Student Dietitians developing some easy to follow recipes for adults with autism/ASD. Feedback wanted!

Thankyou for your comments - really useful. Zoe 

Great thread, I'd find this useful. Others have already made great suggestions about keeping instructions short and simple etc. For me:

Have a separate ingredients (and quantities) list, don't make me hunt through the recipe to find them

Must have a picture so I've got some idea what I'm aiming for (and to entice me to bother at all)

Indicative time to a) prepare b) cook is helpful

Things I can cook in bulk when the mood takes me and easily freeze additional portions

I also used to be in the habit of chopping all my food for the week on a Monday night and putting it in separate tupperware containers. Then each night when I get in from work I can either throw the contents together as a raw food salad, or make a stir fry, or add a jar of curry sauce etc but it's all basically the same ingredients cooked in different ways.  It's an overhead on Monday night but it makes the rest of the week faster so I'm more inclined to eat well during the week.

finally, individual laminated cards are a great idea as a recipe book can feel overwhelming, but a wipe clean single recipe card (like the ones that supermarkets often give away) are great.

good luck,

Daisy

Thankyou. 

Thankyou for so many useful suggestions!

Thankyou for your positive feedback and useful suggestions. 

Thankyou for your useful suggestion.

Thankyou for your positive feedback and suggestions. 

The recipes in Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food work well for me due to their simplicity.

Welcome, Zoe.

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head...

• I often don't eat, or eat poorly, because I barely notice my hunger, and by the time I do, I often don't have the time or energy to cook something there and then. So I prefer recipes for things which can be frozen or chilled for a few days. I can then cook loads while I'm motivated to do it, but can always have something ready after a couple of minutes in the micro-wave.
• I have very poor multi-tasking, so I avoid recipes where multiple things have to be happening at the same time. Don't ask me to start preparing the sauce when I'm already timing how long my spuds have been boiling and have to turn something in the frying pan every couple of minutes! Ideally, I like each instruction in the recipe to be complete before beginning the next, never something that must be recalled later in the cooking process.
• Like many of us, I profoundly dislike shopping, and shop as near to home as possible. So I would stick to the most commonly available ingredients, as having to go to a big supermarket, or multiple shops, rather than the local mini-market might not be an easy thing.
• Covering a good range of preparation methods would probably be useful. For example; some of us might have motor control problems that make fine chopping difficult, whereas others might balk at the noise of an electric blender. Try not to mix too many different preparation skills and tools in the same recipe, as it increases the chances that you're excluding someone.
• General purpose recipes suit me better than distinctive meals with fancy names. If a recipe will work equally well if I swap a couple of ingredients for favourites (or whatever is to hand), I'm much more inclined to learn it. If you can include hints for alternative ingredients that don't change anything about the preparation and cooking, just the flavour, that would be much appreciated.
• If washing the pots afterwards is going to take me more than five minutes, you've lost me! Consider how much cleaning up afterwards a recipe will require.

I think this is a brilliant idea. I work in a university and have suffered serious sensory overload for the past two weeks. This has meant I've lived off black bean chipolate chilli as I didn't have the head space to be able to think of other meals.

I'd like printable recipe cards as I'd find them easier to follow. Vegetarian meals that can be created in bulk and frozen would also be ideal for me.

Have you considered involving autistic students in this project e.g getting them to provide feedback on the initial recipes or asking if any want to take part in making the videos? The videos could then be included in the resources your disability services create. For example, where I work we could create a playlist on the disability services YouTube and demonstrated these resources at our summer school for ASC students.

i have eating addictions where by i eat the same thing every day and this can go on from several days to weeks and even months my longest was 2 and a half years eating the same meal every day i would think maybe a recipe for the same ingredients but cooked in different ways or with different spices sauces etc ?

It's an interesting idea and potentially a good one. I can only speak for myself but easy recipes would be welcome, although we're talking a very few ingredients and very little work. I would really struggle with a whole week's worth, though. Just occasionally I can chop a vegetable and I have to be in the right frame of mind for it (I never know if or when this will be). Even a day's meals to prepare would be daunting, a whole weeks' worth would be totally overwhelming. In my case the dishes would also need to be vegan. I personally wouldn't want a meal plan as such, but some simple ideas/recipes would be helpful so I could pick and choose among them.

I tend to find student recipe sites the most helpful as they don't seem to be into cooking either. Not that I bother searching any more, but if the resource was easily available I'd be interested. A video wouldn't be helpful to me but a downloadable document or links to simple recipes within a website would work.