The Kiwi Mental Kitchen

What a roller coaster life has been over the last few months. My health got progressively worse for a while then and my household went into coping mode. Dinners became simple and sometimes even straight from a "gasp" packet but we did what was needed to get through the day to day. It has been nearly a month since they finally got my medications right again and I'm still working my way though destressing from it all. As such, I still have limited amounts of energy for cooking but I am starting to make the basic things more interesting again. In some ways, I'm turning into my mother when it comes to cooking. I now understand why she served us mixed frozen vegetables so often growing up. They are quick, easy and rather cheap, though I must admit they are nicer boiled than microwaved. Much cheaper than buying fresh veg and not getting around to cooking it, which was a common occurrence in the coping mode we have been in. I never really liked them growing up and to be h...

So in my 1-month update, I commented that my meds were being put up. One of the side effects of this is sedation, it is meant to get better as time goes on but because we uped the dose again before the sedation wore off I have had nearly 2 months now struggling not to sleep my days away. Over this time I have been doing a lot better at cooking for us most nights but I have fallen back into old habits about what we are eating. So it's time for me to go back to the 10 rules . I have sat down tonight and written up a meal plan for the rest of the month as I was finding it too easy to forget to do the weekly plan and then muddle on through, but when I do this I tend to forget about the greater variety and increasing seafood. I have also decided to theme the nights of the week to make it a bit easier to plan so I have made a vegetarian night so that we eat more plants, a seafood night for similar reasons, a slow cooker night for when I'm out in the afternoon, a new dish night so t...

Sorry, there's been so little content from me lately my mental health hasn't been the best so there have been some med. changes and with med. changes come side effects. This has meant I haven't been spending quite enough time in the kitchen and that for the last we while I've slipped back into old habits but today I'm doing a bit better so today we are eating a bit better! My husband has been a great support through this time but he works 12-14 hour days with a one hour commute each way so he's definitely not up to cooking if I'm struggling. Also as a warning the total cook time on this pie is over 4 hours so make sure to start your prep early enough. Chicken and Pumpkin Pie Serves 3-4 500g pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1cm chunks 1 apple, peeled and sliced oil for frying 1kg boneless pork shoulder 50g butter (or ¼ cup oil) 1 large onion, chopped 6 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped or 6tsp of the precrushed 1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme le...

Hi I'm Sarah and I've had a rough 7 or so years, on and off, with my mental health. Over these 7 years I have been both on and off medications as my doctor and I were working out what was going to work for me. Whatever a doctor and patient decide I feel nutrition can be complimentary. During this time I have picked up tidbits here and there about how food and nutrition can impact mental health but I have never really been able to synthesize it together into some sort of plan. I recently stumbled upon The Happy Kitchen  by Rachel Kelly with Alice Mackintosh, thanks to an interview Rachel did with the BBC that got played on Radio New Zealand National . I have found this book to be a great synthesis of the research I had come across to date as well as a few new things as well. While this book has a great collection of recipes and is a great starting point for nutrition based around helping mental health, some ingredients are hard to get here or they are beyond my family budget. Th...