The Rosie and Roula Show

201: The One-Pan Meal That Changed Everything + Perimenopause Brain Fog Is Real

• Roula Abou Haidar and Rosie Burrows

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In this lighthearted and totally relatable episode of The Rosie & Roula Show, the hosts dive into two very real midlife topics:

✨ the joy of discovering the one-pan meal, and

😅 the hilarious reality of perimenopause brain fog (including forgetting if you washed your hair mid-shower!).

Roula shares how one-pan meals changed her weeknight dinners — cutting cleaning time by 80% — and how social media actually redeemed itself by providing quick, budget-friendly, veggie-filled recipes. Rosie joins in with her own hacks and a delicious one-pan spaghetti bolognese recipe that’s “bloody amazing.”

Then things take a funny turn when Roula tells a story about forgetting whether she’d washed her hair — sparking a deeper, candid conversation about memory lapses, hormones, and the wild ride of perimenopause.

And yes, somewhere in between, Rosie’s dog Tilly steals the show. 🐶

💡 Referenced in this episode:

Episode 182 – “The Easy Meal Myth”: When Rosie & Roula debated what counts as a truly easy meal.

The Rosie & Roula Show archive on Spotify & YouTube for related topics on food, midlife, and sanity-saving habits.

💬 You’ll hear:

Roula’s kitchen revelation: “One-pan meal is my new God.”

Rosie’s easy recipe hack: spaghetti bolognese — all in one pan.

How social media (sometimes) saves the day.

The “did I wash my hair?” moment of perimenopause.

A hilarious, heartwarming chat about memory, hormones, and laughter.


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Roula (00:00)
I'm not sure if... ⁓ delete what I'm saying.

I'm gonna repeat. Get your...

Rosie (00:05)
Delete control Z control Z

Roula (00:21)
Rosie. I have found the joy of my days in something called the one pan meal.

Rosie (00:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

I think I know where this is going. Continue.

Roula (00:40)
How on earth have we not discovered this one pan meal ages ago?

Rosie (00:50)
Explain to our listeners who might not have any clue what you're talking about, what a one-pan meal is.

Roula (00:54)
Okay,

so when I ask my husband what are we gonna eat for dinner, he tells me, ⁓ something easy, meat, potatoes, vegetables. And I'm like, that's not easy. This is three, four pans, one for the potatoes, one for the vegetables, one for the meat, and eventually one to make some gravy, some sauce These are four pans. This is not an easy meal.

Rosie (01:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, go listen to episode

182, because we talk about that. 182, yes.

Roula (01:19)
you're so good to find

it. Yes. And for me, easy meal is one pan meal where I have my pan, big pan, whatever, and I toss all my ingredients in it and I let it cook. Okay. But there's a risk because I'm not that creative in inventing a one pan meal and I'm so grateful for social media. Okay. I know, I know we, and I, can't stand social media, but we need it sometimes.

Rosie (01:32)
Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Who are you?

Mm.

Roula (01:50)
Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, I go search one pan meal dinner. Boom. It's my, my feed explodes with recipes, with recipes. One pan, one. And I started testing them. And I have to say so far, ⁓ reducing my cleaning, kitchen cleaning and after dinner cleaning by.

Rosie (01:59)
BOOM!

Mmm.

Roula (02:17)
80 %? 80 %? Yes. So I think one pan meal is for me now the new God.

Rosie (02:19)
Wow.

Did you even have one before?

Roula (02:33)
My gods are always stuff that make me feel happy, realistic stuff.

Rosie (02:37)
But the

important question is, does the food taste as good?

Roula (02:41)
was very skeptical in the beginning because, if I have onion and garlic and spices, I always thought first I have like to fry them separately before I add other ingredients so they all taste good. Well, that's true for Lebanese cooking. Maybe it's true for Indonesian cooking. It's true for some kind of kitchens. But now I'm discovering that there are so many easy recipes.

Rosie (02:50)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Roula (03:09)
that I

don't need all this hassle. This what, you know, it's only good if we make the taste first of all these spices. It's like, yes, that was, of course, like my mom, my grandma, they didn't work. They spent all their time in the kitchen experimenting and I trust their results, but I don't have time for this and I don't like it.

Rosie (03:18)
Yeah, fuck that. Ugh.

Roula (03:35)
Okay, listeners, if you're not on YouTube, I'm laughing because suddenly, suddenly, Rosie's dog decided to lick her face.

Rosie (03:47)
Like full on lick, lick, lick, lick, lick, That was intense.

Roula (03:51)
Rosie, I have a brain fog. Completely forgot the name of your dog. Can you believe that?

Rosie (03:56)
Tilly,

it's Tilly. She forgives you.

Roula (04:00)
Okay, this is perimenopause symptom.

Rosie (04:04)
Well, I get brain fog all the time. ⁓ perimenopause. One pan meal, one pan meal. I need to look up some more one pan meals. The one pan meal I have done, what have I done? Well, fried rice is like a one pan meal, because you prepare the rice on a different day. That's one of my favorites. But there's a spaghetti bolognese recipe, like even the spaghetti you cook in it.

Roula (04:23)
Mmm, I love that.

Rosie (04:32)
I know you cooked a pasta dish the other night, but this spaghetti bolognese, so good. It's not traditional, yes it tastes different, but it's fucking delicious and it's one pan, you chuck it all in and it's bloody amazing. One pan to wash up. Highly recommend. I'm gonna put a link to that recipe. Yeah.

Roula (04:45)
You

I love it, all ingredients, one pan. Yes,

yeah. And you know also what? I found so many one pan meal that are budget, at budget. They're cheap, they're full of nutrients, a lot of vegetables, vegetarian, which I love to eat less meat during the week. Okay, I can rumble about one pan meal forever, but now...

Rosie (04:59)
Hmm.

Mm-mm.

Roula (05:15)
Talking about peri-menopause and Brainfog, I want to tell you something really funny.

Rosie (05:21)
Is it actually gonna be funny? Okay, okay, come on,

Roula (05:23)
I don't know, but it's not about food.

Yesterday, I'm under the shower. Okay? And I thought I finished my shower. So before I come out of the shower, you know, I swipe the glass door and I'm swiping the glass door thinking, did I wash my hair? I had no active memory.

Rosie (05:32)
Yes

Hmm?

Roula (05:52)
if I washed my hair or not. Zero. I'm sure I shaved my legs because they feel smooth. I have a proof, like for fact, I could touch my legs. Yes, I just shaved them. I shaved them. And then I stood there. My shower was, I turned it off because I'm cleaning the glass ready to leave the shower. And I stood there in the cold trying to remember.

Rosie (05:55)
Whoa.

huh.

So you weren't sure, but you touched them like, yep, okay, I did.

Right, right.

Roula (06:21)
Did I wash my hair? And I'm tracing back the step of what have I done in my life in the last few minutes. Zero memory, zero memory. So I turned on the shower again and I thought, okay, I'm gonna wash my hair now before I forget again. And I washed it twice again.

Rosie (06:31)
my god.

my god. I mean that must have been kind of... Uh-huh.

Roula (06:41)
I stepped out of, hold on, on. I stepped out of the shower. It's

like I'm in a question mark bubble. I'm still in disbelief that I couldn't remember what I did under the shower.

Rosie (06:55)
That must have been a bit disconcerting. Was it? Or was it just funny? Yeah.

Roula (06:58)
It is.

it happens. It happens a lot in the stage of my life. And the thing is, I looked at the shampoo. Was it like this when I entered? Did I move it? Did I put it differently? I went into all these freaking details because I'm not accepting that I can't remember.

Rosie (07:05)
Mmm.

⁓ boy. Wow.

Roula (07:18)
Yeah,

I just want to share this this perimenopause issue.

Rosie (07:23)
So much to look forward to with

Peri-menopause. my goodness. One day, Roula I will have Peri-menopause stories to share with you and you can laugh and go, those were the good old days.

Roula (07:31)
Yeah.

Those the good old days, yes, yes. You know what's weird? I don't forget anything for the family. For my kids, my husband, ingredients, necessary stuff from the supermarket, appointment, nothing. I have everything registered, I remember it. And I write it all down. Yeah.

Rosie (07:37)
I'm not sure you'll miss them.

Mmm.

It's just you. It's you that you don't remember. You're

letting you see we don't put ourselves first. my goodness. Wow. It's ingrained in you.

Roula (08:04)
Yeah, but my husband have my back. I tell him Sometimes he sees me lost. He sees it on my face. I'm completely lost.

He tells me, Roula what are you searching for? What have you forgotten? Or he asks me, where are you now?

Rosie (08:22)
god.

Roula (08:23)
Cause I'm gone.

Rosie (08:25)
What year is it? Who's the Prime Minister?

Roula (08:27)
Yeah

Rosie (08:28)
I feel, I'm in for such a rough ride with perimenopause because I have moments every day. Like I'll walk somewhere to do something and I'll just stop and go, what did I walk here? Like I have no idea what I came here for. I know there was something very important, but I have no idea. And I go off and do something else. I'm like, that's right, I went to do this. It happens every day. So if this is happening to me now,

Roula (08:30)
Is Jimmy Carter the president of the USA?

Rosie (08:57)
Wow, perimenopause is gonna be a wild ride.

Roula (09:01)
Wild rides, believe me. The only good thing, I do all my steps because, did I forgot my glasses in the bedroom? I woke up to the third floor and I'm doing extra steps. My watch is telling me, take it easy. Hold on. It has a message. It has a message. It's telling me. ⁓ I really want to read this because it's so funny. Where is it?

Rosie (09:04)
gonna be a trip.

You're extra steps now.

No way. No way.

While you find

it, while you- you got it.

Roula (09:29)
You really pushed yourself

recently. To avoid overtraining, take some time to slow down and recover. And that's because I keep forgetting stuff and running up the stairs.

Rosie (09:38)
Wow.

Wow, I haven't had

a smartwatch in a while, but I have never had a notification like that. It's usually a reminder, get up and move, you need to do more steps. Anyway, listeners, let us know, have you tried the one pan meal trend? What are your favorite recipes? What are your perimenopause stories? Have you ever been in the shower and just thought, my God, did I wash my hair? I have no idea. Let us know. I want to hear your stories.

Roula (10:08)
And please forgive

us for starting with a topic and ending on a totally different topic. But that's the Rosie and Roula

Rosie (10:15)
They used to work by now.

That is, we come as we are. Nirvana style, all right. As you are, as a friend, as I want you to be I don't remember the rest of the words. Okay, bye.

Roula (10:20)
Come as you are, as a friend, as I want you to be. Thank you very much, my listeners.

Bye!