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WITH THE RECENT Leaving Cert results, many of our readers (or their children), will be thinking of going to college and possibly leaving the nest.
Moving out for the first time is quite the adventure – and can be quite daunting. You’ll be looking after yourself, making your own meals, doing your own washing – or collecting it in a bin bag to bring home to Mammy at the weekend, same same.
But whatever you end up doing laundry-wise, you’re going to have to feed yourself. So, in order to make the transition somewhat easier we thought we’d round up some of the easier dishes to master by yourself, so you don’t end up at the chipper every night.
And if you’re not moving out of home for the first time but you still can’t cook – pull up a pew, we’ve got some tasty recipes coming up.
(Here’s where you can check our a recent article on some skills to master.)
Scrambled eggs or an omelette are essentially the same thing – when you’re cooking them you either move them around a little with a wooden spoon till they’re cooked (scrambled) or leave them to set as a whole (omelette).
Here’s a quick how-to on how to scramble eggs, and remember once you’ve nailed that you can add loads of ingredients to make your scramble or omelette more interesting – cheese, ham, onion, peppers, potatoes – whatever you have around. Possibly the quickest way to get a delicious hot home-made meal.
And if you master that, and are feeling adventurous, here’s how to poach an egg, so you can ramp up those fanciness stakes. Eggs Benedict you say?
Now, soups are soup-er (not sorry) easy to make, and once you’ve mastered the basics you can just go wild.
At the very (very) minimum it involves chopping some veg up (try carrots, potatoes, celery, onions), covering in water or stock (you can saute – lightly fry – the onions first if you like), bringing to the boil and cooking until the veg are tender. Then you can eat it like that or blitz to your heart’s content for a smoother version.
Now this version of a ‘Many-veggie vegetable soup’ (pictured above) is a little more fancy than that just described, but the idea is the same. The best thing about soup is you can totally adjust it to suit your tastes. So add as much veg as you like, or take something out. It’s completely up to you.
You can make soup as a light dish that you can pair with a sandwich for lunch or you can make something more hearty such as minestrone or this chicken and vegetable rice noodle soup which could do for dinner. This combines your protein, carb and veg into one bowl and you can always make a big batch and freeze it for meals during the week or month.
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Every change to a perceived restrictive practice in mental health can often have negative effects in another direction. Make it more difficult to detain someone who needs psychiatric treatment and families, Gardai and accident and emergency departments will have to pick up the pieces. Make it more difficult to treat severely mentally ill inpatients with medication (without consent) and physical assaults on other patients and staff will increase as well as restraint and seclusion statistics.
Improvement on human rights issues are welcomed but be prepared for very serious negative outcomes on the other end with these Mental Health Act changes.
@Gareth Keenan: The evidence shows that the number of violent incidents against staff does not increase and actually reduces in some cases where there is less coercion and a human rights based approach https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26234329/. See Pennsylvania and Trieste examples https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/coercion-in-mental-health-care-finding-a-new-way
@Fiona Orla Mary Bridget Anderson: The Advocates for Human Rights in Mental Health Care is comprised of: Dr Fiona Morrissey, Disability Law Researcher, Lecturer, ATU, Adjunct Lecturer, NUI Galway; Jennifer Hough (Family Member); Dr Charles O’Mahony, School of Law, NUI Galway; Fiona Anderson, BA, LLM, Recovery Expert by Experience; Dr Liz Brosnan, Academic, Survivor Researcher, Recovery Expert by Experience; Rosy Wilson, Retired Lecturer, Recovery Expert by Experience; Dr Harry Gijbels, Retired Lecturer, UCC, Former Mental Health Nurse and Deirdre Lillis, Advocate, SHEP.
As a mental health social worker since 1994: While we never want anyone to be admitted to a psychiatric unit against their will, or receive treatment they initially refuse- the reality for those who care for a person ( professionals and family members) with a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia or bi polar is that a person can lose insight about their mental health, imagine people are plotting against them, neglect their health, stop paying bills, lose friends etc
Once a person recovers following treatment, helping to keep them well is the next challenge that we often as health care professions struggle to do because of limited resources and the rights that patients have to refuse treatment once discharged.
@frank browne: lack of ‘insight’ is not a grounds for detention or forced treatment under the MHA. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act is putting in place a system of supports to assist people to make decisions in these situations for this very reason, so we don’t have to treat people under coercion or without their consent.
@Fiona Orla Mary Bridget Anderson:
The Advocates for Human Rights in Mental Health Care is comprised of: Dr. Fiona Morrissey, Disability Law Researcher, Lecturer, ATU, Adjunct Lecturer, NUI Galway; Jennifer Hough (Family Member); Dr. Charles O’Mahony, School of Law, NUI Galway; Fiona Anderson, BA, LLM, Recovery Expert by Experience; Dr. Liz Brosnan, Academic, Survivor Researcher, Recovery Expert by Experience; Rosy Wilson, Retired Lecturer, Recovery Expert by Experience; Dr. Harry Gijbels, Retired Lecturer, UCC, Former Mental Health Nurse and Deirdre Lillis, Advocate, SHEP.
The only way for hospital admissions to decrease is better community programmes, better outreach, and early intervention.
Mental health is always the first budget to be slashed. There is limited psychotherapy available in the mental health service. If a person attends the mental health service referrals to primary care is rejected. Referrals for Safeguarding are rejected.
Fix the community system and you fix hospital admissions
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