Bearing Disability: Serve Food with One Hand

I have right-hemiplegia, which basically means my right hand has the same control to that of an infant. It will grip things and struggle to let go, or it will let go and I will not notice. For this hand, individual finger movement does not and will never exist.

So, this means I need to get creative. This is no different when I need to serve food. My family helped me find methods to cook independently. Here are some techniques we picked up.

How to Serve Pasta & Vegetables

This one was tricky for me at first. Certain pasta (any spaghetti-type pasta) I cannot eat because I cannot pick it up with my spoon. So we already knew I’d need to cook tubed or shaped pasta but the problem was serving it.  

This is an issue as straining water is hard to do with one hand, and impossible when the contents are hot.

So dad and I browsed around shops until he found a chip-pan from Wilkos. We filled the saucepan with water and placed the pasta in the chip-pan and it worked as a treat. All I had to do was shake the pasta in the pan for a few seconds to make sure all the excess water was out and then pour it onto the plate.

Once we discovered this, we tried it with vegetables. This mostly works, but there will be a couple of peas or sweetcorn that falls out. For the vegetables, it is best to use frozen as it is already prepared.

Serve Chips and Potatoes

Sounds silly, I know. Most people would be able to use the spatula and place it on the plate. But I couldn’t at first because I cooked on a baking tray. So we searched for solutions again, but this time the solution was already in our kitchen.

A roasting tray. These look similar to a baking tray, but have higher edges. So I am able to scoop the chips into the corner of the tray, get them on the spatula, and put them onto the plate. This one didn’t take us too long to figure out as we could see that I found it easy to serve the fish (in the roasting tray) but not the chips.

How to Serve Rice!

Ugh, what a nuisance rice was. It needed to be strained but it couldn’t be placed in the basket, either because it wouldn’t be fully submerged or if I ever wanted to buy loose, it’d fall straight out.

Surprisingly though, there is an easier fix than I originally thought. Microwavable rice. Seriously, it’s the best. The downside is I always need someone who is willing to eat the other half of the portion with me … because the bags are big portions and they are also £2 for a bag, rather than the £1 on Boil in the Bag Rice; boil in the bag box lasts 8 servings as opposed to two. But I can at least cook and serve rice.

Mashed Potato

I have to use instant or frozen mashed potato because – well, I cant mash potatoes.

I found mixing the content of instant mash easy. Although, serving was difficult as I had to hold the bowl steady and spoon the content out, but it was doable. There is also frozen mashed potato. Placed into a microwavable bowl and covered with something easy to take off, this is the most effective way for me to serve mashed potato

but serving it while it was still hot was difficult because most people use two hands and scrape it in gradually.

Liked this Post?

Then you will like my post on how to find the perfect kettle.

Not all adaptions in the kitchen have to be expensive. Many of them are already everyday items that are more commonly used for other purposes. Hopefully, this post helps you find your solutions to the challenges of having to serve food one-handed.