Today feels like a good day for a quick bread or a sweet loaf. Not something ornate, but some sort of sweet affirmation in the midst of bleak winter. Something that's good with a hot cup of tea.

I'm making an orange yogurt loaf with some cardamom and ginger added. I've never made it before, and I adapted the recipe from a regular gluten based one. I'll post the recipe later if it turns out well.

I really like quick breads because they take me about 10-15 minutes to prep and then I can have a rest while they bake. Do you have a favourite quick bake you like to make?

#ouchThatsTasty #mecfs #winterBlahs #longCovid #food #Foodiverse

That feeling where you finally know your stove well enough to make hashbrowns well again. #ouchThatsTasty #food #breakfast #stoveLife

Looking for ways to use your holiday leftovers? That last bit of eggnog makes really tasty french toast, just swap it out for the milk and add a touch of cinnamon and nutmeg. Follow #ouchThatsTasty for more quick food tips. #longCovid #mecfs #Foodiverse

Random holiday breakfast. I was watching a Georgian travel show and craving #khachapuri but also croqueMonsieur. In a frenzy, I made this for brunch. It definitely hit the spot.

Making anything good?

#ouchThatsTasty #foodieVerse #joinIn #happyHolidays

Baking a weird hashbrown casserole for breakfast because I was always jealous of kids who had parents who made things like breakfast and casseroles, especially at Christmas.

#food #ouchThatsTasty #noRecipe #justHashbrownAndSourCreamAndStuff

#HappyHollandaise ! We had a bunch of beautiful leftover roast potatoes from solstice dinner and some extra yorkies, so I made a nice brunch to celebrate @yonabee 's first day off for the holidays. Have you ever made hollandaise before?

A few tips:

1. It's easier than you think.

2. If you are worried about it
separating, you can add a tiny bit of cream or milk after you've made it to help stabilize it for holding. (Milk solids for the win)

3. Slow and low, that is the tempo.

4. Add butter to eggs and your sauce will have legs, but eggs to butter and your sauce will surely sputter.

5. If you want to make bennies for a crowd, you can hold your holly at a safe temp in a thermos for quite some time. (This is how I survived the tradition of bennies every Sunday with the coast guard, as with a crew of 13 we had no kitchen staff and it was just me, myself and I running the show.)

Fun things to add:

A dash of hot sauce or a dab of miso and some garlic while you melt the butter.

Tarragon and finely minced shallot (oh wow, you just made béarnaise!)

Lime instead of lemon, or any other tart citrus for that matter. Lime is great with a mango bacon Benny. Grapefruit is amazing with a garlic shrimp one!

#ouchThatsTasty #cooksOfMastodon #happyHolidays #brunch

I'm making Jager schnitzel, but also craving my grandmother's mushroom pork chops. So I'm probably making some kind of weird mash up Jaegergrandma schnitzel. Did you know king oyster mushrooms also make an awesome veggie schnitzel? #ouchThatsTasty

It's a great time for brothy soups. Helpful for staying hydrated when it's cold out. Adding a little miso can add a nice boost of B12.

It's a great time for vitamin C too. Cranberries and oranges are great in holiday treats and there's always a good reason to stop for a mandarin orange break.

Small moments of peace. Taking time to make sure you are warm enough.

Vitamin D. Sun on your face when you can get it.

I'm not a nutritionist, but these are things that help me, and I hope they will help you too.

#mecfs #longCovid #winterSurvival

Follow #ouchThatsTasty for recipes and #foodieTips

Right now is a great time for brothy soups. Throw some miso in for great B12 boost.

Cranberries and oranges are packed with vitamin C. Throw them into a holiday treat or stop for a mandarin orange break.

Little things can make big differences. Vitamin D. A couple hours in the sunlight. Finding some quiet peace.

I'm not a nutritionist or a dietician. These are just things that seem to help me.

#mecfs #longCovid #survivingWinter #ouchThatsTasty for #recipes and #foodieTips

I have really minimal energy with the #mecfs these days, but I started some #Yulebaking yesterday to try to slowly have some things to make the holiday season more enjoyable.

Biscotti is a really great thing to bake well in advance because it only gets better with age and doesn't require freezing or fridge space.

One of my go to recipes is Chef John's #gingerbreadBiscotti recipe. I made this last year and will likely have it on my list for the next 20 years.

It subs great with cup for cup gluten free flour or if you don't need to keep them for months, half almond flour/half gf. It would veganize really well with an egg sub and some vegan margarine.

Don't skip oiling your knife to chop the ginger. It helps so much. I have a fair bit of joint pain in my hands and the chopping is a lot, but you could also use kitchen shears or a food processor to pulse the ginger a bit. Just wipe the blades with a little oil before hand.

I think this is a great recipe for #chronicFatigue because you can pace your way through each step. I made this over the course of a day in small 15 minute increments because the steps really break down well that way. And I didn't ice mine with the white chocolate yet. I will store them for a few weeks and then pipe the chocolate when I have a little energy.

Do you have any easy holiday recipes that are good for low energy? Lemme know! The more we share, the better we eat! #longCovid #food #recipes #chefJohn #ouchThatsTasty
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/282544/chef-johns-gingerbread-biscotti/

I have really minimal energy with the #mecfs these days, but I started some #Yulebaking yesterday to try to slowly have some things to make the holiday season more enjoyable.

Biscotti is a really great thing to bake well in advance because it only gets better with age and doesn't require freezing or fridge space.

One of my go to recipes is Chef John's #gingerbreadBiscotti recipe. I made this last year and will likely have it on my list for the next 20 years.

It subs great with cup for cup gluten free flour or if you don't need to keep them for months, half almond flour/half gf. It would veganize really well with an egg sub and some vegan margarine.

Don't skip oiling your knife to chop the ginger. It helps so much. I have a fair bit of joint pain in my hands and the chopping is a lot, but you could also use kitchen shears or a food processor to pulse the ginger a bit. Just wipe the blades with a little oil before hand.

I think this is a great recipe for #chronicFatigue because you can pace your way through each step. I made this over the course of a day in small 15 minute increments because the steps really break down well that way. And I didn't ice mine with the white chocolate yet. I will store them for a few weeks and then pipe the chocolate when I have a little energy.

Do you have any easy holiday recipes that are good for low energy? Lemme know! The more we share, the better we eat! #longCovid #food #recipes #chefJohn #ouchThatsTasty
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/282544/chef-johns-gingerbread-biscotti/

Post flu shot & feeling like crap, I made one of my favourite #lowSpoonMeals on Monday. I love homemade #latkes even more than I love Scottish potato pancakes (please don't tell my long departed grandmother). Grating potatoes and squeezing them out and frying them up feels like a huge amount of work when I'm having a flare. This is my lazy solution to get the flavours I want and seemed seasonally appropriate as well.

Lazy Almost Latkes

Premade hash brown patties (I like them in the air fryer best because I set a button and forget about it, but you do you. A toaster oven is a great one too.) Make sure your hash brown patties don't contain tallow if you are kosher or veg, they occasionally do.

I top them one of two ways...

1. Lox, sour cream, capers and red onion.

I sometimes mix everything but the lox all together with a little garlic, lemon, salt and pepper if I'm feeling the energy. You can also use candied salmon or hot smoked salmon if you can't get lox. It's still tasty!

2. Sour cream and apple butter or apple sauce.

The whole thing usually takes about 10-12 minutes to pull together.

I hope this is a low spoon #recipe you can add for your bad days too. Just because you are tired, doesn't mean you can't eat nice things. We deserve good eats as much as the next person. Sometimes it just needs to get creative. Follow all my recipes and tips with #ouchThatsTasty

#mecfs #longCovid #postCovid #cooking #easyRecipes

So my partner has pointed out that a lot of the cooking skills I have to share and help others with are things that I barely consider, so today I'm going to talk about my absolute rule number one for cooking.

1. Always start with an empty dishwasher or an empty dish rack and sink.

Ah yes... the groan. But seriously, following this rule will increase your enjoyment of cooking by stratospheres.

When I cooked for the Canadian coast guard I was often working on an MSV which is a tiny, tiny ship - think above water submarine cramped. I once brought a friend to tour the ship and she immediately had a panic attack from the sheer claustrophobia of it.

Cooking for a crew of 13 in a space the size of a walk-in closet was a lot like playing cooking Tetris while surfing with hot liquids. The key to it was flow though, and that applies to all cooking.

I have #ADHD and I struggle with #doomPiles as much as the next person, but I have a serious flow etiquette that I try to follow with my cooking and it starts with this rule. If the place for the dirty dishes is empty, you have a place for the dirty dishes. It's a fact!

Which leads me to my second rule...

2. Incorporate cleaning into your cooking!

Are you finished with that spoon? Put it in your empty dishwasher or quickly wash it and place it in your dishrack; at the very least give anything sticky a quick rinse if you have to let it sit for a bit.

Did you spill something on the counter? Have a cleaning rag ready to go and wipe it up as it happens. You will save yourself the extra time of trying to scrape it off the counter when it dries there and you aren't going to accidentally smear it everywhere else when you put a bowl on top of it and them move it around.

I struggle pretty hard with moderate #MECFS these days, but these are still rules I follow as often as I can because my functional time is really limited and I don't want to make more work for myself. I guard my spoons and this actually helps.

There are days when I really can't, but even on rough days I'd rather take some time to clean my kitchen and then eat toast because it means things will be easier the next time I cook.

If you have a partner or a roommate it may be something you can incorporate into your routine. Maybe they can clean so you can jump in on cooking or vice versa. All I can say is an empty space to put the dirty dishes with change your life.

So throw some good tunes on and make your life easier by emptying that dish rack or dishwasher. It's a serious level up on cooking points. #chronicPain #cookingSkills #food #chronicIllness #ouchThatsTasty

I'm having a bad day for #fatigue and #brainFog, but I managed to do a load of laundry AND remembered to dry it and threw these #HoneyAlmondBars together as the snow is bombarding us here.

I would call this a #2Spoons #bake for me, but it may be more spoons if you are fairly green in the kitchen.

I made this #glutenFree by adding a little more almond flour (closer to 3/4 cup) and subbing 1/2 gf flour for the 3/4 cup ap flour. These smell amazing.

You could easily make these vegan by swapping out vegan margarine for the butter and agave syrup for the honey and skipping the added richness of the egg yolk in the crust.

Don't worry if you don't have a food processor or pastry cutter either. I cut up my butter in small pieces and kneaded it into the flour with my hands and it works just fine because it's a essentially a short crust.

Also, don't skip the foil or swap it out for parchment. These are sticky and you run the risk of setting parchment paper on fire in a 400F oven.

And I will say, zesting an orange always puts me in a better mood for some reason. I hope you have the spoons and funds to try this recipe out sometime, but if not, know that I will always be posting more and more budget friendly ones when I can.

Did you do anything today that made your #chronicPain a little easier?

#ouchThatsTasty #meCFS #cooking #longCovid #recipes

https://www.davidlebovitz.com/caramelized-almond-honey-squares-recipe/

Hey, I'm Devo. I build small worlds when I have time. This is the alt account to my main account. @devoincognito and should feature a bunch of my creative work. I'm a #neurodiverse #nonBinary, #agender designer with #MEcfs, a sewist and a former ship's cook. I share #recipes and #foodtips on my other account. (#ouchThatsTasty) Living in the PNW with my beautiful partner @yonabee and growing into myself a little more each day. Nice to meet you!