Autism and Cooking

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I usually don't mind cooking but this month I got lazy and decided to take a break from it. When I went shopping at the beginning of the month I bought only frozen foods. Now all I have to do is heat them in my oven. I don't have a microwave.

I cook professionally and bake a ton at home during fall and winter. It's a massive stress reliever.

Cooking and baking are two of my favorite hobbies. I heart food and love making it for my own and others...and I've been told I'm a good food-maker.

My ability to hyperfocus comes into it's own, when I'm cooking. I actually feel like I go into the zone. I seem to have an ability to prepare a meal in a very short time, as I organise all the aspects of it, doing the things that will take longer first and leaving the other stuff for the time when other people might be hanging around waiting for things to get ready. I do this without having to think too hard, it just comes naturally.

E.g. I made a mushroom & sweetcorn omelette for dinner last night, with 1/2 baked potato and salad. Firstly, I cleaned and chopped the mushrooms and started to cook them. While they were cooking, I scrubbed the potato and put it in the microwave (yes I cheat and use the microwave for baked potatoes). Then, I whisked the eggs and added the sweetcorn, washed and prepared the salad and laid it out on the plates. After that, there's not much more to do - mushrooms are put in a bowl, grill is put on, egg/sweetcorn in the pan, mushroom scattered over the mix, leaving a bit free of mushrooms for my daughter, a sprinkle of tamari, a few minutes later, it's under the grill (I don't turn my omelettes, I do them Spanish style). Meanwhile, the potato has been cooked and is still hot, as they take ages to cool, so it's fine to leave them for a few minutes and not worry about them. This took me no more than 10 mins. Dinner was good.

I don't enjoy cooking at all. I prefer simple dishes.

I'm not great at cooking, although my family and the few friends I cook for say I am. I mean I can throw a pre-made recipe together, but to get creative and make a recipe my own and be successful in making a great recipe is much harder to do. I find as I make more pre-made recipes and get a taste for all of the combinations of food, seasonings, marinades, and cooking methods I am getting better at being creative though.

Just last night I tried something odd, at least in America, it was late and I wasn't in the mood for anything in the kitchen... But I had a 4th generation of mealworms getting to the adult size required to pupate... Perfect size for frying! Yeah, most people would be creeped out by the mere thought of eating bugs, but everyone eats bugs in some way, bugs are everywhere, even non bug food:) So I took out about 50 adult mealworms, blanched them and marinated them in some soy sauce for awhile. I used a strainer to drain the soy sauce out and threw the worms in a hot pan with a little bacon grease and several chopped pieces of garlic and chili pepper. I've never made mealworms with all of these ingredients before. Let me tell you, it was better than almost everything I've eaten in the past month! The texture was just slightly crunchy like bacon, and the taste was also like bacon but a bit saltier due to the soy sauce. The mealworms also had hints of peanut (mealworms usually taste nutty by nature), and a bit sweet and spicy from everything else. Just talking about it, makes me hungry.

Hope I didn't gross anyone out.

I'll say that if you have autism and are able to cook, then you should consider yourself lucky. I can barely cook anything and it always turns out a mess.

I'm not great at cooking. Multitasking is not my strong suit, and if I don't have exactly what I need in the kitchen I get very stressed out. Last week when visiting my family I was making lasagna, but my mom bought regular noodles instead of oven ready noodles and I got so upset I had to go into my room and cry. Luckily it turned out fine, and within like 15 minutes I realized how silly I was being, but at the time I was really upset!

I really struggle with cooking as not only do I have issues with the textures of food, I can't seem to get all the timings right or can pay attention to several different things at once.

Quite often if I have to cook I'll have the potatoes at a totally different time to the meat so I don't have to concentrate on cooking both. It doesn't bother me but it seems quite wierd to others.