Chicken Stuffing Casserole
1. First off, I have really enjoyed getting to learn how to effectively meal prep. I feel that my engagement has been consistent (I haven’t missed a week), and that I have figured out a good time and place to be able to do it. I originally did my meal prepping whenever I had any spare time, but now I specifically carve out time on Saturday mornings to cook my chosen dish. I have chosen mornings because most of my family is busy doing other things at that time (e.g. working in the yard, running errands, etc.), and I have the kitchen to myself. Initially, I cooked in the evenings but I often had to share the space, and would get easily distracted from my task.
Lastly, I would say that my performance in meal prepping is at various levels, depending on where I am at in the sequence of meal preparation. When it comes to choosing a recipe, setting a budget, and buying the ingredients I am able to achieve optimal occupational performance by being able to complete each task successfully. When cooking my meals, I find that I don’t always achieve optimal performance because I am still learning different cooking techniques, and I often choose recipes that I have never attempted before. Initially, my performance wasn’t very good because I was hindered by certain environmental factors (listed below). I have managed to limit those factors as the semester has gone by.
2. The OTPF-4 states that, “Occupations occur in contexts and are influenced by the interplay among performance patterns, performance skills, and client factors,” (AOTA, 2020). Context is an interplay of environmental factors and personal factors (AOTA, 2020). First, in order to address potential contextual restrictions, I have to take a look at the context in which I prepare meals. I prepare meals at my family’s house, on the weekends, using my own ingredients. Sometimes the atmosphere is very loud and I am usually cooking while chatting with my mother.
Based on that information, a few examples of potential environmental contextual restrictions could be conflicting cooking schedules between me and my family members, not having all the tools I need because they are being used, dirty, or loaned out to a family member, an event happening at my parent’s house while I am trying to cook, or getting distracted by the noise and interactions between me and my family. A few personal contextual restrictions could be me forgetting/not having all of the necessary ingredients to cook my dish, having a lack of motivation to cook, ruining some or all of my food so I have to restart one or all of my recipe steps, and/or getting distracted by chatting or the audiobook/ music that I am listening to.
References
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2020). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process (4th ed.). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(Suppl. 2), 7412410010. https://doi. org/10.5014/ajot.2020.74S2001
What a great skill to learn! I absolutely understand what you mean when you reference a busy kitchen with limited resources (clean dishes) as a contextual barrier. My son recently announced that he would gladly take his night to cook as long as no one else entered the kitchen while he was preparing food. I supported his idea and implemented it myself. Good job figuring out a time and schedule that works best for you.
ReplyDeleteHi Lexie! Thank you, it has taken a bit to figure out how to best go about meal prepping when considering different contextual barriers.
ReplyDelete