Idiot-proof cooking suggestions

Cafe Society
21

I know we have done the what to eat during chemo thing here at least twice that I can remember, but to recap what worked for me…

Expect stuff to taste wierd if she is on certain chemo drugs. I got unlucky and stuff tasted metallic or musty depending.

Ice cold is good, seems to make it more soothing to eat for me, but I went through it in the summer.
Grapes, fresh melon pieces [take the seeds out of or get seedless watermelon] seedless orange wedges, banana chunks[frozen like popsicles]

Candied ginger, penzies sells a very nice one, cut into tiny quarter inch dice. Ginger helps nausea.

fruit and yoghurt smoothies - add protein powder IIRC there are also mineral and vitamin boosted protein powders, flavored and unflavored. i would get unflavored so you can make it whatever flavor you want. Ask the nutritionist for some suggested brands. There is an athletic website that will custom make blends, one of our powerlifter dopers may know the site.

For soups - go to the health food section of the store, there are a few brands of pureed veggie soups that are quite nice, and totally vegan so they can be very lowfat - I found that sometimes fat content could trigger nausea also. I really like cream of butternut/squash and cream of pumpkin soups.

mrAru kept boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs around, they can be nuked or poached or baked and are reasonably low fat. He also would make me baked cod, poached cod, and poached filet of sole. I had trouble eating beef pork or organ meats [nausea issues] I did a fair amount of rice, noodles and potatoes, and I could eat all of my favorite veggies.

Small meals … as an example, one thigh baked with a half cup of rice and half a cup of mixed veggies was a typical meal. Some days all I could do was nibble fruit and do lots of iced tea [i developed a strange craving for iced or hot tea, maybe the tannic acid soothed something?]

22

MamaZappa, have your father-in-law check around in his area to see if there are any businesses that specialize in making several dinners you can put together and freeze until you need them. These would be called Dinner in a Dash, Let’s Dish, etc. The premise is that once a month you go to the store and put together components of a meal designed to serve 6 to 8 people. When you leave, you have 6 to 8 different meals (chicken, beef, fish or vegetarian) that you put in your freezer and thaw when you want to cook. You can pay an extra fee to pick up already packed meals, and the reheating instructions are pretty easy. I did this some time ago and was quite impressed with the quality. Maybe this is something your in-laws could handle?

23

I’ve thought of the Let’s Dish sort of place - I’ve used that one in particular around here, and it’d nearly be ideal for them. That chain doesn’t exist near them but there are others. I don’t know how well my FIL would do for assembling the dishes there but they sell them pre-assembled.

24

I like the Better than Bullion flavor bases. They’re sold in jars, in the soup and bullion section of the store, and come in an astounding variety of flavors. We usually just use the beef and chicken varieties. They are lower sodium than cubes or powders, and taste much, much better. Essentially, it’s reduced stock with a few flavorings, and it’s like a half-solid gel. You DO have to refrigerate the jar once it’s opened, but it lasts for a good long time. My husband doesn’t like anything that has very much salt in it at all, and he likes this brand.

Even plain rice tastes better with a little chicken or beef flavor base cooked into it.

25

I second the probe thermometer idea. If you’ve been cooking forever, you probably know when stuff is done. If you’re new to it, and you care about not poisoning everyone, having a probe thermometer (or two or three) with “done-ness” temps listed on the side is a very very very good idea.

The easiest and most delicious things I’ve cooked since I’ve been on my own is pre-marinated, vacuum-packed pork loins (just unwrap, put in 13x9 pan or even a casserole dish, cook for whatever it says, done) … and the pre-made tortellini. I like the ones that come in a dry bag and can be found on the shelves near the dry noodles. If they have spinach in them, then they’ve got iron in them. Woohoo!

Pre-made meatballs also rock but with anything like that - pre-made anything - you really have to do your homework with regards to salt.

See what the in-laws think about the taste of Mrs. Dash, a low-sodium salt substitute/seasoning. Not sure if it will do anything for MIL with her taste all screwed up, but it might be a good way to get FIL to eat his veggies without salt or butter. My dad’s into that stuff now.

Oh yeah, frozen veggies are pretty easy to make. Even in the microwave. Birdseye makes nice steam-in-bag veggies now. They also make steam-in-bag rice and other quick meals but once again, be wary of the salt. According to the web site, the veggies have no added salt but I’m sure the other stuff does.

ETA: One more idea…if soups and smoothies are good for MIL, as aruvqan says, then consider getting them an immersion blender and/or a single-serving smoothie blender with a detachable cup. The smoothie blenders are nice because you can just throw crap in there and drink the smoothie right out of the cup without making more dishes.

26

Ugh ok one more suggestion (I’m not so much an idiot cook but a super lazy one)…if you’re making smoothies, look for Greek yogurt in the grocery store - in my store it’s in the organic/health food dairy case. You can get single-serving cups with fruit or honey in it and just use that as the base for your smoothie. It’s a little more expensive but it’s got a bit more protein and calcium than regular yogurt.

I don’t like Stoneyfield Farm’s Oikos brand as much as I like Fage (Fage’s honey is awesome!) but Oikos seems to be more available, and cheaper.

Anyway, last time I made a smoothie I just dumped a cup of that into a smoothie blender, along with a half a bananna and a handful of blueberries and it was the shit!

27

Get a vegetable steamer. Steamed veggies are delicious. Frozen veggies are ridiculously easy to steam, as they don’t have to be peeled or chopped or otherwise prepared. I’ve been able to reduce or eliminate salt and/or butter on just about all of my steamed vegetables. However, you’ll have to pry my dried dill jar out of my cold, dead hands to get it away from me.

28

Came in here to second? third? the Steam-Fresh microwaveable veggies. They taste really good considering they’re frozen, and there’s a bunch of varieties and multi-veggie mixes.

The cookbook-for-college-kids is a good idea, too. Some of them take idiot-proof to a whole new level.

In general, meals that take longer to cook are easier to prep - time takes the place of effort. When I had appetite reduction issues, sometimes it helped to have something simmering gently all day. The house smells comfortingly of something good to eat, and it sort of “preps” you, to smell what you’ll be eating later. It tells your brain, “this is what you’ll be eating later, okay?”

I find pot roast to be really easy, assuming they have a Dutch oven. Brown a big ol’ hunk of cheap beef - I like chuck or top round - on all sides in a little oil in the Dutch oven, add some chopped onions/carrots/celery/garlic, add broth (a mix of beef and chicken broth works remarkably well for this) to come up halfway up the hunk o’ meat, cover with the lid, and stick it in a 300 oven for about four hours. Helps to take it out once or twice to 1) turn the meat and 2) make the house smell delicious.
If he wants to get fancy, he can get those cheap little 4-packs of mini wine bottles, and pour one of those in with the broth. Oooh, fancy! :slight_smile:

Good with rice, egg noodles, crusty bread, etc. Leftovers taste even better and keep for a week in the fridge. I like to freeze some in small margarine tubs to make an easy single-serving meal.

If they have a electric slow cooker instead of a Dutch oven, that would work just fine, too!

29

I posted this in the dead easy recipe thread that’s going on right now, but it’s worth reposting. Sodium might be a concern, though - have your FIL check the label.

Tomato soup

1 can stewed tomatoes, any variety (I used the onion, garlic and herbs one)
Carton of sour cream - the small one is fine, you don’t use the whole thing

Warm up the stewed tomatoes, either in a sauce pan or, even easier, in microwaveable bowls. Stir in a large dollop of sour cream and mix thoroughly. Voila! Cream of tomato soup. Filling with some bread to dip and sop up.

30

Meals on Wheels

Or call their church and ask for people to bring in food that can be frozen and popped into the oven. Surely the old fella can turn the oven on and stick a pan in there?

Or make a bunch of stuff, freeze in portions, and take it over there.

Right before my grandmother died, she gave my grampa a tour of the kitchen and showed him how to make some stuff. The lesson didn’t take and after she died, he could fry himself a hamburger. He could nuke a frozen block o’ dinner. He could warm up leftovers of something my mom made. He never did manage to master making a meal from start to finish, even something simple like spaghetti. My recommendation is to find a group of people or organization or call on family or something, have the food made and delivered, and he can just heat meals up instead of pissing off the regular chef.

31

Small frequent light meals and healthy snacks are good when dealing with nausea. Graham crackers, apple sauce, yogurt, even pudding. I’m a cancer survivor so I’ve been through it. But for the cooking suggestions - eggs and toast; soup; nuke a baked potato; roasts are actually really easy. Another suggestion, my cancer center had a nutritionist on staff for free consult appointments. Oh yeah, liquid supplements are pretty good too, like Slimfast or that other one I can’t remember the name of, check with your dr.

32

One more suggestion, if he doesn’t have an electric rice cooker, get one, they’re cheap and they’re fabulous. Mine has a steamer basket that stacks above the rice pot, great for rice and veg.

33

[hijack]Out of curiosity, what is the purpose of trussing a roasting chicken if you’re not trying to hold something in the cavity? Does it hold the juices in better or something? I rarely truss mine and they always turn out well. What am I missing?[/hijack]

To the OP: do they have a grill and do you trust your FIL to handle it? It might take a couple of tries, but a grill can be a great way to prepare a fast, quick and no-clean/low-clean meal. Grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, grilled veggies, corn wrapped in foil… I’m sure it’d get old to grill every single night, but grilling could be a good option for days when he doesn’t want to deal with cleanup.

34

I think - but am not certain - that the purpose of trussing the chicken is to make sure everything cooks more or less evenly - no underdone breast / leathery drumsticks / charred wingtips, as they’re tucked close to the body of the bird so they’re not surrounded on all sides by hot cooking air.

They do have a George Foreman grill, though I’m pretty sure FIL has no clue how to use it.

35

We are indeed considering such a thing - we need to ask if they think they’d use it. FIL being type 2 diabetic isn’t supposed to eat a lot of that stuff, but he can always fix it for MIL. One can also toss a chicken breast up there to steam while the rice is cooking - I’ve never done this, but it seems like it’d add some nice flavor to the rice below as it drips.

36

Would it be cost prohibitive to hire a cook to come in and show him some simple recipes? Maybe call the tech college and see if any culinary teachers need a few extra bucks?

Or, if you do call the pre-fix and take places, explain the situation and ask for assistance. Many of the pre-fix and take places around here allow you just go and buy rather than prepping/bagging yourself. Maybe they can spare a person to show him what boil means.