A couple of days ago a friend posted a comment about cooking for a freezer and how she doesn't have time and I may have word vomited on her about my process for doing so. In particular I was a bit evangelical about a product.
I will stress here that I am not paid anything for this blog and I don't do brand deals in part because no one has asked me to do brand deals but I probably wouldn't even if they did...but I would for this one and you'll see why.
Before we get to the product and why I word vomited at my friend about it lets back up and give you a bit of context.
When I was growing up I grew up associating kitchens and cooking with love, family and magic. My grandmothers and Mom were all great cooks and they passed on their knowledge while I took pleasure in learning. Measuring out ingredients, trying new things, experimenting...all these things made me happy and I loved to cook.
When I got married I brought my love of cooking into the marriage. My husband was and is a good cook himself and in the early days we occasionally fought over who got to cook. However, unbeknownst to me my days of cooking family meals were not to last very long.
When I was 14/15 I came down with a flu like illness. Sometime after that my parents got used to finding me asleep on the couch before school (fully dressed and ready but somehow falling asleep every few minutes), and again finding me asleep on the couch when they got home from work.
My energy seemed to be going down and I fought to stay awake in classes and struggled with forgetting words. My parents were concerned and my Mom took me to the doctor a few times to get my thyroid tested but it was always fine.
I kept getting sick. Each time I got sick it seemed to last longer and lay me out harder. I fought on and got through it mostly.
By the time I got married and moved to England other symptoms were happening. I complained about constant pain in all my joints, but especially my hands. It felt like my hands were swollen when they weren't and so painful I couldn't close my hands. I often felt dizzy and the cognitive issues I had had before became worse. My husband talked me into seeing the doctor and after many tests and seeing a rheumatologist it was determined I had Fibromyaliga.
During this time and the years that followed I became less and less independent. I struggled to take the bus, to carry things, to walk very far. I had to start using a cane to walk any significant distance, in some places I have had to borrow motorized scooters and recently, thanks to the generosity of a friend, I have had to have a wheelchair for when it gets really bad. It is also acknowledged by all the doctors involved in my treatment that I will never be able to hold down a job again despite the government not agreeing with that assessment.
Though every loss of independence has been a blow the hardest came early on. I could no longer cook.
Oh sure I could heat things up on the stove but chopping vegetables was painful, and anything that required me to stand for more than a few minutes was too much for me to handle. Pans and pots were too heavy and sometimes even holding crockery was enough to bring tears to my eyes from the stabbing pain in my hands.
It was devastating.
It didn't help that I had also struggled my entire life with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. The loss of my independence and my coming to terms with being disabled exacerbated my mental illness which in turn prevented me eating well through apathy.
After the birth of my son I got treatment for my mental health which improved considerably and I got better treatment for my fibromyalgia which meant that while my symptoms didn't necessarily improve I was better able to manage them.
I still couldn't cook though.
Until....I saw a product at the local supermarket that looked handy. It was a plastic jug with a clip on lid that had a vent on the top you could open an close with a click. It was microwave and freezer safe and I thought it would be handy so I picked it up.
Turns out I was wrong; it wasn't handy.
It was a life changer.
I ended up buying more (and I think we have about six or seven now) because combine this with pre chopped frozen vegetables and tinned beans and tinned tomatoes and suddenly I was able to cook. I was able to cook healthy food for myself and freeze it in portions that I could handle in a container that made it easy for me.
All I had to was throw the vegetables, tinned beans, tinned tomatoes and some spices and vegetable stock (made from a low sodium vegetable stock cube) into one huge pot, bring to a boil and let simmer for at least an hour stirring occasionally and BAM! I had a tasty healthy soup/stew depending on how much stock I used. But it was the microwave pots that made the biggest difference.
In the past if we froze something it was either in bags or in microwave dishes that didn't have handles. This created a problem for me. Transferring things into heavy bowls using hot pads meant I more often than not just made do with a sandwich or nothing at all. I'm clumsy at the best of times but when my fibromyalgia flares it's worse than usual. Also normal freezing/reheating creates a lot of washing up that I often physically could not do. The pots changed that. With them all I had to do was stick it straight into the microwave, heat, take off the top and eat. Leaving me with very little washing up, usually just the mug and spoon and sometimes not even the spoon. Suddenly I had a lot more independence and my self esteem improved so much. Even if I don't have anything frozen I can still use them to heat up a tin of soup. It means I'm not as dependent on my husband to help me with food and in turn that has notched my self esteem right up.
I can't cook like I used to or want to. I never will be able to make complete meals for my family, at least not very often...but I can cook something and I have a bit of my independence back and it's because of something so small and stupid and inconsequential as a microwave soup mug.
Learning to live with chronic pain has taught me to value the little pieces of our lives that we take for granted. There are many things I would love to be able to do again. Dance, run, go for long walks, work, cook a family meal every night...but I can't...and I won't be able to do any of these things again really but anything that gives me a piece back...just a small taste of what I had....that's gold, that's freedom, that's happiness.
If anyone who has chronic pain thinks they would find this useful you can find the product here the brand is Sistema but I know Tesco do their own version for cheaper but I don't know how good they because I haven't tried them myself.
I will stress here that I am not paid anything for this blog and I don't do brand deals in part because no one has asked me to do brand deals but I probably wouldn't even if they did...but I would for this one and you'll see why.
Before we get to the product and why I word vomited at my friend about it lets back up and give you a bit of context.
When I was growing up I grew up associating kitchens and cooking with love, family and magic. My grandmothers and Mom were all great cooks and they passed on their knowledge while I took pleasure in learning. Measuring out ingredients, trying new things, experimenting...all these things made me happy and I loved to cook.
When I got married I brought my love of cooking into the marriage. My husband was and is a good cook himself and in the early days we occasionally fought over who got to cook. However, unbeknownst to me my days of cooking family meals were not to last very long.
When I was 14/15 I came down with a flu like illness. Sometime after that my parents got used to finding me asleep on the couch before school (fully dressed and ready but somehow falling asleep every few minutes), and again finding me asleep on the couch when they got home from work.
My energy seemed to be going down and I fought to stay awake in classes and struggled with forgetting words. My parents were concerned and my Mom took me to the doctor a few times to get my thyroid tested but it was always fine.
I kept getting sick. Each time I got sick it seemed to last longer and lay me out harder. I fought on and got through it mostly.
By the time I got married and moved to England other symptoms were happening. I complained about constant pain in all my joints, but especially my hands. It felt like my hands were swollen when they weren't and so painful I couldn't close my hands. I often felt dizzy and the cognitive issues I had had before became worse. My husband talked me into seeing the doctor and after many tests and seeing a rheumatologist it was determined I had Fibromyaliga.
During this time and the years that followed I became less and less independent. I struggled to take the bus, to carry things, to walk very far. I had to start using a cane to walk any significant distance, in some places I have had to borrow motorized scooters and recently, thanks to the generosity of a friend, I have had to have a wheelchair for when it gets really bad. It is also acknowledged by all the doctors involved in my treatment that I will never be able to hold down a job again despite the government not agreeing with that assessment.
Though every loss of independence has been a blow the hardest came early on. I could no longer cook.
Oh sure I could heat things up on the stove but chopping vegetables was painful, and anything that required me to stand for more than a few minutes was too much for me to handle. Pans and pots were too heavy and sometimes even holding crockery was enough to bring tears to my eyes from the stabbing pain in my hands.
It was devastating.
It didn't help that I had also struggled my entire life with Chronic Depression and Anxiety. The loss of my independence and my coming to terms with being disabled exacerbated my mental illness which in turn prevented me eating well through apathy.
After the birth of my son I got treatment for my mental health which improved considerably and I got better treatment for my fibromyalgia which meant that while my symptoms didn't necessarily improve I was better able to manage them.
I still couldn't cook though.
Until....I saw a product at the local supermarket that looked handy. It was a plastic jug with a clip on lid that had a vent on the top you could open an close with a click. It was microwave and freezer safe and I thought it would be handy so I picked it up.
Turns out I was wrong; it wasn't handy.
It was a life changer.
I ended up buying more (and I think we have about six or seven now) because combine this with pre chopped frozen vegetables and tinned beans and tinned tomatoes and suddenly I was able to cook. I was able to cook healthy food for myself and freeze it in portions that I could handle in a container that made it easy for me.
All I had to was throw the vegetables, tinned beans, tinned tomatoes and some spices and vegetable stock (made from a low sodium vegetable stock cube) into one huge pot, bring to a boil and let simmer for at least an hour stirring occasionally and BAM! I had a tasty healthy soup/stew depending on how much stock I used. But it was the microwave pots that made the biggest difference.
In the past if we froze something it was either in bags or in microwave dishes that didn't have handles. This created a problem for me. Transferring things into heavy bowls using hot pads meant I more often than not just made do with a sandwich or nothing at all. I'm clumsy at the best of times but when my fibromyalgia flares it's worse than usual. Also normal freezing/reheating creates a lot of washing up that I often physically could not do. The pots changed that. With them all I had to do was stick it straight into the microwave, heat, take off the top and eat. Leaving me with very little washing up, usually just the mug and spoon and sometimes not even the spoon. Suddenly I had a lot more independence and my self esteem improved so much. Even if I don't have anything frozen I can still use them to heat up a tin of soup. It means I'm not as dependent on my husband to help me with food and in turn that has notched my self esteem right up.
I can't cook like I used to or want to. I never will be able to make complete meals for my family, at least not very often...but I can cook something and I have a bit of my independence back and it's because of something so small and stupid and inconsequential as a microwave soup mug.
Learning to live with chronic pain has taught me to value the little pieces of our lives that we take for granted. There are many things I would love to be able to do again. Dance, run, go for long walks, work, cook a family meal every night...but I can't...and I won't be able to do any of these things again really but anything that gives me a piece back...just a small taste of what I had....that's gold, that's freedom, that's happiness.
If anyone who has chronic pain thinks they would find this useful you can find the product here the brand is Sistema but I know Tesco do their own version for cheaper but I don't know how good they because I haven't tried them myself.
