I cooked on Sunday. I used the stove. I mixed ingredients. I cleaned up after myself.
On the outside, it probably looked like it went OK, but on the inside, I was a nervous wreck.
If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know how I feel about cooking and the way my obsessive-compulsive disorder affects it.
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| Ingredients minus the pasta. |
On Sunday I fixed a simple pasta salad. I cooked the tri-color rotini and mixed it with kidney beans (rinsed), sliced black olives and broccoli flowerets. Then I mixed it all with balsamic vinaigrette and chilled it.
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| Boiling pasta. |
It was very easy to fix.
I managed to turn off the stove, but I did turn it back on and then off again to satisfy myself. So that needs work.
I didn’t ask my husband to double-check behind me, so that was a good point.
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| The finished product. |
I made an important discovery, too. What bothers me most about cooking is the cleaning up afterwards.
All during the preparation, I thought about the mess I was making and how hard it was going to be for me to clean it up.
It’s not that I made a huge mess. But after I used the electric can opener to open the can of beans, I had to carefully wipe around its edges. I didn’t see any food on the appliance, but I had to clean it to make sure I was getting rid of any invisible residue.
I was so thankful the can of sliced olives had a flip-up top. I love cans like that because I don’t have to use and then clean a can opener.
While I as cooking the pasta, the water ran over the rim of the pan a couple of times, so I had that to clean up.
And then I had to gauge whether or not I was cleaning every bit of counter that I worked on.
My anxiety level was probably at a 7 while I was cooking and cleaning. But afterwards, I felt relief and the anxiety lessened to about a 3, which for me right now is pretty good.
I clean much easier now than I used to before treatment, but I still worry that I’m missing something, and I know I perform a bit of overkill in wiping the counters.
It was all worth the effort, though, because my husband and I had a salad to enjoy, and I knew I had stepped in the right direction, towards cooking more.
And the salad tasted good.
Which do you enjoy the least, cooking or cleaning up afterwards? Do you have any easy pasta salad recipes or other salad recipes good for summer that you’d like to share?
