…But I’ve got enough done to take a break, so instead I’m sticking some thoughts on here.

I just realized that the world needs two categories of “easy” recipes — or, rather, we need two separate categories: easy recipes and ADHD-friendly recipes.

Like most people with ADHD, I am very capable in many areas, and in what we’ll call my “areas of specialization*,” I’m even capable of long bouts of intensely-focused activity.

Cooking, however — although it interests me in a general sort of sense — is not one of my areas of specialization. It’s something I kinda like doing; something I’m happy to do if it’s not too complicated and I don’t have to take too many intermediate steps and I’m not feeling terribly compelled to do something else.

I can even learn complex recipes — if I’m in the right frame of mind and if the directions are designed well**.

On the whole, though, I prefer simple recipes — really simple ones. The fewer ingredients and steps, the better. I can follow really simple recipes even on those days when I’m sleep deprived and all the compensatory skills I’ve learned over the course of a lifetime coping with ADHD just fly right out the window.

As such, I think I’m going to add an ADHD-kitchen category here — one aimed at those of us wrestling (okay, and also sometimes riding) the giant squid that is adult ADHD and trying to do so without eating Hot Pockets for the rest of our natural lives.

It seems like the vast majority of recipe resources related to ADHD are geared towards parents who are trying to implement dietary treatments for their children with ADHD. That’s a fine thing, and I know a couple of people who have benefited from it — but it doesn’t really help those of us living with adult ADHD (and/or bipolar disorder, which can make cooking hard as well). Most of the “ADHD diets” are pretty complex.

I’ll be posting simple recipes and maybe a few pointers that have helped me to eat better and cook more meals at home.

For what it’s worth, the best tool I’ve discovered for living with ADHD is the creation of “paths of least resistance.” For me — because planning is a particular weakness of mine — this process can’t invole a lot of planning. I learn as I go, and I try to remember the things that work for me. If I try to design solutions, I over-complicate things; if I simply stand back (as it were) and observe what works, sometimes I hit on useful tactics that I can replicate.

I plan to write a bit about paths of least resistance as well — in short, how to identify ways to make things easier.

Admittedly, what works for me probably won’t work for every single ADHDer out there — but sharing my strategies helps me remember them, and if it helps anyone else, that’s icing on the cake.

Speaking of which, it’s about lunch time, so I’m going to go take a path of least resistance and throw some tuna salad onto some bread.

Notes
*In other words, my obsessions: ballet, bikes, dogs, horses, music, and designing buildings in Sims 2. Sometimes drawing, painting, and writing fall into this category; sometimes they don’t. Reading varies.
**For example: if a “step” in a recipe looks like a paragraph, it’s too long. Switching between tasks is difficult for me, so switching into deep reading-comprehension mode, then back to cooking mode, then back to deep reading-comprehension mode tends not to end well. Likewise, wall-o-text recipes totally send me straight to TL;DRLOLland. I should add the caveat that following written directions is a particular weakness for me; not all ADHDers are as bad as I am at it.