Review: Rachel Ray Cook's Rocker Knife

In one of earlier posts, I talked about my plan to try out the Rachel Ray Cook's Rocker Knife .

I thought it might work for me since I sometimes am able to use rocker knives with my disability.  Unfortunately, it's not going to cut it for me as it doesn't accommodate my needs, but it really is a great knife at a reasonable price.  My aides love it.  It's sharp, heavy enough to cut through thick items such as heads of cabbage and light enough for chopping and dicing with little effort. 

One of my aides used it to slice a tomato in tiny precise slices that reminded me of those TV knife commercials. It was pretty impressive.

I'll probably wind up getting a specially adapted knife eventually from quadtools.com  . In the meantime, I'll just ask my aides to cut up food or toss items into my Ninja Master Prep , which does a great job of anything from chopping to dicing to pulverizing.  Because of its shape, it's easy even without hand movement to press down on it to use it and the fact that it performs best with short pulses makes it perfect for me since I can rest in between. 

Anyway I'll be back with  more cooking adventures later this week. 

Chicken a la Quad in the Crock pot

The other night I was looking for a hearty mid-winter meal in anticipation of the blizzard of 2013.  I always have to plan cooking in stages, since I need physical assistance to prepare parts of the meal.  Depending on who's working, I have to figure out who will cut up food, who will help me clean up, etc. etc. so as you can imagine it takes some creativity and resourcefulness!  But with the right spirit, it can be a challenge that sparks my innermost creative juices (not to be mixed with other kinds of juices).

Fortunately, someone who stopped by was willing to cut up onions and potatoes, so I had them do that and leave those items on a plate in the frig.  Once I had that done, I was halfway home so I yanked out the frozen boneless chicken breasts to defrost.

 My next challenge was to get the can of cream of mushroom soup and peas open. I was able to manage that with the help of a delivery man who happened to stop by.   Trust me, this not only is a useful way to get items open if you're a quadriplegic but can lead to meeting some cute guys.

Once the frozen chicken breasts were defrosted, I tossed them in the bottom of a crock pot, covered them with the onions and potatoes, then added the can of soup and peas along with a bit of pepper. This requires a willingness to worth with gravity because my arms won't reach up very high. I find that putting the crock pot on as low a surface as possible and dumping everything in works best.  

 I turned the crock pot on HIGH for four hours...and voila!

 It was a delicious meal - the chicken was juicy and pulled apart, requiring no cutting.  The potatoes and peas went well together too. 

Just remember when you're cooking with a disability, the following tips can make the difference between being able to do it - or not:

1)  Delegate what you can't physically do - and plan your starting cook time accordingly;

2) Keep it simple!  Use canned ingredients and recipes with as few ingredients as possible; and

3) Keep it safe - do not handle sharp or hot objects in ways where you might be injured - only you know your physical limits so go ahead and experiment to find safe ways to do what you can.

   

Fibromyalgia Work-Around: Chopping With Scissors

Fibromyalgia flare-ups take many forms, which is why I keep my kitchen stocked with a variety of food prep tools. Truth to tell, I collected kitchen gadgets long before getting flattened by fibro. I enter into a blissful altered state in the presence of this stuff. Yes, I'm that person blocking your way at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Over the years with fibro, I've discovered that I need tools for when I have strength, tools for when I don't. These days I rely on kitchen scissors/shears because they seem to work well under both circumstances.

I actually started using kitchen scissors during my time as Ruth's aide. She needed food cut up into bite-sized pieces that she could easily grab with her knuckles. I soon discovered that cutting up food before and after cooking was also a lot easier on me.

Please do take a moment to contemplate the kitchen scene when one person has quadriplegia and the other has fibromyalgia. Lots of dropping, spilling, and laughing, that's for sure. Moving right along . . .

If you cannot grip anything or doing so hurts, feel free to stop reading. If you can manage a light grip, consider using kitchen scissors along with or even instead of knives.

Good kitchen shears will last for years and, depending on what you cut up, will not need sharpening for quite a while. I use mine to cut raw and cooked meat and poultry, as well as salad greens, making sure to wash the shears in hot soapy water in between food types. God knows I do not need to add puking from food contamination to my list of Things To Do.

What about using regular office scissors? I tried and quickly rejected that option because they weren't sharp enough and, more importantly, the smaller finger holes made my hand cramp.

Large finger openings
reduce the need to grip 

Not too clenched, right?

Become One With Your Kitchen: Accessible Bling

Some of the most useful items that provide access to me aren't marketed for disabled people.

Such is the case with the Koku All in One Cutting Board I just received. I needed a cutting board since my old one is no longer sanitary. I wasn't looking for anything fancy, but while on Amazon I saw this one with a few extra features that seemed perfect for my needs - pull out measuring drawers on the sides, as well as a lip to catch juices,  a raised surface I could rest on my lap that gave me additional height options, and - underneath the cutting board - a built in grater.

Here's why this cutting board is more accessible for me - whenever I manage to cut something up, it's difficult enough without having to figure out how to get the item off the board with limited dexterity.  I can now scoop everything into the pull out side drawers - and  measure the items as I go. Since the drawers are removable and much lighter than a cutting board, it's easier for me to figure out a way to empty the contents into my crock pot too, thus solving two problems at once.

I'm still experimenting with knives for quadriplegics which are very expensive, so I am starting with ones that might work which are less expensive. More on that later, but this Rachel Ray rocker knife is in the running.

This is the knife I really want to get eventually, made by quadtools and demonstrated by Chris in this video:

Ah yes grasshopper becoming one with my kitchen will take time!

The Last Supper

How I go about training aides to assist me in the kitchen varies depending on the person I hire. Sometimes people know how to cook and other times they know nothing at all. If they’re willing to learn, this really isn’t an issue as long as we find a way to make it a pleasant and fun experience.

Recently I hired a young lady who decided to move to Hawaii a few weeks after taking the job. During the time we had, she learned how to cook in a crockpot. We made a number of recipes, starting out with dishes as simple as that of cabbage and low-fat kielbasa .

On her last day, however, I decided that it was appropriate for her to make the entire crockpot dish, i.e. The Last Supper,  on her own. I had frozen a Santa Fe black bean dish with corn and diced tomatoes into a container a few weeks before so I pulled that out for her to use as a base ingredient. To that she added two boneless chicken breasts,  one half cut up green pepper, one whole cut up red pepper, a quarter of the package of taco mix, and a half of a medium-sized onion cut up.

She placed the chicken at the bottom of the crockpot and layered the other ingredients around it. The base provided adequate liquid and she chose a few spices to add-ground pepper and garlic powder. She then cooked it on high for 3 ½ hours.

The dish came out very tasty and looking spectacular.  The chicken was tender and required no cutting. It just pulled apart in pieces. Speaking of which, if the peppers and other ingredients are cut into reasonably sized pieces, this is the kind of dish which gives those of us with dexterity concerns some independence in eating since it doesn’t require cutting up when served. I like to build that factor into recipes as often as possible, since I don’t have aides around most of the time.

It was really a satisfying experience to be able to teach someone how to make simple, affordable meals in a crockpot. Before she left, I declared that my aide was now ready to get her own crockpot and figure out some delicious recipes of her own. I hope she stops by this blog to visit .  Aloha!

Cooking under the influence . . . of fibromyalgia

I was raised by foodies before anyone bothered using that term. Decades ago, people who cooked anything more elaborate than mac-n-cheese or beanie-weenie were often considered "gourmet" cooks. No one used the word "chef."

My mother did, in fact, own and prepare meals from The Gourmet Cookbook; collected recipes from newspapers and magazines; was a cookbook copy editor for a while. My father was a terrific short-order cook whose sandwiches, salads, and omelets were awesome before anyone applied that term to everything.

Try cooking with this going on!

I learned how to cook early and well from both parents. Food prep, cooking, and even kitchen clean-up was always my happy place. It still is...except when it isn't.  And it isn't when I'm feeling core-level exhausted.

Core-level exhaustion comes with fibromyalgia. So does dropping things and spilling stuff. Brain fog. Under these conditions the kitchen can become a dangerous place.

Fibromyalgia is a crazy-ass condition and I got my diagnosis in 1986 before it was called fibromyalgia. You can read my fibromyalgia story on More Meredith Gould. Come back here to read more about how, after decades of denial, I'm finally getting around to dealing with it, especially in the kitchen.

Setting up la frig

If you're in a wheelchair like I am, planning how to set things up is important. It's also important if you want to conserve energy or be efficient - so although the way you set things up may vary, all of us could benefit from thinking about this.

I have a side by side refrigerator - the picture shows the refrigerator side.  On the top shelf which I can't reach we put water bottles and soda.  On the second shelf which I can reach with a quad reacher, we put prepared meals/sandwiches that are covered with foil (which I can remove myself). The foil gets tucked under tightly so that if my reacher wobbles the food stays mostly on the plate.

The third shelf down is saved for food prep items I might need to reach, such as meat, tuna fish, smoothie ingredients, cut up meal prep items, etc.  Cut up snacks (i.e. fruit, dips) are also kept on the bottom shelf where we also put yogurt, which we peel open so I can easily get at it.  The bin at the bottom holds fruits and veggies that aren't cut up yet. 

On the side door we keep water bottles with the caps loosened for me, condiments in plastic squeeze bottles and other items that are heavy and difficult for me to get out with a reacher. 

To work for me, this system requires that the refrigerator be arranged where items aren't 'buried' - in other words, I don't want things stacked on top of each other.  That makes it hard to pull it out. 

I'll explain more later about how some of these ingredients are used frequently by me - and variations on what I keep in my frig depending on the food I'm making!