Easy meals

[Solasum]

My father, who always used to do all the cooking, is now all but bedbound at home. My mother is doing everything for him, and is not much of a cook.

He has a supply of protein yoghurts etc from the hospital, and is eating a lot of fruit, but not much else apart from cheese.

he has said he doesn’t want to eat meat or fish anymore.

I would really like to help them by providing something easy to make at home. He will eat other things if he feels like it. He likes very strongly flavoured foods, curries etc, but the quantity he eats is very small.

I think what I am looking for is toddler-sized portions of ‘proper’ meals.

does anyone have any recommendations?

Wiltshire Farm Foods were a lifesaver when my dad was unable to cook for himself.

Marks do “mini meals” which are smaller portion of ready meals.
ask around on fbook or similar and you may find local “meals on wheels” - there is two companies near us which deliver hot food a few days a week

My dad had Wiltshire Farm Foods once he was on his own too & they were brilliant for what he wanted/needed. Also Cook do some small portions, or my parents used to share a one person Cook meal & add some frozen veg etc

Could a slow cooker help? My elderly dad found it very useful, he has a 1l one and only puts in the amount he wants to eat. It's also helpful as by dinner time he's too tired to cook, so the slow cooker just means serve and eat.

Wiltshire Farm foods do mini meals, they are about the size you would feed a 4 year old and they offer a wide variety including curries.

Are you able to freeze servings of what you cook, to stock their freezer?

Would sharing a ready meal work? Slimming world do excellent meals- all fresh, no weird ingredients, plenty of protein- they could bulk up the nutrition with extras.

Things like ice cream and tinned custard/rice pudding are very good nutritionally for people with a small appetite. Add a banana or some apple purée from the baby food section.

Add vegetables to a tin of Campbell's condensed soup, to make a casserole or chunky soup.

American recipes can be simple- combining ready made ingredients from tins etc.

You can also buy precooked sausages from wholesalers. You just reheat them. They aren't great, but it depends what your mum can do!

What does she like, and what's the level of her cooking? Is the problem that she gets distracted so needs unburnable food, or that she doesn't do food prep, so needs a construct heat and serve type meal?

I would batch cook some veggie curries/chilli and freeze small portions, plus tinned soups for lunches/tinned fruit etc to keep in the cupboard.

Another vote for Wiltshire Farm Foods

My mother is not a confident cook, and as he is eating so little she finds making full meals
which will then get wasted, or having to eat the same things for days v dispiriting.

she doesn’t get on well with freezer stuff unless it is of the ‘put foil dish in oven’ persuasion. Slow cooker would ge a whole new world for them, so I think sadly it is probably too late for that.

I can make portions of things, but am two and a half hours away and can’t go down as often as I wish I could.

will look at mini meals and farm foods etc

many thanks!

I bought meal trays from Amazon in bulk, suitable for freezer microwave and oven, and then froze portions for dad.

Would that help?

COOK sell a box of 10 nutritionally balanced kids meals for £27 or so, free delivery, microwaveable. They really are the closest thing to home cooked meals on sale. Recommend.

My 92 year old mother is another fan of Wiltshire Farm meals - I had no idea they were so popular!

Can you look at supermarket curry side dishes? Much smaller (and cheaper) than a curry main dish so less waste/less meals to spin them out over, and they’re usually vegetarian. A lazy lunch here is occasionally supermarket Dahl.

Also eggs. If he’s not eating much meat or fish then eggs are a good source of protein and iron. Would your mum scramble an egg?

Thanks so much for all the ideas. She would very happily cook eggs, but he wont eat them sadly.

have done an order of various ready/preprepared meals for them to try. He won’t eat ‘tasteless mush’ even though all the food has to be pretty soft, so not sure how they will go down

Dahl is one of the things he is enjoying @Dammitthisisshit Will take a look at other side dishes

was wondering about asking a local to them curry place to produce tiny portions of various sauces that he could then have with rice