Question:
Starting the soft food stage

Hello All! I just had my 2 week post-op follow up (18 pounds gone)and the doc said it was time to start the soft foods. If ya'll have an more ideas other than the normal cottage cheese, yogurts, beans and eggs. Or at least things to do with them I would love to hear about it. I am excited to actually get to have different taste again. Its been over a month since I have had anything other than Boost drinks and crystal light. Well again thank you all. Happy Holidays.    — mother2mykids (posted on December 18, 2008)

December 18, 2008
Congratulations and WELCOME TO A WHOLE NEW WAY OF LIFE. Here's one that was my personal favorite. Take a couple of ounces of lowfat ricotta cheese, one beaten egg, salt, pepper and garlic to taste. Mix it all up and it put in a custard cup sprayed with Pam and bake until set at 350 degrees. Top with a couple of tablespoons pureed low sugar marinara sauce. Tastes like the inside of a ravioli, and is high in protein. Good luck!
   — Shirley D.

December 18, 2008
pimento cheese made with cream cheese,egg salad,ricotta cheese with a little cinn and artifical sugar to taste,tuna or chicken salad.cook a pot of stew with veg take some of the aus juice with meat and veg put in blender or food processor and whirl away.I froze this in an ice cube tray then emptied them into a plastic bag kept in freezer and took out one or two ,microwaved and ate.wow was this tasty and nurishing.good luck
   — Bette Drecktrah

December 18, 2008
CONGRATS and welcome to the losing side. You're doing great. Well one food that was a really good friend to me during the soft food stage was chili (with and w/o beans) and I purchased those dinners you could put in the crock pot--minus the potatoes and would put about a 1/4 cup in a blender and puree it --that was good. You had meat and veggies with gravy --wasn't bad. Happy Holidays to you and your family as well.
   — the7thdean

December 18, 2008
Tofu is a wonderfully VERSATILE soft food that you can use in a number of ways. There is a plethora of recipes to be found from any number of sources including online and at book stores. Tofu is EXTREMELY HIGH in protein and CAN be very low in fat depending on the type that you get. The only downside to using tofu for protein is that you have to blend it with other vegetable sources of protein or with dairy protein to get a complete protein. If you DO use tofu for protein, be sure to eat the tofu with either nuts, (Fried tofu in a Thai peanut sauce is PERFECT), grains (Rice, Barley, Bulgur wheat, whole grain pasta, etc...), or dairy (Milk, Cheese, or eggs). It would be difficult to eat the grains during the soft foods stage, so I would recommend concentrating on the dairy or nut sauces while restricted to soft foods. Once off the soft foods, you could continue to consume the tofu and expand your menu with the grains. A word of warning! Don't expect tofu to bring much FLAVOR to your dish! If you have never cooked with it before, let me warn you of this: It has the LOOK of Milk colored JELLO and the FLAVOR of WATER! The GREAT thing about tofu is that it is VERSATILE! It takes on the flavor of WHATEVER YOU PUT IT IN! It SOAKS UP FLAVOR like a SPONGE! Once you learn the TRICKS of cooking with tofu, you can make it taste like ANYTHING! I have eaten tofu dishes where you would SWEAR that you were eating BEEF by the taste AND the TEXTURE of the tofu that was used. It was all done with the preparation by the cook and NO animal products were used during the preparation of the tofu! It was simply done with the proper marination and preparation of the food. Now this is not to say that I think you should become a Vegetarian. What I am trying to point out is that you CAN make tofu TASTY if you use the proper technique! It just takes a little time and effort. You need to do some RESEARCH and find the right recipes. I hope that this helps. Hugh
   — hubarlow