Alice Ashcroft

Ashwinter

2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

Coming soon.

Ocean

2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

There is a soft ocean of grief.
Days like this are more sinking than floating,
more drowning than breathing.
Even the waves are singing about it.

Crashing, tearing, the violence
gives way to a quiet infinity —
It is not cold below, as some say,
There is a comfort to it.

Not the brush of cotton on skin,
nor the warmth of a close body,
it is enveloping, whole,
a familiar cradle to drift in.

There is a soft ocean of grief.
It fills the nose and mouth, the eyes and lungs,
more waiting than reaching.
Even the waves are quiet

The Hourglass

2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

Coming Soon.

Hyperquest RPG

2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

Project Zeus

2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

Project Zeus is a story about memory, loss, and identity. Who are you, and who are they, and why does that mean anything, and what do you keep when a You that isn't You falls apart?

Second Vault

2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

A short, 5-level dungeon crawler with dynamic NPC interactions and a simple support system. Making this as a proof of concept before I make its big brother.

Wyldheart

2026-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

A simple tabletop game centered around fantasy concepts, exploration, and cooperative storytelling.

Retrospective: OSRS Leagues VI Demonic Pacts

2026-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

OSRS Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts was my 4th OSRS Leagues, 5th if we're counting Gridmaster. When this all started I found many of the teasers to be lackluster. While I liked the idea of getting to explore Varlamore more, I found the contract teasers were boring (though this was due to a lack of information and imagination). As more and more teasers came out, I kept finding myself less interested up to the point that I was considering not even bothering with this League.

Then they dropped the pacts. It was not even a week before launch and I was suddenly obsessed. The skill tree was something fresh and new and the build variety got me instantly excited in the same way I get for ARPGs like Diablo and Path of Exile. I jumped on it immediately and began forming a plan—this League would be different. While I had a fantastic showing in Gridmaster, my previous real Leagues were less impressive, with my top placement being Rune rank (around top 15%). This would be the first time I ever hit Dragon Rank, and I'd do it with regions I'd never selected before.

Three Principles</h2>
There was a nasty roadblock in my way, however. Work had just dropped a massive project on my desk and the due date landed right in the second week of the League. I was working nonstop which would leave me with very little time to play early on and very little time to plan. It also meant that any particularly grating parts of the run would hit me harder than usual. I needed an approach that meant I could leverage my work-from-home status to play OSRS on the side while still gaining meaningfully in points.
This left me with a clear direction working on the plan from three principles: Maximize AFK capabilities, Minimize Misery (Long Grinds, Bad RNG), Maximize Fun (Interesting builds, novel regions).
My strong showing in Gridmaster (top 2%) had taught me one big thing: Long grinds kill my momentum. I don't like repeating the same boss praying for good RNG in the middle of a points-based limited time event. The absence of this problem was the main reason I loved that mode so much. In Leagues IV I went dozens of CoX clears dry on uniques that should've been easy points. In Leagues V my entire run dried up at ToB and Phosani's Nightmare. If I was going to make it to Dragon, I needed to pick regions that didn't lock too many points behind miserable RNG grinds or bosses I didn't like.
Unfortunately, this meant no raids for me. This, combined with my desire for novel regions that I'd never picked before, led to a unique combination of choices that would wind up being the backbone of the entire strategy: KTA.
If you're finding yourself thinking, "Wait, but weren't Kandarin and Tirannwn two of the most popular region choices? What made them novel?" you're right, but hold that thought.

War Plans</h2>
The core of the plan revolved around finding points locked behind activities I could easily AFK while I worked. This led to several choices that cascaded into each other.
First, I knew I was taking Eternal Harvest right off the bat. It immediately solved several skills at once, turning fishing, woodcutting, and mining into full on "RS3 with Porters" levels of AFK. That's three skills up to 50m while I'm working without breaking a sweat. It also solved two other less obvious issues: cooking and food supply. We knew at this point there would be no noted shops, so this solved those theoretical problems (Spoiler: I did not end up needing food for anything).
Second, I knew early on that I was taking Tirannwn. This was a two-pronged decision. I wanted it because I like RuneScape's elves a lot and I'd never taken it as a region before. I had basically locked Tirannwn in as my core "I'm doing this" region, regardless if it fit with the plan. I knew the CG grind was a gamble and it was a direct counter to my "Minimize Misery" principle, but the region had passed me by too many times.
The third initial gateway decision was taking Woodsman. I agonized over this decision at first because I was worried about Herblore, as it had been a blocker in Leagues IV for me, and I'm not fond of Agility. However, Varlamore is the site of the Hunter's Guild and I think all of us knew going in that there would be a great number of points tied to Hunter. It also aided Herblore and Farming via seed acquisition and synergized with Eternal Harvest to fully solve Firemaking. The fact that it would mean I was ready for Crystal Imp hunting the second I hit Tira was also a nice bonus. While I considered Friendly Forager for a good while, once I settled on Woodsman the rest became crystal clear.
With Eternal Harvest, Woodsman, and Tirannwn locked in, the next obvious choice was picking my first major region unlock. I needed somewhere with very easy points that could propel me straight into Tira and the CG grind—the earlier I got there the better. I also needed synergy with EH and WM. I considered Zeah, my favorite region which I'd taken every League so far, but it just didn't fit the plan. Not only is Chambers a hellish deathtrap that sucks the joy out of every League (despite it being buffed in VI), but Zeah is lacking in fast, easy points. Many of its points are locked behind long grinds, arduous tasks, CoX, and now Yama. If I wanted this plan to succeed, I couldn't afford more than one exception and I'd already locked in Tira.
So my eyes fell on Kandarin. I'd taken Kandarin during Raging Echoes and found it dry. Echo Thermonuclear Smoke Devil required a high slayer level and its rewards back then were terrible. Now, however, Thermy's rewards were very appealing. The Shadowflame Quadrant and Devil's Element would make for very powerful magic builds and with the buffed Crystal Blessing the shape of an interesting build goal was forming for me: Elven Crystal Battlemage utilizing Shadowflame, Devil's Element, and some kind of Crystal Halberd build. Kandarin also had a ton of very, very fast points and easy synergy with Woodsman, having an easy spot to farm Red Chinchompas at and a smattering of Hunter-related points.
This is how I arrived at KT. My plan would be to abuse Eternal Harvest at work and Woodsman during active play to very rapidly propel myself through the myriad of easy tasks both in Varlamore and Kandarin to arrive at the Corrupted Gauntlet as early as possible.
During this stage of the planning another throughline became apparent: Kandarin and Tirannwn were both rife with Thieving related tasks, and Varlamore had its own small set of them. While I'd often gravitated towards the farming relics in previous Leagues, it felt like Larcenist was the clear winner for my Tier 5 choice, especially as it fed directly into the Maximize AFK principle. This would let me easily hit 50m thieving, crafting, and smithing the second I entered Tirannwn which would further propel me forward. I locked it in and it would go on to be one of the best choices I'd made.
This still left many decisions to be made. I hadn't fully settled on a third region at this point and there were tons of relic choices to be made. This was before I'd really dove into buildcraft as well!
The third region didn't take me long to decide on though. I could've gone Fremennik for an easy finish as I'd had tons of experience with Duke and Muspah in Gridmaster and I like the region well enough, but something both Kandarin and Tirannwn were missing was challenging boss content. Varlamore had some in the form of Doom and Colosseum and Karamja had the Inferno, but I wanted something between the Inferno and Doom. With no access to raid regions, this led straight to eyeballing Asgarnia.
Similar to Tira, I'd thought about taking Asgarnia multiple times in previous Leagues but never pulled the trigger. This felt like the perfect spot for it: A new echo boss in Cerberus and lots of fun bosses with relatively mild grinds in GWD. This would give me room to flex builds and play around with end-game PVM without being confined to a raid. The real golden ticket for Asgarnia however played even further into "Maximize Fun": It gave me access to a ton of solid end-game gear for various styles. Bandos and Torva armor, Armadyl Crossbow, and the Dogsword / Godswords for a blindbag build. It was the piece that would allow me to actually experiment with other builds late game since my regions were heavily constrained in this regard.
Taking Asgarnia also meant locking in Culling Spree. While I did have some difficult PVM to do in Colosseum and Inferno, I felt Eternal Sustenance was a waste of a slot when I had two major slayer bosses (three if we count Zulrah) that could become my primary bottleneck if I wasn't careful. Culling Spree fed into the "Minimize Misery" pillar. I love slayer, but I don't want to sit there and slay 24/7 in a League. I was confident in my ability to do Inferno and Colosseum regardless of the build I chose.
This left me with a solid lineup I dubbed the KTAFK strat: Kandarin, Tirannwn, Asgarnia, Eternal Harvest, Woodsman, Larcenist, Culling Spree. I'd rush for Crystal Blessing and Crystal Armor, rely heavily on my AFK capabilities to carry me in points when I had little time to play, and emerge with a powerful tribrid build using Shadowflame, Devil's Element, Crystal Halberd, and BOWFA, utilizing Trident of the Swamp and Crystal Bows for mid-game progression. I left my Tier 5 and 8 relics to decide later and settled on Evil Eye as my teleport relic due to GWD. As with all good plans, most of this strategy died in the water very early on.
Once I had the early strategy formed I dove into piecing together pacts, which I thought would be straightforward at the time. We had no idea how many points we were getting, so I settled on a modest 32 which was barely enough to create a real hybrid build (and I was pleasantly surprised later when I landed just about right on the money for planning). To be honest this stage of the theorycrafting wasn't that crazy because I hadn't really gained an understanding of just how strong some of these pacts would be when combined with some of the more absurd echo weapons.
My original plan was to grab a Magic Shortbow early, as I'd have high woodcutting and fletching and easy access to magic logs day 1. I'd take faster bows and abuse the MSB strength early to snag some easy experience and a kill on Echo Amox, then I'd stat into 2t Staves and Prayer Pen for Echo CG. I'd then complete the bow line, pick up fire spells, and start working on the CHally/blindbag capstones. It was a pretty straightforward and naive idea born entirely from an aesthetic vibe I had in my head with only the smallest amount of optimization. As with all good plans, most of this strategy died in the water—well, you'll see.
I made a basic starting route—just enough to get me to Kandarin—and waited eagerly for the launch.

Day One</h2>
The League started great. I couldn't sleep so got out of bed and waited. I had to work that day, but if I simply used the brilliant strategy of refusing to sleep I could snag a ton of active play time before work. I logged in literally in the first few seconds of it going live and was immediately out of the gate with my route ready. This was by far the best start I've ever had to a League; I'm fairly certain I was top 10 in the game for the first hour.
By hour two I was already deep in the points and had Huntsman locked in. This started a magnificent chain reaction in which the fletching, firemaking, and hunter gains catapulted me forwards, and I was forcing hunter contracts and hitting tier 4 within just a couple hours of starting.
The first real snag I'd hit was that hunter contracts were bugged. There's a method you can use to block certain tasks—you get a task at one hunter and leave it with them, then move on to the next. If you do this correctly you can force the guild to only assign you red chins. Sadly this wasn't working day one and plans had to change. I knew Kandarin had an easy red chin spot so I left my 500 red chins task unfinished and moved into other stages of my plan. When I hit tier 3, my gut told me not to pick Evil Eye. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something told me not to do it. I loved Bank Heist from previous events and was extremely familiar with it, so I locked it in on a whim and I'm so glad I did. It wound up being a massive time save for me throughout the League where Evil Eye would only have been marginally useful at GWD (where Bank Heist was still reasonably good due to Ashlaught's bank).
Eventually I had to settle down and work, so I made fantastic use of Eternal Harvest, progressing my woodcutting and mining very quickly. I knew I'd have good fishing spots in Catherby soon, so I didn't bother doing much fishing. I ended day one strong, choosing my Tier IV relic. This was another first for me as I'd always taken clue relics, but this time I was convinced to take Butler's Bell by a friend and I'm glad I did it. I didn't want to do many clues anyways this League and Bell became an important time save for me.
The next few days blurred together: AFK during work, active play when I had time, and more lost sleep than I'm comfortable admitting to.
Eventually I wound up in Kandarin, and merely hours later I unlocked Tirannwn. It was time for the Corrupted Gauntlet.
I'd done some CG in Gridmaster, but this was a whole new level of learning experience. While normal Hunleif is somewhat challenging and it took me several tries to get back into the flow, Echo Hun is an entirely different beast. I threw myself at the brick wall for an entire day, going so far as to take the day off work to practice. However, persistence paid off and by the end of the day I had snagged my first Echo Hun kill, along with an exceptionally lucky armor seed drop on 1 KC.
My luck didn't stop there. I proceeded to grind out a dozen kills, taking short breaks every now and then to work on hunting crystal implings and complete other high-point tasks that required my active attention. At 23 KC, while I was watching OSRS content creators get trapped in CG hunting for the bastard, I got the Enhanced Crystal Weapon Seed drop. I was over the moon because this meant I'd won the gamble: There would be no 400 KC gauntlet chasing this damn thing. Just 24 hours after my first Echo Hun kill, I'd managed to hit 35 KC and snag five of my six armour seeds and the Enhanced Seed that I'd been worried about. To top it off, I even got the elven signet drop from a completely random crystal impling. This whole day propelled me forward and gave me the momentum I needed to make it to end-game.
From here it was textbook. I farmed Zulrah and Amox, finished my crystal armor and BOWFA, kept progressing my pacts, and explored all that Varlamore and Tirannwn had to offer. These were entirely new regions to me in OSRS, I hadn't ever touched Varlamore in the main game and I'd only been to Prif in RS3. It was a brand new experience and the novelty helped keep things fresh for me, even during some of the more boring grinds.
I eventually got my Trident of the Swamp (I got quite unlucky here, getting it at ~150 KC) and decided to test out the damage. It honestly dwarfed what BOWFA was capable of, even though I had bow capstones and only had 1t Trident. I was actively taken aback at the difference, and the lower point cost was very appealing to me. I began to consider respec'ing to drop bows entirely so I could spend my points on accuracy, but at the same time I was encountering a great many players and content creators that were talking about how powerful thorns was. So, after a lot of deliberation, I made my first major departure from the initial plan. I respecced into 1t Powered Staffs, Prayer Penetration (for farming Demonic Gorillas), accuracy, and Thorns nodes. This would change the entire game for me. Thorns. Was. Broken.
I used a crystal shield, crystal armor, and trident everywhere. I was unstoppable. While the healing wasn't anything to write home about at first, it was enough that I didn't need tons of food for my Zulrah kills anymore, and as I gained more points in Thorns I picked up the node that heals when you're hit for a 0. This triggered on prayer hits which meant I had virtually any sustain at any enemy that didn't hit through prayer. Demonic Gorillas and the Zaryte grind were trivialized. I felt like a force of nature.
By the time I unlocked my third region, Asgarnia, I'd already managed to complete most of my major grinds in Tira and Kandarin. I'd been steadily working on Slayer via boss tasks, with the Culling Spree relic being an incredibly valuable addition to my growing power. I'd finished my Zulrah grind, Corrupted Gauntlet, almost everything in Varlamore, and even an Inferno run by the skin of my teeth. I'd been steadily moving in the direction of water spells since I knew I would be getting the Shadowflame very soon, and I'd maxed out my melee stats to 50m using Thorns at maniacal monkeys. Larceny and Eternal Harvest were my MVPs, because I had nearly thrice the AFK as active playtime and I'd managed several 50m skills at this point including fishing via karambwans, mining, and even thieving to 200m via Prif elves. This also let me max out smithing and crafting early. I'd also reloaded into Soul Harvest by this point, solving Prayer and Runecrafting. I was all set.
I unlocked Asgarnia and finished up my slayer grind, hitting 99 by hunting for Kraken, Smoke Devil, and Cerb tasks. While Trident absolutely shredded Kraken and made the grind barely worth mentioning (I AFK'd 80% of my kills), Thermy was a different story. You see I had forgotten that Thermy has mechanics, and mechanics have hands. Thankfully my recent exposure to the Echo CG difficulty had prepared me to pick up these mechanics quickly, though attacking at 1 tick made the movement sections of the fight mildly annoying. I often had to skip attacks and force a 2 tick attack speed, which was obviously a huge nerf to damage. Eventually I settled into a rhythm and learned how to do some fun tile skipping and tick-perfect inputs at Thermy that were both satisfying and sped up my kills by a huge margin. I wound up with Shadowflame and Devil's Element roughly on rate and got the last pact point I needed for the Water capstone.

Crashing Waves</h2>
Water Thorns was disgusting. I went from having to pay attention at some bosses like Zulrah to being able to nearly fully AFK them. Taking this into Cerberus trivialized the fight. 188 HP, infinite healing, reflect damage, infinite prayer, prayer penetration, rune regeneration, and extremely high accuracy alongside forced elemental weakness via Shadowflame was a combo made in Hell.
I took Water Thorns everywhere at first. I discovered quickly that the GWD bosses—who I assumed would be the longest active grinds of the League—were chumps. I could fully AFK all of them with the right prayers. I didn't even bother using potions anywhere. I could just park at a boss, let auto-retaliate handle the fighting, and do my work. It was insane.
I noticed I could do anything in the game from here. Any silly nonsense I wanted. So I did. I fully AFK'd through the fight caves tasks, and then completed every Inferno task. I decided to test the waters and see how far a fully, 100% AFK Inferno run would make it. I turned on Mage Prayer and hoped for the best. The result? Instant Death at triple jads. But then I tried again, and on the third attempt I watched my character AFK the entire Inferno without my input. I had 13 HP by the end of it.
I picked up Minion and dove into Doom in earnest. I'd only done this boss a little so I was excited to see what it looked like on farm status. The answer was hilarious. While I couldn't stop its cannon attack with Water Thorns, it couldn't kill me through my 188 HP either. I even tried bringing in demonbane weapons from Amox to see if they'd smooth out the kills—they didn't! Water spells would still heal me even while the target was invulnerable, so the cleanest answer was always to just keep attacking. The highest I could go was Delve 90 before I both got bored of Doom and found the grubs were hitting way too hard, so with my curiosity satisfied and a nice pair of gauntlets and boots I left Doom behind to chase other dreams.

Nex, My Old Friend.</h2>
I have farmed a lot of Nex in RS3. More than the average PVMer. She was my primary income source on my main when I was maxing and despite her janky BS mechanics I had a fondness for her. This was a small, secret reason I'd picked Asgarnia as well—it was time for me to return to her arena, this time under a different game title and a different set of rules.
Water Thorns fucking sucked at Nex. The kills were five minutes long even with full accuracy nodes and BIS gear. The constant misses meant healing was unreliable and Thorns had its own set of complications. Not only does Nex not hit often, she ignores prayer for the most part and her minions couldn't care less. Thorns also added an extra component to Blood phase to track, as it could heal her if I wasn't careful. This was the real wall I'd finally been waiting for. This was the reason I needed to try other builds.
I left her behind after my first few kills, moving to finishing up other challenges. I was not especially familiar with the Colosseum, despite having done it a few times, so I created my own problems. "I'll do a Colosseum with no armor on!" Sure, okay Wrin. Why not?
This also kind of sucked. I died over and over and often felt there was little for me to learn. This was a result of inexperience, however, and as I started to study the enemies I was up against I started finding ways to finish this challenge.
It mostly boiled down to getting good modifiers. I discovered that Bees were a bad time as Water spells wouldn't heal you, but they still required an attack to get rid of. Exploding enemies were also just a bad idea. I didn't know at the time how to avoid the Fremennik Warband's damage and the explosions absolutely ruined me. I didn't understand wave solves back then (hell, I still barely understand them now) and this meant any modifiers which added more stuff to track or more damage from enemies were a terrible idea.
Eventually I succeeded, with a weird combination of Myopic, buffed manticores, and buffed rangers. It was hard, too. Sol takes nearly 0 magic damage and I missed a ton. I want to say there were probably 30 attempts here in total and of those only 4-5 actually made it to Sol. In the end, I mostly succeeded due to good RNG, but it still felt great to have something like that under my belt and the experience I gained from the challenge forced me to develop a better understanding of the Colosseum.
I finished up my GWD farming and any other major grinds I felt needed doing as my time in the League started to wind down. It was finally time for the part I'd been originally excited about: Buildcrafting.
By this point the community had tested any possible combination of builds you could name. I had access to a ton of gear from GWD and a nihil to kill, so I built out a specific ACB build using Void armor and ruby bolts and faced down Nex again. This build absolutely destroyed her. However, it required much more active input on my part. I had to really pay close attention to mechanics, and importantly I had to bring brews and restores, something I was glad to be rid of with Water Thorns. While I love Nex, I found the Torva grind incredibly tedious, especially when I hit the "officially dry" mark on any given piece. In the interest of Minimizing Misery, I bid a tearful farewell to my old foe and left her behind. I didn't need the points from her, I had plenty in other areas.
The rest of the League was testing builds and AFK grinding. I tried out Blindbag, which was just terrible. I enjoyed my crossbow thorns ACB build for a bit and even tried a 1h Melee Thorns build to farm Vardorvis using the Fang of the Hound. This was shockingly good and really fun to use, much better than Blindbag, though I don't know how much of that was because of Thorns and how much of it was 1h being genuinely good.
I also took this chance to continue exploring Varlamore. I'd already done so much and I was shocked at how enamoured I'd become with the region as a whole. Zeah was my favorite region before this League, and I'd hesitate to say that's still the case. I adore Varlamore. The culture, the lore, the activities, the whole structure of it all. I won't commit to saying it's my new favorite region, but it's something I'm still chewing on.
However, I felt my time in the League winding down quickly after saying goodbye to Nex. I began to get a bit bored and was ready to move back to the main game. It was time for the final phase of my plan.
I had been saving a number of tasks to finish up the League with. By this point I was at 61,000 points and needed a mere 4k to hit my goal. I'd like to say much of it was exciting, but in reality it was all quite dull. I settled into a comfortable series of AFK grinds, and on my last day in the League I cashed in all of the Larceny spoils I'd gotten—mostly enhanced crystal teleport seeds—at the Shilo general store for a vast sum of cash.

65,000</h2>
There in Prif I bought a crystal crown and equipped it in my full crystal armor, smirking in satisfaction as I hit exactly 65,000 points. It was over, I had beaten my past self and set a new personal record. This was what I'd wanted the whole time. Illiya finally had a Dragon Trophy of her own.

Verdict</h2>
Overall, this was my favorite League by a wide margin. It isn't remotely close. I loved Leagues IV, I had fun in V, but VI to me pushed the bar so much higher. The combination of a new starting region, new personal region choices, relics that let me actually take advantage of my more limited active playtime, and the interesting (if imperfect) skill tree made the entire experience novel and fun in ways previous Leagues hadn't been for me. I think this was the secret ingredient to my success this time around—I was actually having a blast, rather than stressing about points. I have many critiques about balance this League—earth magic was utterly useless, bows felt terrible, and thorns was absurdly overpowered—but for a first attempt at a skill tree I think this was a great time.
This League left me feeling satisfied, but more than that it helped ignite a new curiosity. I hadn't even unlocked Varlamore on my main, and yet here I was absolutely in love with the region as a whole. The Hunter's Guild and rumours were an actually fun way to train a skill I disliked, Mastering Mixology was a cheap and interesting way to train herblore with the huge advantage of having amazing rewards, the quests were actually interesting with good storytelling and lore, and the Doom and Colosseum were new, hearty challenges I could throw myself at eventually. If anything comes next, it's me finally stepping into one of my new favorite areas in the main game with a fresh new perspective and a highly piqued curiosity.

On Love and Medicine: Struggle Meals From Our Darkest Days

2026-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

On Christmas Eve of 2023 my wife Eve was diagnosed with cancer. The same day, we were evicted from our family home and just a week later the eviction cost me my job. The next few years were a series of emergencies, long days, sleepless nights, and relentless dread without even a moment to breathe.

Money became a luxury. I was hopping from gig to gig, interview to interview, application to application. The post-COVID job market was not kind. During this period I had to learn how to cook on a budget. I'd already been flirting with learning how to cook before this but this accelerated the timeline drastically and I began to research recipes that could stretch my meager funds as far as possible. Luckily there was no shortage of struggle meal recipes online, so I bought a $10 pan and got to work.

Very quickly I realized that there was going to be another major challenge. Neither Eve nor I was prepared for what chemo does to your taste buds, appetite, and ability to eat... basically anything. She had trouble eating. She had trouble keeping things down. Her favorite flavors became inedible to her and her sensitivity to texture was amplified so much that regular water had become completely undrinkable. Learning how to cook around these limitations was a challenge in and of itself. It wasn't just about learning the fundamentals of cooking, it was about Eve and me working together to discover foods that were cheap and that would fit her particular set of restrictions.

Cooking became a love language for me (and remains so to this day). Finding something she enjoyed and could keep down wasn't just about giving her good food, it was a moment of triumph that meant we could get more nutrients into her. One of the biggest victories in all of this involves the first recipe below: I had made small variations of it a dozen times over and while it was edible to her, she said that she could barely taste it. The flavors were there, but they just didn't land. One day I decided "Hey what's the worst that could happen?" and loaded the rice up with as much garlic, black pepper, and onion as I dared. To me it was so powerful I could barely eat it but when I handed her the plate and she took a bite, her eyes lit up. "Oh my god that's so good. I can actually taste it!?" She was so excited and I literally started crying. I'd found something that not only could she eat, she was excited to eat!

These dishes are equal parts struggle meal, medicine, and love letter, and one of the anchors that helped us survive our darkest days.

1. Fried Rice</h1>
Fried Rice became a staple in our household that we'd cook 3-5 times a week. We ate this a lot, to the point that we were terribly sick of rice in anything for a good while after. This isn't the kind of takeout egg fried rice you may be thinking of—instead it was the idea of "fried rice" as a base which we could build variations upon. Rather than listing exact measurements here, I'll list the basic building blocks for you to make your own.
The List:

1-2 cups white rice</li>
1lb Ground turkey or beef</li>
1-2 whole fresh onions, diced fine</li>
1-2 cups frozen peas and carrots</li>
1-2 cups frozen vegetables (broccoli, green beans, corn, etc)</li>
Lots of salt, black pepper, and garlic powder</li>
Optionally 1-2 large bell peppers diced fine</li>
Optionally some soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, teriyaki sauce, brown sugar, and honey.</li>
Optionally a couple tablespoons of MSG</li> </ul> 
The Base
This was always rice, some sort of ground meat, spices, and vegetables. We used frozen veggies because they were cheap, quick, and available and the ground meat was turkey probably 90% of the time. Ground beef was more flavorful but also much more expensive. Fresh onions were dirt cheap and packed with flavor, so we threw those in fairly often.
We typically used 1lb of ground turkey at a time and just eyeballed the rice and vegetables. I would pour in 1-2 cups of rice into the rice cooker, cover it in water (use the finger test to determine how much water you need; cover the rice approximately knuckle-deep over the surface) and then take as much rice as I needed from that at the end.
The Seasoning
For the spices we rotated between several combinations. What was always present was lots of salt and ground black pepper. We'd frequently use an enormous amount of garlic powder as well to amp up the taste since she struggled with this and on a few occasions we tried out MSG. It was very successful but also was an extra expense that felt hard to justify at times.
Fresh herbs, while delicious, were never worth the price for us in this dish. They didn't change the profile nearly enough, so we didn't include them.
The Variations
The reason this dish was so successful for us is because it is a blank slate which you can change and flavor how you wish. The core was rice, ground meat, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, and frozen vegetables and you could add anything you wanted to completely reinvent it. Some of our favorites were:

Change the veggies to peas, carrots, onions, celery, and corn. Add lots of paprika and cumin. Add worcestershire sauce, but not much as it quickly overpowers literally everything else. Optionally add in a can of black beans for a massive protein boost.</li>
Change the vegetables to peas, carrots, onions. Use a rice mixture (white/brown) for a change in texture and color. Add a little butter for some extra fat content and salt the hell out of everything. This worked better with meat that was crisped up more than usual and with a ton of nearly-caramelized onions.</li>
Use broccoli, peas, carrots, onions, and bell peppers as your veggies. Use a LOT of garlic. More than you think you need, then add more than that. Create a mixture of two parts soy sauce, one part worcestershire sauce, one part teriyaki sauce, one part brown sugar, and one part honey if its in budget (it often wasn't for us but it really elevates things here if you can swing it). Add a bit of corn starch to that - 1-2 tbsp - and give it a very good whisk. This was the variation we ate constantly and it gave us a really nice sauce to finish everything with.</li> </ul> 
The Method
Start your rice cooking and pre-chop any fresh vegetables you have. You want your veggies to all be pretty small if possible (it may not be with certain frozen veggies though, more on that later). Heat your pan on high heat and get 1 tbsp of oil just smoking, then drop in your ground turkey. If you're using 85/15 ground beef, you won't need oil here. Cook your meat until it's mostly cooked, then drop in any diced onions you have and let it all cook up. Make sure you salt your meat and onions here. You generally want the meat somewhat crispy as this promotes better flavor. Avoid the dismal gray of meat misery.
Once that's done, you can set it aside in a bowl and then fry up any "big" frozen veggies you have. Broccoli, green beans, etc. Save peas and carrots for later, we don't need to fry those. When your veggies are soft enough to easily cut through, you can toss the meat and onions back in and then start adding the rice, peas, and carrots.
Toss it all together and fry it up. Sometimes, depending on the moisture content of your rice, you'll need to cook it a bit longer and maybe add a little oil if things aren't coming together how you'd like. Add in your spices when it starts to look and smell like it's done and sauce it up. If your sauce has corn starch, add it in at the very end and stir fast.
Kill the heat when it looks and smells delicious. Stir it some more, and take a bite. You'll develop a taste for anything it may be missing over time. I often found adding a little lemon juice at this step helped cut through any of the darker flavors as well.
We cooked this constantly and in absolutely massive batches, as Eve never seemed to have developed an intolerance to it. It was a safe, reliable way to get nutrients in her (once I figured out the spices).
It keeps in the fridge for up to five days. If it's a bit dry when you go reheat, just add a little water and partially cover the dish you're microwaving it in and it comes back to life without an issue.
2. Chili</h1>
A half-decent chili is way easier and way cheaper to make than I ever assumed it would be. Bonus points? Eve absolutely loves it. I'm pretty sure she could eat this every day and never get tired of it. It's also packed with protein and fiber, which were arguably Eve's two largest struggles when it came to specific nutrient requirements. As with the rice, we used ground turkey the vast majority of the time because it was very, very cheap compared to beef (often 1/3 the price).
The List

1lb ground turkey (or beef)</li>
2 large cans Bush's chili beans in mild sauce</li>
1 large white or spanish onion, diced</li>
Salt, black pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and a little oil</li>
Optionally a can of rotel (diced tomatoes and chilis)</li> </ul> 
This one doesn't need a whole breakdown. Get your pan ripping hot, let 1-2tbsp of a neutral oil (we used canola) heat up and throw your meat in. For good flavor you really want to let sections of this brown properly and turkey is finicky when it comes to browning. Spread it out evenly over whatever hotspots you have in your pan and let it start to really get some color before you go about breaking it up properly.
From there add your onions, cook until translucent, then turn down the heat and add your chili beans. If you want it done quick, drain one of the cans, but a little time investment here goes a long way. Stir everything together and add your spices. Add Rotel here if you like it and let everything sit for a while. You'll wind up with more liquid than you expect, so I'd let it simmer for just a little bit to try and pull some of it off. Once it gets to a consistency where its just a little bit more runny than you like, turn off the heat and then let it sit for 5-10 minutes. It'll thicken up very quickly and you don't want to overdo it (if you do, add a little water).
You're all done! It's very fast and easy. Some upgrades we found we loved were adding some butter at the very end, just a small amount goes a long way, and eating it with crackers was always good. Cheese was a rare treat, but any time we could swing it the whole dish got way better. Eve loved this whenever she was really hungry and needed something heavy, and I can say with confidence this does really stick to your ribs. I can barely finish a full bowl myself.
We still eat this exact recipe at least once a week. It isn't "real" chili that's been simmering for hours but it tastes pretty good for something that costs less than $0.30 a serving.
3. Chicken and Rice</h1>
Rice is such a power player in struggle meals. It's great for body, absorbs flavor easily, and acts as a wonderful base for building complex flavor profiles.
This chicken and rice was something I used to eat when my mother and I were homeless. When I was fishing around for recipes I remembered just how often we ate it and decided to try it out and was very pleased at how effective it was. We didn't eat this often, as sometimes Eve couldn't handle the texture, but some days she could and we'd whip it up in a few minutes to have a great dinner.
The List:

Chicken (Any cuts work here, but breast is best IMO. We buy rotisserie chickens because they're very cheap.)</li>
1-2 cups rice</li>
Any frozen veggies you might like. Peas, carrots, corn, and green beans are the golden standard for us.</li>
1-2 cans cream of mushroom soup</li>
Salt, black pepper, garlic powder, ginger (grated)</li>
Optionally as much diced white onion as you like. I add a ton as we both love onion, but the dish stands on its own without it.</li>
Optionally 1-2 tablespoons chicken bouillon powder</li> </ul> 
The method for this is as easy as the chili and leaves tons of room for variation. Bake your chicken (if using raw instead of rotisserie) and break it down into small chunks, you can dice it, shred it a bit, you just want them big enough to not fade into the rice and small enough to fit on a spoon. If using onion, dice it slightly larger than you might expect.
Cook your rice. A few minutes before it's done, you can start working on the rest. Get a pan hot with a little oil. Fry up any onions you have until they're soft, then add the rest of your veggies and any chicken you're using. We're not cooking these so much as softening them up a bit so once everything is properly thawed you want to go ahead and salt everything, then add your rice. Mix everything first, then add the cream of mushroom. My recommendation is only add a half can at a time, then mix, as you're trying to hit a "loose" consistency and it's easy to go overboard depending on your ratios.
Lower the heat and cook it on medium to medium low for a bit. We want everything to thicken up a little. Add your spices at this step and once you've reached the desired consistency, let it sit for a few minutes before serving. It will thicken a little more, so if you've overdone it just add a little water and stir.
This actually goes great with some cheesy bread if you can swing it. Plate up and serve!
4. Pasta</h1>
This is a classic for cheap food. Canned tomato sauce or pre-made pasta sauce is easy to turn into a really flavorful sauce for your pasta of choosing. Pasta itself is very cheap and the supplementary ingredients cost next to nothing in most cases. We ate a good amount of pasta during this time—both Eve and I love it—and these days I've really stepped up my pasta game so I'll also include some Upgrades that we didn't know about back then.
The List (Classic):

A bag of pasta of your choosing</li>
Either canned tomato sauce OR premade pasta sauce</li>
Salt, pepper, garlic powder</li>
Optionally 1lb ground meat (turkey, beef, italian sausage)</li>
Optionally lemon juice</li>
Optionally 1-2 fresh white onions, diced</li>
Optionally a cheese of your choosing, parmesan is recommended</li> </ul> 
The basic version here is to boil your pasta, drain it, and then add in your sauce. It's about as simple and foolproof as you can get. However, there's some tricks you can use to build a lot more flavor in any sauce.
First, if you're using any ground meat, fry it up in a second pan while your pasta is boiling. Get a good fond going on the bottom because we'll be incorporating that into the sauce. Add in anything else that needs cooked, cook that down a bit, then add in a little bit of pasta water at a time from the still-boiling pasta. I usually do 1-2 ladles. Your goal is to boil off that water and leave a lot of the starch behind. Do this 2-3 times until there is a noticeable thick sauce forming out of the starch and whatever fat you may have in the pan. Drain your pasta, reserve a little more of the water, and dump it in along with whatever sauce you're using (premade or canned). Add in your spices and stir on high heat for about 1-2 minutes to let everything incorporate. Check the consistency of the sauce and either add water to loosen it up if needed or cook it another 1-2 minutes to thicken. You can add a little lemon juice at the end for brightness and I like to top it with some parmesan cheese. Bam! All done!
The List (Sausage):

A bag of rigatoni</li>
1lb italian sausage (a bit pricey in comparison but worth it)</li>
1 whole white onion, diced</li>
a significant amount of parmesan cheese</li>
fresh basil, finely chopped (with one whole leaf)</li>
fresh garlic, minced</li>
Salt, black pepper</li>
Lemon juice</li>
Optionally some brie (though this is much more expensive than every other ingredient, so skip this if you're genuinely on a tight budget)</li> </ul> 
The sausage pasta uses an identical trick but without any tomato sauce. Instead, it relies heavily on building a rich, creamy sauce out of the starchy pasta water, the fat from the sausage, and the parmesan/brie. This one is significantly harder to cook though:
Start off the same. Fry up your meat while the pasta is boiling, add your onions and get them sweating, then start adding pasta water to create that starchy sauce. Once it starts looking kind of thick, turn down the heat to medium and drain your pasta, but reserve a lot of that water (about a cup). Throw the pasta in with your meat, onions, spices, and herbs along with a bit of extra pasta water and get that simmering for a short time, just 1-2 minutes. Turn the heat down to low and begin to add the cheese a little at a time—This is the hard part. If your pan is too hot the cheese will form long, stringy bits that are awful in texture. If it's too cool the cheese won't melt into the sauce. You will absolutely mess this up the first time. Once you get it down, though, it's so good. Add your brie at this step if you're using it, but be warned that brie is temperamental to say the least and you really need to have your heat just right. Incorporate the cheese and pasta water to form a creamy cheesey coating, load it up on as much black pepper as you want/can handle, add more parmesan on top and serve!
5. Potato Stew</h1>
Eve loves potatoes. Baked, mashed, stewed, fried. I'm with her, too! This was another dish that we both loved but couldn't eat all the time because some days the texture would trigger her really badly. But when we could, we'd make a big batch of this and go wild on it.
A weird note about this one is that if you can afford a casserole dish or any kind of baking dish to cook this in, that's great. If not, cooking it on the stove in a pot will work but you will need to stir it very frequently.
The List:

Several large russet potatoes diced into 1in cubes</li>
Carrots, cut into roughly 1in chunks</li>
1-2 fresh white or spanish onions, roughly chopped</li>
Salt, black pepper, garlic powder, beef bouillon powder</li>
2-3 cans cream of mushroom soup</li>
1tbsp Worcestershire sauce</li>
2-3tbsp butter</li>
Optionally some thyme and/or rosemary goes well in here</li>
If you have any MSG from the rice, you can sub out some of the salt for it for a big flavor boost.</li> </ul> 
This one is as easy as they come. Throw everything into a baking dish of your choosing and add water so it's all just covered. Stir it around a bit and pop it in the oven at 350 for a while. You don't want to cook this super fast, you want to give everything in there time for it to soften. This is why the sizes on the cuts matter—If you don't cut everything roughly even, the potatoes will still be hard while the carrots are basically falling apart and that's not a very fun stew.
Check on this often and test the potatoes with a fork. Once they're very soft, it's ready. Take it out of the oven, let it sit, stir it around a bit, and serve. If you have any garlic bread it's a good pairing, I often had some day-old bread from the bakery down the road to use and it was perfect for mopping everything up at the end.
6. Porkchops and Mashed Potatoes</h1>
This recipe is more expensive than the others, but it was one of the ones that gave us even a small sense of normalcy. Pork chops are not amazing but they are relatively cheap and if you cook them right they can be a nice treat alongside some potatoes and whatever other veggies you like. Eve always loved when we got to eat these and the flexibility of potatoes meant I could easily adjust them to meet whatever texture needs she had for the day.
The List:

4 boneless pork chops</li>
Either a packet of instant mashed potatoes or several large russet potatoes</li>
Salt, pepper, garlic powder</li>
Soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, lemon juice</li>
A few tablespoons of butter</li> </ul> 
Getting pork chops just right is not easy if you do not have a skillet, so I will say up front that this recipe basically requires a skillet to work. If you have a baking dish, you can bake them, but I've consistently found that baked pork chops are just not to my taste.
To start this dish, get a zip-loc bag and add in 3 parts soy sauce to one part worcestershire sauce and one part lemon juice and a good bit of salt, then add your pork chops to that bag. We're going to marinate these as long as you can, up to 24 hours even. The lemon juice and salt are going to help tenderize the meat, and I've found that the soy sauce helps create a more flavorful crust when we go to sear.
When you're ready to cook, start with a ripping hot pan and a little bit of oil. Lay your pork chops in straight from the bag and let them sit for a while. We want to develop a good crust, so no flipping! They'll bind to the pan at first and the trick is to leave them there until they naturally unbind from it. You can tell by gently wiggling them around a bit—if they move easily, they're ready to flip. If they don't, leave them a little longer. Be sure to salt the top side before you flip them but do not add any garlic powder or pepper to the pan yet.
Once flipped, you'll do the same with the other side. I've found most of the thicker pork chops can take a good while to cook through, so once I've got my crust I will drop the heat a bit and cover them with just a small amount of the marinade in the pan along with a little butter. This steams them and helps them finish cooking. After a while, add some garlic powder and black pepper and sear for just a few seconds. Pepper and garlic burn very fast and give the meat a terribly bitter flavor, so you want them out of the pan quickly here. Give them a few flips to make sure they aren't burning and then lay them out to rest once the inside is cooked through (these are not steaks, these are pork, please do not serve undercooked pork ever).
We pretty much always eat this with a potato based side. The most common is mashed potatoes. You can either use instant or make your own, and I'll admit we used instant most of the time. It's faster and requires much less time and energy, and we spruce it up heavily with garlic and pepper. Baked potatoes are also very easy and absolutely delicious, and as a bonus they're one of Eve's all time favorite foods. We top them up with salt, pepper, and butter and sometimes add green onions (and I love sour cream on mine).
Adding an extra veggie can also take this meal up a notch. Our favorite was green beans. We'd often just buy great value's frozen brand, toss them in the skillet after the pork chops were done and cook them in any fat and bits left behind. Add salt and pepper and a bit of oil if they need it and they're an incredible side with this. Other good options might include corn or just a nice fresh salad to add something light to an already heavy meal.
If you can't afford pork chops and you have a Walmart nearby, look for their "ham steaks". They're not incredible but they cook up well enough and they're very cheap.
These meals were essential in getting us through the thickest part of the woods. I didn't know how to cook when I started this and now I cook nearly every day. In fact, we still eat most of these meals really frequently; Eve often specifically requests pork chops, potato stew, and chili as dinners and I'm always all too happy to oblige.
These days, Eve is doing much better. We are both in recovery mode, with whatever rest we can get, good food in our bellies, and brighter days both present and future. I do not look back on the misery behind us with any fondness. That shit seriously sucked. But I do look at where I am now and am thankful for the thousands of creators who publish their struggle meals, their experiences, and their advice online. We are both so thankful for our friends that helped us stand when we couldn't and for the gift of good food and for the fact that we can be here now, in this moment, together.