They have put Bill on a " purée diet" and I tasted the food and it is truly vile! So I have started to take things in to supplement his diet.
Puréed beef stew was good. I make my own ice cream which is always a favourite with Bill. Last night I took raspberry fool which was easy as I grow raspberries and have loads frozen. Today I will take in poached fish width a cheese sauce.
But I am sure some of you have some good ideas and I wondered if any of you would share their recipes?
I will investigate baby food to see if that could be used if I was in a hurry but I am open to suggestions.
PLEASE help. Bill loves his food.
Thank you
Kathie
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Kathie48
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Most of the food I give C is freshly prepared and cooked and I usually eat the same main meal. All root veg are good and if you use a potato ricer it removes all hard bits, like the centre of parsnips. If not smooth enough I then use a stick blender or liquidizer. The top of broccoli and cauliflower mash down well if the stalk is removed, I eat those. I always keep all the ingredients separate on a plate. I'd hate to eat everything mashed together. Chicken liquidises well with gravy and I also liquidize cooked mushrooms with chicken. Minced beef never works well so I buy tinned minced beef as it is cooked so well. I still liquidize it. I buy stuffing mix of different flavours and grind it up in a blender before soaking it. I cook it in small deep dish so the centre remains soft. C loves this with chicken and veg as it tastes like a proper roast.
I always keep Smash or Tesco own brand dried potato in the cupboard if I don't have to cook for myself (I take myself out to lunch sometimes) and tinned carrots but cook fresh most days. I make thick soups out of casseroles left over so it does two days, the first day keeping the veg separate. Different flavoured sausages liquidize well. To make a change, I liquidize sweet and sour sauce mixes and add cooked chicken but serve with potatoes as rice gets caught in his throat. I've used cous cous and pasta but C prefers potato.
Salmon liquidized in hollandaise sauce (I cheat and use a packet) goes down well and I buy fish pie pieces, cook, liquidize with parsley sauce and serve with creamed potatoes and extra sauce.
I find lunches or teas more difficult and he usually has home made soup or something with eggs. Soft omelettes with finely grated cheese, liquidized tuna or corned beef go down well and I add tomato passata instead of tinned tomatoes.
He likes milky scramble eggs cooked in the microwave with a slice of bread made into breadcrumbs soaked in it.
Puddings are easy, yoghurts, semolina (I buy tinned), stewed fruit and custard. I give him poached pears in red wine as a treat, liquidized with a squirt of cream on top and he loves Tesco chocolate trifle, so do I. Sponge cake soaked in wine or coffee sponge soaked in cappuccino with squirt cream tastes scrummy as well. I give him squirty cream as real cream makes his mucous thick.
c still manages to eat a lot. It takes an hour and a half to feed him but when I ask him if he has had enough, his thumb goes down and he always clears his plate.
Cooking and preparing food for C takes a long time and causes a lot of washing up but food is his only pleasure now so it is worth all the effort.
If anyone has any ideas for light lunches or teas,I'd love to hear them.
How do you liquefy things. I use a blender and food processor but sometimes they just throw things to the side and doesn't puree well unless large quantities.
I puree everything. Roast Beef and gravy, chicken and gravy, pasta dishes. If too thick add broth. Shepherds Pie, Meatloaf, etc. Nothing gets past my puree. If it doesn't work then try something else.
Until M lost swallow reflex cooked same meal and liquidised it to make a purée often slacken mixture with extra gravy or custard (depending on meal- I experiment but not that much) in the food processor. Do not slacken too much as too liquid and can start the choke, I often balanced using powder potatoe if over slackened.
I do the same Tim. Powdered potato comes in very handy. Last week I wanted to make a cheese sauce but had no flour or cornflour. I used dried potato with extra water and a bit of milk. It tasted really good. A very handy ingredient.
It's getting the right amount of liquid to make the consistency .
Th dietician visited this week and she told. Me to use mostly calories and on days when John isn't as responsive and I feel he hasn't eaten or drank enough to just giv him a dessert something with custard , a yoghurt etc .
Helps to keep the energy and some hydration . I have Ben using a lot of creme caramels they help to cleanse freshen the mouth .
That's a good idea Bev using the squirts cream will try that .
Both Oakhouse and Wiltshire Farm Foods provide pureed foods that are shaped back to look very similar to the actual food - e.g. carrots actually look like a carrot even though pureed and are supposed to tempt the appetite more. They provide main meals, hot and cold desserts and even pureed sandwiches. Pretty fair pricing too and I think I would use as they actually look like a proper meal. They deliver too, so hoping this helps too
I think it's important to try to find foods that taste good when they're already in purée-state. Mashed potatoes are a nice choice, you can add a little bit of gravy and make them very appealing and a little easier to swallow. Cottage cheese with applesauce is also very good (and has great protein) Another thing you can do is use potato flakes to thicken soup like tomato soup or carrot soup and attack the problem from the other side .
Slow cookers are a very good way to Cook food into a very soft state without completely obliterating the composition. They are particularly good for meats. Slow roast, chicken and even ribs come out very soft and they can be broken down to the right consistency right before he eats them. That can make it more appealing although meat is probably the hardest consistency to purée in a way that doesn't make it unappealing.
What would be more effective would be to take a very soft chicken that you cooked in the slow cooker and grind it up and mix it in with the mashed potatoes so he gets the flavor and the consistency.
If he is on a puréed diet, has he also been put onto some kind of thickened liquid diet? If that's the case, you might try naturally thicker liquids like tomato juice and apricot nectar and if you have to thicken them, it won't be quite as noticeable. Generally speaking, juices taste better thickened than water or milk. If, for whatever reason, he becomes very resistant to any kind of thickened liquids or he just needs a treat, thickened hot chocolate is very tasty. It's almost like pudding that hasn't set yet. And you can add a little bit of protein powder (I would use vanilla for hot chocolate) to give him a little more of the right kind of calories. In fact, you can put protein powder in a lot of things; just be sure that your tasting it along the way so you're not ruining the food that you so carefully prepared.
Finally, I might point you towards cookbooks for people suffering from cancer and other diseases that have a sudden change in their ability to eat. You can find things like the "easy chew" cookbook and other dysphagia cookbooks (dysphagia is the medical term for swallowing problems and you might see a crop up when you're looking for something). Many of these books are available on Amazon.com ( here in the US, I like to buy them for a penny +399 shipping used). However, I imagine that there are a lot of resources available on the Internet if you start looking for "easy chew", "soft diet", "dysphagia", "cancer cookbook" etc.
I know this is a long post but hopefully that helps
Graham seems to enjoy Cheshire cheese melted into baked beans , stirred well it seems to melt along with the beans and turns into a soft puree. graham has a peg but can manage a small portion .just another idea, love to all on the site.
We coupon. Got 46 chicken/beef/vegetable broth for about .80 each. They are normally 1.25 each. My sister go Progresso soups 80 of them for about .25 each. She coupons better than me. LOL
I use these as backups when we come in from out of town, or when we have been too busy for me to cook a meal.
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