Food for people 97 years apart...

[ButterPie]

OK, so from now on I will be helping look after my grandparents for one week a month or thereabouts. I also have a 4mo and a 3yo.

Grandparents tend to live off frozen shepherds pie, soggy mixed veg and the like, but I and the DDs need to eat with them while I am here so we would like a little more variety and to keep the salt levels down for the kids. I will cook, but what can I make that is healthy, tastes nice and is very very traditional (ie pasta, garlic, herbs, etc are seen as very exotic and not their kind of thing.) We will be there for lunch each day.

I am also thinking of making a load of frozen meals for them or the carers to reheat...any ideas?

Oh, and stuff can't be too chewy.

Sounds like cooking for my mum.

Casseroles are good. Plus not too much work, and you can make extra big ones and then freeze the excess for them.

Chicken & mushroom
Beef in beer or red wine
pork & beans
Turkey & tomato
Goulash

Lots of onions, stock and whatever veggies you have, carrots, peppers, swede... And you can serve them with rice or mash or jacket potatoes.

When DH's nan used to come down to stay, roasts were always popular. It's a bit mean but I used to find that I could get away with being a little more daring if I just didn't tell her! Eg Nigella's Coca Cola ham and a slightly spiced butternut were going down well until DH revealed that they had some more exotic ingredients in them. Sounds a bit nasty, but it meant I could jazz up our dinners for everyone else and (unless DH pointed it out) she never noticed and ate everything happily.

My MIL is 91 with dodgy teeth and fish in almost any form tends to be a good bet.

Salad is a total no-no, can't be chewed.

She manages roast dinners so long as the meat is tender.

Roasts are good to cover all ages. We often do a less fancy roast midweek - so roast a chicken but serve with boiled potatoes or boulangere potatoes (layer sliced potatoes and chopped onions in stock, bake in oven with chicken for about an hour) and different steamed veg rather than having to roast potatoes etc. Leftover chicken is then nice in sandwiches or with salad, and you can maybe create a more interesting, spicier salad dressing for you to put over the top. This potato/steamed veg combo also works nicely with a bit of nice salmon.

Shepherds pie, cottage pie - you can add extra veg to them (e.g carrot, swede, celery) and maybe add a few chopped leeks and cheddar on top of the mash to make it slightly different each time and make it as healthy as possible

Fish pie - to basic fish, cheese sauce, mash combo, add herbs (e.g. dill) and veggies (I throw in some frozen spinach and a tin of sweetcorn) and vary the fish (e.g. mix of cod, smoked haddock and salmon is nice, or throw in some prawns)

Casseroles are great - easy to cook in advance and reheat (in fact beef casseroles usually taste better reheated than first time round and freeze well!) and you can try all sorts of veg or herbs or tins of butter beans etc. to ring the changes. A bottle of beer makes a delicious gravy for beef, or cider in a sausage casserole. Dumplings are a nice alternative to mash, and you can add chives or thyme to make them tasty for you.

Look at deliaonline.com for ideas or get hold of her complete cookery collection

And kudos to you for having two small children and taking on looking after your gps 1 week per month - you're clearly a very special person

Oh and all sorts of variety of soup with a nice bit of bread goes down well with older people I've found. There are endless types of healthy soup you can make, and they freeze brilliantly.

DH cooks & freezes meals for MIL & SFIL:
cottage pie
shepherds pie
fish pie
beef or chicken casserole
meatballs in tomato sauce

Cottage pie (home made not too salty)
Chicken in white sauce (serve with mash and peas)
Fish in butter sauce
Mild curry with vegetable rice (no furrin veg, don't look shocked, this goes down a treat in old people's homes)
Try macaroni cheese with some bacon in (also goes down well)
Beef 'rissoles' (burgers to you and I) done in gravy
Faggots
Toad in the hole

basically, serve a LOT of mashed potato and remember, crispy veg might be fashioable but they probably won't thank you for it.

I have 2x 98 yro Grandparents and feed them as above but most important part of the meal for them is pudding so Jelly, trifle, tinned fruit, cheesecake etc was always served
Also Jelly is good for fluid intake
Good luck it is a wonderful thing to do and will give your DC lovely memories