potato soup over it all to drench well and sit in bottom of pan - bake

 

sweet potato and tomato soup that I made yesterday and saved some of.  With the rest of the wheat flour/rice flour pancakes.

chunks of cooked sweet potato

half a can of 'chili fixings' tomato mixture - with onions, garlic and spices but no beans

a handful of onion

a handful of yellow squash, previously cut up and frozen

some 'orange beef stir-fry' seasoning packet that had orange peel and citrus in it and smelled very interesting - about a tablespoon of that

black pepper

water

cook until well-combined and bubbling, let cool just a bit, use the stick mixer to smooth into a consistency 

 

I have some whole wheat flour that is in the freezer, and some brown rice flour, and I've been using both of them up.  This is three eggs well beaten with whole wheat flour added to it, some brown rice flour (much less, just to smooth it out a little) some baking powder and salt, and a little garlic-parmesan grill mixture (I think it has some texturizer in it, because it does things to eggs when cooked with them.. and it tastes good).  Made three tamagoyaki pan sized pancakes with it.  Mark looked at the batter and said he didn't think that would cook up - but I buttered the tamagoyaki pan (a small Japanese omelet pan) and put it on as an even layer, turned it over when I saw bubbles and a nice edge around it, and it cooked up wonderfully.

was this a black plum or a nectarine?  they are related, so it is hard to tell.  It tasted like a VERY mild slightly harder nectarine.  Mark says it doesn't matter - I saw it, I took it home and ate it, so that is all that mattered.

 

 

Update on the teeth : Not where they should be yet, but I'm still wearing them every day and it only hurts a little now to put them in and take them out, but I don't want to wear them much longer than 14 hours or so because my lips and tongue just get irritated - but I missed my fitting appointment because of the holiday - the office cancelled and tried to move it up a few days earlier, but I got this sinus ick and just put it off now until after Thanksgiving.

 

Sinus ick : It's been annoying, especially in the morning after I wake up - but I'm getting throught it.  An allergy medication helped a lot for the first bit but now I'm letting it flow more to get rid of it.  I can smell everything even through it - which is a bit odd - it feels like my sense of smell is cranked UP with this even though it is making it hard to breathe through my nose.  I'm eating good foods and keeping down on the milk and sugar because I know those things make it worse.

 

Languages : studying French and Czech and a little Japanese here and there.  Reading more Japanese cooking things, and watching a lot of little French videos 

 

more cooking

I had a full route today, but it wasn't super long.  I came home and we planned on making meatballs that would last us a few weeks, with the grocery items I got the other day, and our chicken eggs.

 

 

I wrote up Mark's recipe at Neurodivergent Cooking : Meatballs to Freeze

It's a fairly normal recipe, but the other version I made isn't.

Fish loaf or Canned mackerel filets with zucchini  Mark called it 'fishloaf' - I thought of it as way of making it something like the meatloaf recipe but using up my canned mackerel out of the cupboard.  Then I served it with my mock sushi-style brown rice, nori seaweed that I like and red chili paste, wasabi and mayonnaise - all on a bed of soy sauce.

 

Package runs tomorrow, and since I didn't sleep well last night, I'm going to crash.

Monday

 Over the work weekend, on to the week.  The truck started each of my work days, although the battery light never went off.  Does this mean I shouldn't have been worried last week?  No... because I can't see the future and I did have a legitimate concern.  It's still concerning.  But I am very glad and grateful that I was able to get to work on the days they had scheduled me.

Made spaghetti for Esme and I and leftover meatloaf bits.  Later, made a tomato quiche egg pie thing to put up a little for breakfast and to give the rest to the dogs as a treat.  It worked well.  Mark asked me if this was alchemy... is it black alchemy, in that I can't reveal the secrets?

 

No, it's whole wheat alchemy.

8 eggs

1/4 to 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour

some salt

some baking powder

3 to 5 tbsp of tomato paste (leftover from two other meals I made, and now I had this big glop left so I thought - we'll see how that mixes in)

baked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes

Doing minimum Japanese and going to bed.

It was a very long route day, with mail counting, and 100 degree weather and all that on top of it being Monday, which means we just have more mail than any other day usually.

Neurodivergent Cooking (at Patreon, link)

I started another thing today - and well, because I'm ADHD I start a lot of things but I'm not always very consistent.  BUT - this is about ADHD, and not being consistent, but learning skills and tips and going forward anyway, to make good healthy food, and to make it everyday.

Neurodivergent Cooking : Rhelynn at Patreon

I will be collecting certain articles and recipes, with lots of pictures and tips for making it 'click', to this site.  This does not aim to be America's Test Kitchen or Martha Stewart - but closer to the: oh right, I'm the buyer, cook and the cleanup crew, and I've got to keep this up, sort of thing. 

I aim to tackle 

    the 'Where Ingredients go to Die' problem, 

    the Make Ahead, I barely have time to Exist problem, 

    Oh Look, a Squirrel issue (not solve, but manage)

    Multitasking is our Friend and Superpower

    and the I'd Rather be Sleeping type issues... 

because really, being neurodivergent or low-energy of any kind brings with it certain issues most other people don't even think about.

 

1.) We love to experiment, but hate to follow instructions

    --wait, so you're going to give instructions for people who don't like instructions?  They're more like guidelines, really.  And most times you don't even need them.. but when you're in a slump or doing the same bad habits (frozen pizza I'm looking at you) it can be nice to have some 'look over there' inspiration.  

    -- we tend to skip over or avoid a lot of things, and miss key information

    -- we're not good at keeping our recipes or even looking them up again

           -- and keep a notebook isn't going to help, where's my notebook?

            -- out of sight often means out of mind, keep things visible! 

            -- I haven't even put hands on that in weeks, where is it?

            -- Ew, I found it.  How long was that in the cupboard? 

    -- be your own best friend - good habits and good results make good memories

            -- making something well means we're more likely to keep it up 

            -- make something often, with variations

           -- learn to grow into your tastes and skills

           -- learn to reflect and say : HEY, that was a good idea 

ALSO : mental exercises are just as important as physical ones for making routines.  Take time in the moment to reflect.  Remind yourself : I'm learning this.   Or:  I've done this before.  I'm doing this.  This is getting done.  And : I've done this, that needed to be done.   It's much more important than you might think.

         

2.) We get excited about things, buy gadgets and ingredients, and then when it comes to the actual doing, wander off and/or eat junk food

We'd mostly rather be eating real food, but Time is a fractured multiverse of other things we'd rather be doing.  Sometimes we forget to eat at all!  Or we inhale the potato chips and leave the fruit we bought on the counter.  Do I really need to eat?  Can I put it off?  Where did the last four hours go? 

    -- I think recipes need to be a little better engineered to 

    ----- contain relatable and sustainable ingredients and substitutes

    ---- understand that purchasing the food is also an important step

    ---- encourage good sustainable habits for prep and cleanup

    ---- understand that we want to start and finish in a reasonable time

    --- have some things we can make ahead when we do have time, but otherwise would fall into the 'I have nothing useful to do' trap and scroll, watch tv or bounce off the walls.   

    --- bring a book, computer app or project with you if you absolutely must bounce, bounce usefully, and in clear view of what you are 'actually doing'  Out of Sight out of Mind is a thing.  Keep things visible.

    ---- use a stable, easy to keep pantry instead of 'Where do I even get that?'

    ---- learn a basic set of skills that we don't have to look up every single time

    ---- adapt, use things multiple ways, learn to size recipes for your needs

    ----- not have so much of the 'wait 10 minutes' and 'in a separate bowl...'

    ---- but also understand how multitasking is our superpower

    ----- not have three paragraphs of history that distract from actually cooking

 

 

Buy the Food

Prep the Food

 

Know what you have (and where it is)

Know what is possible with it

Understand the basic qualities of ingredients

Know the basic skills about how to do it

Actually form good habits to use it

 

Chop, Cook, Eat, Clean

Repeat

 

Pat yourself on the back you made food

Learn more when you're excited

Have goto easy but healthy recipes for when you're tired

 

 Learn to use time when you have it

to help out when you don't

 

and think ahead - be your own best friend

know and observe your own habits

connect your past self and your future self 

to adapt to how things work for you

 

Encouragements: 

I Made That!  That was good.  

I should make that again.

I bought that and USED it.  

That had so many good ingredients in it.

I bought that from the local farmer and it was tasty. 

I will buy this food over the other because there are four ways I can use it.

Yes, talk to yourself, you're listening:

That was easy.

That was easier than last time.

I learned how to make that easier for me. 

I'm reminding myself right now how much easier this is now.

Next time : I will think, hey, let's do that, it was easy! 

Use the Now while you have it

I have five minutes while the coffee runs - that is enough to make a salad.

I have twenty minutes while the washing machine runs, that is enough to make rice.

I can make these two recipes in tandem during the same time and enjoy a really good dinner.

 

ADHD hacks:

I will buy that ingredient when I'm off work because:

 I left a bungee cord across my steering wheel

I can set that to simmering while I'm in the shower and remember it:

because I left my shoes right there 

I'm awake at four o'clock in the morning :

Why don't I prep the rice for fried rice tomorrow? 

 

PURCHASING takes time and effort, too, not to mention $. 

This is me investing time and the three dollars in the me that wants this later.

 

I'm standing at the grocery store - this has taken so LONG

I finally got all the things on this LIST

I want to just go HOME... let's skip the 'X',....

but if I buy the lettuce now,

I'll have it for that five minute salad.

I liked that five minute salad, and so did (other person).

So I'm taking two minutes now to go get the lettuce. 

and Future Me will thank this past me for doing this

by using the lettuce that this me is taking the time to buy.

(the road goes both ways)

 

I have some time and energy : what can I do to help Future Me?

I'm so glad I did that yesterday when I had time.

I'm so glad I did that while I had the energy.

I'm glad I did that between switching the laundry.

I'm so glad I've been growing that in the garden / on the porch.

I took all this time to grow and care for this - now I'm using it.

I remembered that without having to look it up!

I know this doesn't take as long as it feels like sometimes

Having to look everything up every time actually took more time than cooking it!

I cooked and cleaned up and it's all ready again for tomorrow. 

I didn't have to look all over for that pot, or it's lid before I started.

I'm not hung up on using that specific thing because I know lots of ways to do this.

Cooking is a 'chore' but you can work to dread it less.

I can look forward to making that dish tonight,

because I know all the things are there

Isn't it nice everything is all ready to go?