Idiot-proof cooking suggestions

Cafe Society
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Mother-in-law is ill. Part of her illness has been severe nausea, loss of appetite and the resultant weight loss. Now that the nausea is under somewhat better control, she is forcing herself to eat. However, she’s still too ill to cook for herself. And she needs to eat, to get her strength up for some upcoming chemotherapy.

Father-in-law, therefore, is cooking. And not very well - the man’s in his 70s after all and back then, men weren’t taught to cook. MIL, being cranky due to the illness and also being used to being the chef, is complaining about FIL’s food offerings.

Now, we’ve got a LOT of recipes to suggest, however as I’m a fairly competent cook (not inspired, but I can follow pretty much any recipe and produce fairly decent results), and Typo Knig can usually manage OK also… well, our judgement as to “idiotproof” is perhaps suspect.

As an example, I suggested to Typo Knig that Epicurious has an amazingly simple roast chicken recipe (truss, salt, stick in oven for 90 minutes). He said he wasn’t sure his father would even know how to truss the bird.

Some ideas:
Jar spaghetti sauce, pound of hamburger, brown/drain, add sauce, heat through, pour over spaghetti.
Rice done in rice cooker (we’d send one to them) with a few seasonings thrown in.
Boneless chicken, barbecue sauce or teriyaki sauce poured over, cover with foil, bake for an hour or so…

Those are the most idiot-proof ideas I can think of. Oh, “idiot” really isn’t the right word, the man really is very intelligent, but “clueless-in-the-kitchen-proof” doesn’t have the same ring to it :slight_smile:

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I may try for some recipes later but I dropped in to say that my ex-wife was a palliative care consultant. I recall having a conversation with her where she explained to me that proper management of nausea during early chemotherapy courses often prevents subsequent problems. I have passed this on to a few people who unfortunately had need of the advice, and it seems that insisting on effective nausea control helps if the medical personnel can go along.

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Interesting. My father in law is the same way. They where not only not taught how to cook, they where chased out of the kitchen. He can boil water. That’s about it.

My suggestions –

You can buy tortellini as a change from spaghetti. Pre stuffed with cheese. Same with ravioli. Cooks pretty much the same but you have to watch it.

Frozen pirogues. Very good. Sautee in olive oil or butter with chopped onion. Thaw them first in the microwave.

Chicken breasts come pre-flavored, none of the trussing or bones to worry about. Lemon this or Garlic that. Fry in olive oil. They are quite good. You do need to know how to run a fry pan though.

Baked potato with veggies on the side. Add some salsa, cheese and sour cream or nothing. You can make that dish as healthy (or un) as you want. You can cook this in a microwave or oven. Or get it started in the microwave, and finish in oven.

Salad can be purchased pretty much pre-made. Add a tomato and some dressing.

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For a simpler alternative, don’t truss, salt, and stick in oven for 90 minutes. If a bird is reasonably meaty, IME it’s actually better not to truss it anyway.

Instead of BBQ or teriyaki sauce, another alternative is a mix of half marmalade and half dijon mustard.
Another possibility would be to get him a cookbook–something like French Cooking in 10 Minutes or one of those beginner cookbooks aimed at college students.

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Scrambled eggs.

Seriously, make sure he can at least do those – doesn’t sound like it’s a given.

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Ham steak and baked sweet potatoes. Heat the ham steak through on medium heat on both sides (about 3-4 minutes per side.) Bake the sweet potatoes (wrapped in foil) for aboout an hour on 350°.

Bag salad.
One of those “steamfresh” bags of veggies for the microwave.
Pre-cooked bacon and scrambled eggs.
Roast chicken from the grocery store.

This is an easy way to make chicken and dumplings. Take some of the leftover meat from the roast chicken, and chop into bite size pieces. Chop a carrot and some celery. Pour a large box of chicken stock into a pot and simmer the carrot and celery about 15 minutes, until tender. Salt and pepper to taste. Get about three small cans of biscuits, and tear into bits, dropping into simmering stock. Stir the meat in and simmer about 15 minutes until dumplings are cooked through.
Eat!

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Is it possible to take them frozen meals? I am sorry not to recall how close they are to you geographically. If not, and if he is going to be using jarred sauces, she might get better nutrition from even bought frozen meals. Illness can change the senses of taste and smell, and if it does it can be very upsetting when former comfort foods bring no comfort because they don’t taste right.

Her protein needs will be higher but she will be better off not trying to do a regular 3 meal a day regimen; she ought to be eating very little about 6 times a day, and lots of calories and protein. With my own MIL this meant actually surprisingly little cooking, she ate hot only once or twice a day out of 6 or 7 meals. And at that it was more likely to be a baked sweet potato with bacon (er, Dutch bacon, not smoked, don’t know what that’s called actually)or twice baked regular potato or something similar.

However, before we go there: what did she like to eat before she got sick?

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Ham hocks and beans.

Soak a pound of beans overnight. (I use black-eyed peas, but you can use pinto beans instead.) Drain and rinse. Put the beans in a crock pot. Add two smoked ham hocks. Cover with water. Cover with the lid and cook on high six or eight hours. Take out the ham hocks, remove the skin and bones, chop the meat, and put the meat back in. Done. The only way you can mess it up is not putting in enough water – and you can fix that if you see it getting too low. Too much water? Then you have a bean soup. Just as good.

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I remember my mom had trouble with nausea while she was going through chemo. There was one breakfast dish she was able to tolerate that is easy to prepare that provided protein and calories:

Place a piece of bread or toast in a bowl, add a few ounces of milk, one poached or soft boiled egg, a bit of melted butter, salt and pepper. Tastes good and remains gentle on the stomach.

Fruit, vegetables, cheese, sandwiches, nuts and a little chocolate to graze on during the day.

And slow cookers are pretty easy to use. Just a few ingredients and put on slow for the day served with reheated frozen veggies or a store bought salad results in a good meal at the end of the day.

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I think you’re unnecessarily complicating things by asking him to brown the hamburger. He can simply microwave jarred pasta sauce. There are even varieties with meat already in it, and you can buy ready-to-eat meatballs.

And actually, I recommend that your mother-in-law talk to the case manager and the nutritionist at the hospital, both to get an idea of what she should and can eat, and also to get assistance with the meals.

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Chicken soup.

Start with Lipton chicken soup dry mix, add a little extra pasta (acini di pepe) which is like little dots (1/8 of a cup). Add small can of chicken meat. Bring to boil and add 1 beaten egg slowly.

I usually mix 2 packets of soup at a time so that would be 2 eggs. This freezes well and sick people generally like it.

When I make this I buy a roasted chicken from the store and use some of the meat from that but not sure if father-inlaw could handle this without instructions. Pull the skin off, separate out white meat and wash the dark meat to rinse off the grease. What doesn’t go into the soup makes a great sandwich with lettuce, mayo, salt, pepper. Goes well with soup.

You can look up the thread on easy recipes where I posted a “hot dog casserole” . It’s great comfort food and freezes/re-heats REALLY well. Not sure such a simple recipe works but it does. The onion infuses into the instant potatoes and takes on a new life.

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My Grandfather is like 85 and people have different diets over 70, mostly low salt.

Pre-pared salads are a good suggestion, just add Cukes, Tomato and Dressing.

Veggies in a can are plenty for two.
I know they aren’t fresh. Just open, heat n’ eat with usually a dab of butter is fine.

Pan fry meats w/olive oil, boil potatoes and other fresh veggies.
Baking might be too involved, or have heavy hot pans to deal with.

Microwaved foods are great too, just pop in for 5 min and grab a fork.

Soup is good food.

Fresh bread and fruits, yogurt, cottage cheese.

There’s a long list of No-hassle stuff you can list for em.

I’m hungry :mad:

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If he’s going to be baking or roasting chicken in the oven, send a probe thermometer along with the rice cooker. If he’s a gadget guy he’ll love it. The key to chicken in the oven is pulling it at 160 to 165 degrees F. Any higher and it’ll be tough.

You might check out Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything or his blog. He’s got some challenging things but a lot of basics. He tends to do a basic recipe and then a bunch of variations, which is a good way to vary the taste but only learn one recipe. Here’s a carrot recipe. You can use different flavorings or just salt. He’s also got a roast chicken recipe that does not involve trussing, though I’m not sure I’d go with cumin and orange.

It would help to know what your Mom can tolerate. Canned chicken broth and noodles tastes a lot better if you simmer it with a garlic clove and bay leaf, then add a few drops of lemon juice just before serving, but it might be too much for her.

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PS Have you talked to him about kitchen safety, especially cross-contamination? The last thing your MIL needs is stomach troubles. (I just noticed it’s MIL not Mom.)

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My father says that this isn’t quite as good as his Aunt Mary’s ravioli, but it’s as good as you’re going to get with a commercial product. He considers this to be even better than sliced bread. And it’s very easy to heat up a commercial sauce, too.

I second Magiver’s chicken soup recommendation. I usually make it for myself, as my husband doesn’t particulary care for chicken, so I only use one packet and less water than it calls for. If I have leftover cooked chicken, I put that in. Otherwise, I dice up some chicken or turkey, and brown it in a little butter or vegetable oil. Or I use about two or three ounces of ground turkey, and brown that (no oil needed). It’s very easy on the digestion. I’ve lived on it, along with Cream of Rice, for days. Not because I wanted to, but because that’s about all that I could eat without upsetting my GI tract.

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It would be a bad idea to attempt deep-frying. FYI

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Er, yeah, I can see that wouldn’t go over well… violates the first tenet of this thread “idiot-proof”… hell, the one time I tried deep-frying anything (a twice-cooked pork recipe) I would up with lumps of charcoal :smack:.

Frozen meals aren’t really an option, unfortunately - if we lived closer it would work but they’re 900 miles away (and we’re the closest of the 3 kids). Which is too bad - I could stock up their freezer pretty quickly. I’ve got some great veggie-beef soup in the freezer that is just begging to be sent.

They definitely have talked with some sort of nutritionist, who of course counseled them on getting high-iron foods (FIL bought liver at the deli, for example). Though part of it is she just needs to take in calories and they’re not too fussy in what form; she’s taking iron supplements for the anemia (and in fact is getting a transfusion today as well). Especially once the chemo starts, it’ll be “whatever she can keep down”.

FIL seems to be OK with cross-contamination issues so far but it can’t hurt to remind him.

Good idea on canned soup - though the sodium is an annoyance, I don’t think either of them has blood pressure problems at the moment. Also that’d help MIL keep up her fluid intake (both from the soup, and the salt-induced thirst).

I’ll check with them to see if FIL would be willing to use a rice cooker or a crock-pot. Some crock-pot recipes are so stupid-easy (e.g. a pot roast involving a package of onion soup and a can of cranberry sauce) and of course that’s a high-iron dish also.

Dolores Reborn, that thing with the chicken and dumplings sounds good! Heck, they could even use a raw chicken breast in that (toss in while the veggies are simmering, fish out and cut up once it’s cooked, toss back in…).

Thanks for all the ideas - I haven’t addressed every one but there are some good things there.

twickster, that’s funny that you suggest scrambled eggs - apparently that was one of the things that FIL cooked, that MIL complained about.

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So I guess he does need some instruction on those. :wink:

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Get a carton of butternut squash soup (sold at Trader Joes and also my local grocery store in a rectangular liter carton). Add heavy cream to taste.

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If they’re going through a lot of chicken broth, the stuff in the cartons tastes much better than canned. It’s shelf stable until you open it, then you have a few days to use it. Of course, go with the low sodium kind.

Cream of wheat is relatively high in iron and heats up quickly for breakfast or a snack. It’ll be a change from the liver at the least.

If it’s just calories she’s looking for, ice cream can’t be beat, and it doesn’t need to be prepared. How about bananas with caramel or chocolate sauce?