Soup Diary and Meal Planning
by Mary Ecsedy
January 10, 2019-to-present
"Only the pure of heart can make good soup" - Beethoven
A Post Surgery Diet
There is a lot of information available online about the dietary needs for cancer patients and heart patients, etc., but I could find very little advice for people who are recovering from dental work and can't chew, who need to restore bone health after infection, while taking a long-term course of antibiotics. I've been keeping a record of my husband's post surgery recovery from bone infection in his jaw in early January, including diet. Don is on a liquid and soft food diet, and is living mostly on bone broth. Here are my notes in case the information can help anyone else facing the same or similar challenges.
I've described my overall strategy and what we're doing for breakfast and lunch and midnight snacks in a previous article, Soup, with Love. This is a daily record of dinners, which are more of a challenge.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Released from UPMC late afternoon. Chicken and dumplings.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Cream of cabbage and beef soup. I started by simmering shredded cabbage and thinly sliced onions in butter (as for Halushki noodles), then added the mix to beef broth with bone marrow.
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Creamed beef stew. I made another batch of beef broth, and pureed the veggetables and the beef and added back to the broth. I didn't care much for the texture of pureed meat, but the flavor was really good.
Saturday Cooking
- Baked bread
- Creamed beef stew
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Cream of Broccoli soup. We usually have this with gnocci, but those require too much chewing, so we had buttered toast croutons instead. It was tasty but not quite the same.
Sunday Cooking
- Cabbage and onions mix: Shredded 1/2 head of cabbage, and 3-4 large yellow onions sliced thin, simmered together with about 1/2 stick of butter for about 1-1/2 hours, until everything was completely soft. This is the way I make cabbage and onions for halushki noodles, but instead of having it with egg noogles, Don has started adding a large spoonful of the mix to his lunch and snack oriental noodle soups to counterbalance the antibiotics.
- Beef and chicken broth
- Sesame noodle sauce
Monday, January 14, 2019
Chicken and dumplings.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Roasted pork ribs and sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Sauerkraut is not my favorite thing but Don really enjoyed it.
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Leftover creamed beef stew.
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Saw the oral surgeon today, and we were told to continue the liquid/soft diet; they are concerned about pathological fracture of the jaw from bone damage. Yoi.
Mom's meatball stew: meatballs cooked in chicken broth, with carrots, celery, onions, and a can of stewed tomatoes, with salt, pepper and a bay leaf. I like to serve it over cooked, diced potatoes instead of cooking the potatoes in the soup directly. This is one of the most restorative meals I know.
Desert: Vanilla pudding with crushed Nilla Wafers.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Lunch: Something different for a change from the sesame sauce - peanut sauce. Very tasty!
Very mild green chili with chicken served over polenta. Also very tasty.
Unfortunately, it was too more culinary adventure than Don could handle, and he was very sick all night. So we won't be doing that again for awhile. The diet he's been eating has agreed with him up until now, and we've decided to be very conservative for the remainder of the antibiotic treatment, which should be done on February 21st.
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Don's topsy-turvy tum-tum settled down today. Chamomile tea has been really helpful throughout this entire ordeal and we're running low on our supply of home grown chamomile.
Don had leftover creamed beaf stew, and I have leftover meatball stew. Very good!
Monday, January 21, 2019
Cream of cauliflower soup. Delicious, but Don is still recovering from Saturday and for some reason this upset his digestion again.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Left over meatball stew with homemade bread.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Roasted chicken, ground, with mashed potatoes and gravy, and buttered peas.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Roasted beef rib meat, ground, and served in the roast broth with carrots and onions, over homemade bread toasted lightly, like open-face pot roast sandwiches. Creamed spinach. The spinach was great! I like to use fresh baby Organic spinach from the salad section case in the produce area of the grocery store, which is a million times better than frozen spinach. I bring a big pot of water up to a boil, add the spinach, and simmer for about 3 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking, squeeze out the water, and chop. I save the last squeezings and add to whatever broth is on the stove next. I made a quick roux out of butter and flour, added a little half and half, and seasoned with garlic powder and parmessan cheese, then added the spinach with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. Delicious!
The spinach really agreed with Don's digestion, and I'm adding it to the rotation. The Japanese Ramen restaurant in Squirrel Hill has a noodle soup we really like called Tan Tan Men, which has spinach in it. Next time I make spinach I'll make extra and save some for Don in a container with all of his other soup fixin's.
Friday, January 25, 2019
Happy Birthday Don! I made a wonderful French Onion soup to celebrate his birthday (using Julia Child's recipe in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"), starting with roasted beef ribs and oxtail bones first thing in the morning. Delicious! It was not much of a birthday celebration; we had no cake or presents, but somehow that didn't seem to matter a whole lot next to what we've just been through...
Saturday, January 26, 2019
We're really going through a lot of soup stock! I cooked all weekend long so I wouldn't have to do it during the work week.
Tonight we had leftover beef stew and steamed White Castles (Giant Eagle sells them frozen) for a treat! Don was able to dip his into his soup.
Saturday Cooking
- Chicken stock
- Roasted a rack of baby back pork ribs
- Made a pot of Anasazi Beans (from Adobe Mills in Dove Creek Colorado, near Cortez) with a bone-in ham steak - delicious! Anasazi beans are similar to pinto beans; I think the beams were originally found in ancient cliff dwellings. At any rate they're very good. I bought a 10lb bag in Moab last summer, and it was fun to see the fine red silt washing off the beans/
- Baked a pan of potatoes. They're easy to grate and then fry, and I thought I could serve them with broth or gravy or whatever
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Leftover French onion soup.
Sunday Cooking
- Fried and ground the week's breakfast bacon. My parents sent us some wonderful bacon from the Bavarian Smoke Haus in New Melle, Missouri, for Christmas. Don couldn't eat any of it until I figured out how to cook it for a long time and then grind it up so he could add it to his cream of wheat.
- Processed the chicken stock and meat from yesterday
- Baked bread
- Processed the roast pork rib meat and broth from yesterday
- Beef stock
- Applesauce spice cake, to use up the leftover homemade apple sauce I made that was very good but not good enough to eat every day
- Cabbage and onions in butter
Monday, January 28, 2019
Roast pork rib meat, shredded and served with pan drippings over hash browns, with brussel sprouts simmered in a little broth and butter.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Enchilada Skillets. Heat the oven to 375f. In 8-inch cast iron frying pans (we each get our own), add a layer of crushed tortilla chips that have been toasted lightly in the toaster oven. Cover with a layer of Anasazi beans, and add minced onions, ground roasted rib meat, and top with grate cheddar cheese mix. Bake about 15 minutes until hot and bubbly. Yum! this is an incredibly versatile technique I discovered on The Pioneer Woman's website, in a recipe called Queso Fundido. Don still can't have much spicy food, but I kept this plain and he was able to add a little salsa to it.
Wednesday, January 31, 2019
Roast oxtail beef, ground, browned in melted bone marrow, served in pan dripping gravy over hash browns, with buttered peas. Rich and tasty!
I also purered the beef broth and veggetables from the weekend, and ground up all of the oxtail beef. There's lots of gelatin in oxtail to help Don's jaw to heal.
Thursday, February 1, 2019
Roast chicken, with gravy and my grandmother's stuffing recipe. Yum!
Friday, February 2, 2019
Enchilada Skillets.
Saturday, February 3, 2019
BBQ beef short ribs. I roasted the ribs at 450 for about 40 minutes, turning to brown evenly. Then added water to the pan up to the bones, covered, and cooked in a 350 degree oven for a couple of hours, until the meat was falling off the bones. Removed from the bones, shredded it finely, and simmered it in BBQ sauce for a long time. Served with leftover stuffing, and the roasted onions and carrots.
Sunday, February 4, 2019
Meatball stew.
Sunday Cooking
- Roasted more beef, then transferred to stock pot with all the pan drippings, carrots and onions, and added celery, more water, and simmered all day.
Monday, February 4, 2019
Beef soup with carmelized onions.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Roast pork rib meat simmered in pan dripping gravy, with left over stuffing and creamed spinach.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Left-over meatball stew
Wednesday Cooking
- Chicken broth with left-over roasted chicken.
- Roasted a rack of pork ribs with carrots and onions at 475 degrees for about 40 minutes, then added water and covered and turned the oven down to 350, and cooked them down for a couple of hours. Separated out the broth for soup, and I'll take the meat off the bones later and Don can add it to his lunch noodle soups.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
Tonight I tried to replicate the flavor of Swiss Steak. I simmered some ground roasted beef in beef broth, and added stewed tomatoes, onions, garlic, some small pieces of green pepper, and a bay leaf. When it was done, I broke some Chinese noodles into it. I thought it was ok, but Don really liked it a lot, and said it was a nice break.
Friday, February 8, 2019
Dinner: Chicken and cabbage soup. (Inspired by Iron Chef Chinese, Chen Kenichi, in the Cabbage battle.) First I put 1/2 a head of cabbage into a pot of cold water, and brought it slowly up to simmer. Then I turned it off and covered the pot. Meanwhile, I cut up a raw chicken and placed it into the bottom of a large pot. Then I cut up the parboiled cabbage into about four pieces, and laid them on top of the chicken. Then I poured into the pot a couple of quarts of boiling chicken broth I'd made on Wednesday. Covered and simmered on low heat for a couple of hours, until the cabbage was transluscent and very tender. It was one of the most delicious soups I've ever made in my life! It was simplicity itself, but with great depth.
Friday Cooking
- Cabbage and onions
- Made another batch of the sesame noodle flavoring for lunch soups
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Dinner: Pot roast. Wow! Probably the tastiest thing I've made so far.
Pot Roast
Roasted some beef short ribs in the square, shallow Corningware dish, with a couple of onions and a few carrots. Salt, pepper, garlic powder. Roasted at 450f. for about 40 minutes. Started with rib-side up, and turned over once they browned. Turned the oven down to 350f. Added enough water (boiled) to submerge the rib bones, leaving the meat on top above the liquid. Also added the juice of 1/2 lemon. Covered and roasted about 3 hours, until the meat was falling-off-the-bones tender. I had to add more water a couple of times, but that was it. When it was done, I turned the ribs back over so the meat was in the broth. After it cooled, I poured off the broth and carrots and onions into a medium saucepan on the top of the stove, and put on a low simmer. I took the meat off the bones and minced it up instead of grinding it up, and added it back to the broth. I served it over mashed potatoes, with creamed spinach on the side, and buttered home made bread.
Saturday Cooking
- Baked bread
- Processed the roasted pork rib meat broth - Strained out the broth and saved it for ramen. Removed the meat from the bones and minced it fine so Don can add it to his ramen noodle soups.
- Roast and soak - Roast and then add water, cover, and bake a long time - beef ribs for pot roast
- Roast and soak - beef shanks, oxtails, marrow bones, and joints for a pot of broth. Simmered the broth in the crock pot. That worked better than trying to simmer it long-term on the stove, which has an uneven heat.
- Spinach: cooked a whole container of fresh baby spinach leaves. Chopped small. Used half for dinner, and saved the other half in a container for the weeks' ramen soup lunches and midnight snacks.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Dinner: Left-over pot roast, with mashed potatoes and carmelized brussel sprouts.
Sunday Cooking
- Fried the week's breakfast bacon
- Processed the oxtail beef and broth I made in the crock pot, which worked out great!
Monday, February 11, 2019
Don had noodle soup, and I had chili mac.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Anasazi bean soup. Started by simmering a diced onion, a couple of carrots, and a couple of celery stalks with butter and olive oil. Then added a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, a ham steak cut into pieces, and 3 cups of rinsed Anasazi beans. Covered with chicken stock, and simmered all afternoon. Served with toasted, crushed tortilla chips, grated cheddar cheese, and a dollop of sour cream on top. Yum!
Results
Don got through the two months of antibiotics without any major dietary distress, thanks to the daily cabbage. We continued the broth-based diet for several more months. Six months after surgery, xrays showed that Don had made a full recovery; the damaged bone was all healed in, and the surgeon was astonished.