This Week's Menu

S: vegetarian lasagna
M: chicken stir fry
T: fresh pasta with pesto
W: burgers in brioche buns
T: risotto
F: salmon en croute
S: chicken in cider

ICNU?

A friend is working on her PhD in psychology. She has ADHD, and posts very interesting little snippets. 

 It's a common misconception that ADHA simply means hyper and/or being unable to focus, when a more accurate way to describe it would be not as an attention deficit, but as an executive function deficit.

... how this actually affects people is 'ICNU': Interest, Challenge, Novelty and Urgency. If something doesn't meet one of those four categories, someone with ADHD just isn't goig to be able to do it.

Let's use doing the dishes as an example.

Is it interesting? Not even slightly.

Challenging? Not really.

Novel? Nah.

Urgent? Not yet.

But once the person actually needs clean dishes, then it gets dones, because now it meets one of those four criteria. In that sense, putting things off until the very last second is essentially a coping mechanism for ADHA, rather than a symptom.

In the last year or two, I've thought about whether I might have Attention Deficient Disorder. After Mel's post resonated so strongly with me, I took three different tests, and they all said I might have a moderate level of ADHA. These were just internet tests, not conducted by a phycologist, but I was shocked. Then a whole string of things slotted into place. 

Over the years I've developed coping mechanisms, and avoidance techniques. Some are good, others well, quite awful. I'm going to look into better coping mechanisms, and learn how to better fit into a world that doesn't quite fit.

The first thing I have learned is I need to make unpleasant, undoable tasks fall into one of the four categories, Interest, Challenge, Novelty, and Urgent. One thing I have been trying to do recently is split tasks into much smaller chunks, and set mini-deadlines. This move them into 'Urgent'. 

Salmon and Edamame Bean Salad

 

This recipe is based on a recipe from The Fast 800 Recipe Book.

Ingredients (serves 2):

25g brown rice

75g edamame beans

2 salmon fillets (cooked)

1 tsp sesame seeds

2 large handfuls of spinach or mixed salad leaves

handful of sugar snap peas

1 medium carrot, coarsely grated

2 spring onions, finely slices

4 radished, trimmed and sliced

1 Tsp vinegarette dressing

Method:

Place the ingredients into a bowl, and drizzle the vinegarette over the top.

Notes:

Yesterday, I cooked extra portions of Sesame Salmon with Broccoli and Tomatoes, and used the salmon in this dish. There was a little broccol and some tomatoes left over. The broccoli was chopped into bite-sized chunks. These were also added to the salad.

I was about to say this was the first time I've had edamame beans, and comment on how similar they are to soya beans. Then I paused, had a quick Google, and read they are immature soya beans. What ever you call then, they are tasty.

Sesame Salmon with Broccoli and Tomatoes

Ingredients:

2 tsp olive oil

2 salmon fillets

6 spring onions, each cut into 3 pieces

12 cherry tomatoes

200g tender stem broccoli

2Tsp soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp sesame seeds

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Drizzle the olive oil on a large baking sheet, and place the salmon, spring onions and cherries onto the it. Cook for 8 minutes.

Add the broccoli to a pan of boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Then drain.

Add the broccoli to the baking sheet. Drizzle the soy sauce, and sesame oil over the fish. Scatter the sesame seeds. Bake for another 3 minutes.

Notes:

We didn't have sesame oil, therefore olive oil was substituted.

We had a tub of rice noodles to use up. The Beloved and the Offspring had noodles with their salmon.

Everyone said they would happily have this meal again.

This Week's Menu

 

Lunches:
S: smoked bacon salad
M: feta and melon salad
T: salmon and edamame bean salad
W: chicken salad
T: tuna salad
F: stilton and cranberry salad
S: (no idea yet!)

Dinners:
S: roast chicken with cauliflower cheese, and veggies
M: sesame salmon with broccoli and tomatoes
T: pecorino chicken
W: cheesy bacon butternut squash
T: hot chicken salad
F: stir fry cod with hoisin sauce
S: chicken breasts with lemon and garlic