I have begun to add recipes to the Soft Food Recipes category as perhaps an aid or idea generator for those of us who prepare meals for those who require soft food diets.
Many are family recipes I have adjusted or tweaked to be high calorie dishes. I use the term ‘family recipes’ loosely as in recipes we have been cooking for years versus unique family recipes.
Please keep in mind one of our main goals was to stuff as many calories as we could in a dish; obviously that may not be your goal. Alternatively the soft food recipes can also easily be made with lower calorie substitutions.
In our particular case, I was searching for soft food recipes which were high in calories and could be adjusted to the consistency required. Consistency as we know is key when constructing a soft food dish; it varies per individual in accordance with the medical conditions behind the requirement for a soft food diet. And then there are the taste preferences per the individual to consider. I cooked for my father who had the traditional “meat and potatoes” type preferences along with a voracious sweet tooth.
Through the course of his illness the consistency, thickness or thiness of the soft foods changed and the recipes were tweaked accordingly. It really depended upon the recipe as to how the recipe could be tweaked; thickener and thinner powders were utilized for a few recipes, but some recipes could just be tweaked by the pureeing to obtain the desired consistency.
I use the term tweak repeatedly because adjusting recipes is definitely a trial and error process. Ultimately the goal was to find a few winner recipes which could also be frozen assembly line style into one meal portions to be cut down on the food preparation time and always have meals ready. In upcoming posts I will share a few of my tips, tricks, trials and errors as I navigated through the soft food journey. I found a few winners and will share my stay away, not worth the trouble recipes as well!
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