Recipe accessibility feature

As any of my readers with a vestibular or other chronic condition knows; cooking can be hard. I find it quite therapeutic and calming but standing/being in a hot kitchen for a long period of time or making recipes which require the use of multiple pieces of noisy kitchen equipment can be a real challenge sometimes. I’ve therefore been working for the last few weeks on introducing this accessibility feature!

I thought this might be a helpful feature for people who have any sorts of chronic conditions – not just vestibular conditions but also those who live with chronic pain or fatigue. I know that in the past I’ve found recipes I really liked the look or sound of but have been put off by the amount of time that you would have to stand or be in a hot kitchen keeping an eye on it while it’s cooking.

So what all this means is that you’re now going to see some of these little symbols appearing on my existing recipes on the site and they will be a part of every post from now on – appearing just after the blog post and just before the recipe card – to give anyone who might experience these kinds of challenges a quick summary of what the recipe might entail.

Here’s a brief outline of what the symbols mean:

This symbol indicates that the recipe may require you to be in the kitchen with the oven or multiple hobs, creating a hot environment, CONSTANTLY for a long time (approximately 1 hour or more).

This symbol indicates that the recipe may require you to be standing up CONSTANTLY for a long time (more than 1 hour without any gaps where you can go and rest). This indicates a recipe that needs a lot of attention from you.

This symbol indicates that the recipe will require the use of 2 or more NOISY pieces of kitchen equipment (for example food processor, electric whisk etc. This means you may have to deal with a lot of noise during the making of the recipe.

This symbol indicates that the recipe requires you to be standing in the kitchen constantly for less than an hour OR will allow you to take breaks to go and rest between stages. This may mean the recipe is VERY QUICK to make or is done in stages.

This symbol indicates that the recipe will NOT require you to be standing in a hot kitchen CONSTANTLY to watch, stir or do anything else to it. It may also mean it requires little or even NO COOKING!

This symbol indicates that the recipe requires the use of 2 or LESS pieces of noisy kitchen equipment. This may also mean that no noisy equipment at all is required during cooking or baking.

I have tried to design graphics which make it obvious what they are showing about the recipe but in case you need to come back to this page for any reason, there will be a “What’s this?” link on each one that you can click to bring you back.

Just a quick note – the limits that have been used in categorising my recipes is based on MY personal tolerances and boundaries imposed by my Meniere’s Disease and is only intended as a guideline. Your tolerances for heat or noise may be lower or higher than mine.

If the accessibility guide on the recipes is not relevant or of any interest to you, please feel free to just ignore it and scroll past to the recipe card – it’s designed to be an inclusion feature and definitely not to exclude anyone, likewise if you find it helpful or can think of any tweaks or additions you would like to see in future posts please drop me a message!

DDx