Batch cooking ideas please - high calorie

[SnippySnappy]

Hi all, my PIL are going through a rough period with their health.

MIL is a keen cook but is not well enough to do this very much any more. FIL rarely cooks. They each have small appetites and prefer mostly traditional British food.
They are currently relying on frozen ready meals, which IMO aren't giving them sufficient calories. They both have Fortisips prescribed, but they're struggling with them too.

I love a bit of batch cooking and would like to prepare some meals for them to freeze/chill so they can consume at their leisure.

However I'm having a bit of a mind block at what I can batch cook for them that meets the brief of:

a) traditional (ish)
b) as high calorie as possible, within reason
c) fairly easily transported

Think I am just feeling a bit overwhelmed with the situation (lots of hospital visits, stress etc) - I would really appreciate any pointers on nice meals to batch cook for them.

Thank you Mumsnet!

If they haven’t been well then it might be a good idea to look at reconditioning techniques - you lose huge amounts of muscle when activities of daily living are compromised

Don’t forget hydration - as long as they don’t have swallowing difficulties, Jelly Drops are brilliant

Get some full fat milk powder. Nestle Nido is available at Tesco. Put it in everything puddings, savoury dishes, tea, coffee etc. It's a good way of getting calories in without impacting taste too much.

Shepherds pie, savoury mince with cobbler top ( basically scone topping), chicken pie ( made with just ready made pastry ), stew or braising steak. You can use higher fat mince or add butter to increase the calorie content. Serve with mash potato with plenty of butter or cream.
Use foil containers with lids so they can be heated in the oven or air fryer. Write clear cooking instructions or reheating instructions.

I also keep an eye out for Charlie Bingham meals on special offer and make sure she has stock in the freezer. Someone has to come in and cook for MiL so they are usually a handy all-in-one meal

Fish pie? Can add cream to the sauce, and extra cream / butter to mash as a topping.
Quiche? Pastry can be calorific, and d if make something like cheese and onion, cheddar and broccoli, then cheese has a lot of fat.
Anything pastry based - mains or puddings.
Cottage or shepherds pie.
Stew with dumplings (made with suet).
Rice pudding with cream added, crumbles, pies with custard. Sponge can be frozen if needed.

This thread is making me hungry.

Fish pie - make the white sauce with gold top milk and add cream, add boiled eggs under the mash, and make the mash with butter, cream and top with cheese. Easy to eat too.
Cheese and potato pie or the sort of flan which we would call quiche now (pastry shell, savoury custard filling with cheese) that was def a favourite of my grandparents.
Toad in the hole (the Aunt Bessies frozen ones are so easy to chuck in the oven from frozen tbh) with cheesy mash (can be frozen and microwaved)

Have a look at Wiltshire Farm foods - they have a high calorie mini meal section www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com/ready-meals/mini-meals-extra which has 500 cals in 300g of food and would let you get ideas of things they like. My dad did prefer M&S ready meals or the Charlie Bingham ones (he was a pretty good eater), but particularly enjoyed the Wiltshire puddings esp the ones with custard. They were so easy to pull out of the freezer it upped mums intake as dad was much more likely to heat up something ready to go and serve straightaway

My sister made keto fat bombs for her husband when he lost a lot of weight through illness, and was having trouble with his appetite. They are tiny, but packed with calories. A quick google will turn up loads of recipes, and your parents can just nibble on them for snacks. It’s not a nice sounding name, but they really helped my BIL.

Beef casserole
chicken casserole
Irish stew
sausage casserole
Bolognese
lasagne
lentil soup

these all freeze well and can have plenty of protein and fat added to them.

Also my scrambled eggs. Mix up the eggs with butter and cream. Whisk them up. Put butter in a pan to melt, pour the mixture in, might add a bit more butter at this stage.

Then on buttered toast.

I think it’s worth asking them what they fancy and just adding a bit of extra oil/butter/cream to it if you can - we all eat more of things we like.

I would also take a small loaf tin cake round. If they aren’t eating a lot at meals they might have a piece with coffee especially if it’s home made and they don want to waste it.

Dumplings are good to add to stews and casseroles

If they are struggling with nausea then they might benefit from a constant supply of ginger nuts and crackers?

Wiltshire farm foods might be worth looking at as a standby.

Sausage casseroles
Shepherd's/cottage pie
Pasta bakes with cheesy sauces
Stews with dumplings
Cornbeef hash

They all freeze well.

My dear gran didn't have a very big appetite but did enjoy a proper cream cake. We used to keep a supply of things like chocolate éclairs, cream slices etc in the freezer. They defrosted very well and were a high calorie food on the days she didn't fancy eating much else.

I had no idea those dessert ideas could freeze! Thanks!

Thanks again everyone. Amazing ideas.

I work in a care home dementia unit and we use fortified food and drinks.
Its basically milk powder which is used in mashed potato, porridge, smoothies, yoghurt, custard, puddings etc.
Each tablespoon adds about 40 calories, I work with the dieticians and they say you can add 2 tblsp to each serving of the above and it obviously bumps up their calorie intake without changing the foods taste.

Iceland have a discount for over-60s on Tuesdays too.

Creamy chicken, bacon and leek in a cheesy, creamy roux sauce with buttery creamy mash

Fish and leek pie in a cheesy, creamy roux sauce with buttery, creamy mash

I also think - if they are anything like my mother - that they were brought up eating three meals a day and not snacking. All sorts of messages about how food is good/bad and how certain foods are "naughty". Even though my mother is 80 and eats like a bird, she is deeply entrenched in that thinking. When she was in hospital recently she lost her already limited appetite completely. The doctor suggested eating little and often rather than having breakfast, lunch and dinner. The way she looked at the poor man you'd think he had two heads.

If your parents are less set in their ways than my mother, an alternative approach would be offering smaller meals more regularly. Lots of grazing and snacks.

And for high calorie snacks I don't just mean chocolate and crisps - things like a handful of nuts, one of those thick and creamy yoghurts, a couple of oatcakes with cheese/pate, a Babybel cheese, one of those pastry cheese twist things etc.

Cottage pie with loads of full fat cheese on top and butter in the mash

cauliflower cheese with bacon bits

chicken supreme

Just bear in mind that anything with pastry or suet will likely be indigestible for them.

Personally I would go back to the GP and ask for a referral to a dietician plus physio for building muscle.

Pies: chicken and leek, steak and mushroom. Cornish pasties, mash with loads of butter. If they eat pasta, then lasagne.